Nagy

The Culture of Appalachia Service Project Summer Staff

Appalachia Service Project (ASP) is a non-profit home repair ministry operating

throughout Central Appalachia. The organization’s summer program is run by a group of 130

employees ages 18-24 years old who manage county operations, including overseeing all

construction projects and volunteers. This group of summer staffers works in a very unique

environment, which can be studied in terms of the organizational communication culture theory.

Culture theory focuses on the sense-making processes within an organization, looking at

concepts such as stories, metaphors, symbols, dress, language, rituals and acts that constitute the

Geertzian “webs of significance” that define a culture (Mumby 133-153). This culture theory

can be applied to ASP’s group of summer staffers to explain how they make sense of their

experience with the organization, how they identify themselves within a unique group, and how

the organization utilizes the pragmatist approach to manufacture a culture for staffers to

experience and participate in.

The cultural theory of organizational communication focuses a lot on the communicative

structures that create meaning within a group of people. There is a strong focus on individual

employees, including a strong focus on how each employee is contributing to the formation of

that organization’s culture. The organization communicates these ideological values to their

employees, and the organization then trusts their employees to work and act within these values

to demonstrate these ideologies to outsiders. Clifford Geertz said that, “man is an animal

suspended in webs of significance that he himself has spun” (Mumby 136). The cultural

approach is the process of understanding the ways in which one is involved in spinning these

webs, the way one contributes to the development and sustaining of the webs, and the way one

1

Nagy

makes sense of reality through the system of the web. Geertz sees organizations as being

completely made up of these systems of meaning and how these systems are applied, understood,

interacted with, and seen from the outside. One of Geertz’s main concepts is the idea of “thick

description” as a way of understanding these communicative processes (Mumby 136). Thick

description is the detailed definition of cultural phenomena within its context that looks at the

broader origins, usage, and implications of the concept. A common example of thick

description can be seen in a definition of a wink as a person touching their top eyelid to their

bottom eyelid in a swift manner. This simple definition does not distinguish between a blink, a

reflex, a subtle wink, or an over-exaggerated wink. Thick description takes into consideration

the vastly different meanings of these terms when you consider the context in which they

happen. Thick description is taking that basic definition and exploring the cultural implications

surrounding the action, where and how it happened, the peoples involved in the action, and what

the individual was hoping to accomplish with the action. In terms of the cultural approach, this

thick description is important because it is the context that gives an organization’s actions their

meaning and why they should be seen as significant. Some of the main actions that the cultural

approach focuses on include relevant constructs, facts, practices, vocabulary, metaphors, and

rites and rituals. These commonplaces are unique to many organizations, and how they are

described, interpreted, and participated in is what creates the culture of that organization and

what sets it apart from other organizations.

Another important distinction regarding culture theory is the distinction between the

pragmatist approach versus the purist approach. Organizations operating within the pragmatist

approach believe that culture is an organizational element that can be created and managed.

Pragmatists see culture as a variable within the context of an organization that can be applied

2

Nagy

when needed. This approach focuses strongly on creating one overarching culture that the entire

organization participates in, and entrusts employees to commit to the shared values of the

organization. Pragmatists have on unifying identity for members of the organization to

participate in and connect with (Mumby 137-139). On the other hand, the purist approach

focuses on the idea of organizations as culture. This is also known as the “root metaphor” and

something that an organization inherently is rather than something that can apply to their

organizing processes. Purists have a strong focus on the sense-making processes of culture

theory and the actions and communicative symbols of an organization’s culture. The purist

approach also sees organizations as having multiple subcultures that often have conflicting social

realities (Mumby 140-141). These two approaches to the culture theory of organizational

communication can be applied to various organizations to understand how they function and how

they demonstrate their unique culture.

Applying culture theory to Appalachia Service Project’s summer staff demonstrates how

an organization’s different communicative systems are able to create cultures that individuals

participate in. ASP is a non-profit, home repair ministry based out of Johnson City, Tennessee.

ASP provides major construction services to individuals living in substandard housing

throughout Central Appalachia that is free to the homeowner, performed by primarily high-

school-aged youth volunteers and adult group leaders, and is managed and planned by a college-

aged staff. ASP has grown tremendously since its establishment in 1969, and in the summer of

2015 ASP worked in 30 different counties throughout North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia,

Tennessee, and Kentucky, completing over 3,000 projects, on 481 homes, with 13,779

volunteers. The scale of ASP is ever growing, which is why an understood culture is helpful in

maintaining ideological consistency for the organization. A staff of 4 people runs each county,

3

Nagy

which consists of a Center Director, Volunteer Coordinator, Operations Coordinator, and

Finance Coordinator. These 4 staff members are responsible for maintaining quality

construction projects, creating and sustaining a positive presence in the community, coordinating

all facility upkeep and volunteer conditions, and creating a positive experience for our volunteers

and our homeowners. Summer staffers are put under a great deal of pressure, and the ways they

each deal with this pressure are very unique to this job. Appalachia Service Project’s large goal

is to eradicate substandard housing in Central Appalachia by making homes warmer, safer and

drier, and to create transformative experiences for all of those who come in contact with the

ministry.

Appalachia Service Project demonstrates the concepts of culture theory through the

pragmatist approach and through the creation and use of sense-making processes for those

connected to the culture. Some of these processes include relevant constructs, facts, practices,

vocabulary, and rites and rituals. We are united over the crazy clothes we wear, the songs we

learn, the foods we eat, the drinks we drink, the vehicles we drive, the games we play, the work

we do, the stories we tell, and the passions we share, all of which combine to create the culture

we all know and love. The summer staff is trained in all together for two weeks at the beginning

of every summer before they are dispersed to their separate counties. In this time when all 130

employees are in one location, they are taught the ideological beliefs of the organization, and

taught how to practice them in day-to-day activities. Some of these ideological beliefs include

patience, acceptance, attention to detail, creativity, compassion, enthusiasm, and hard work. It is

during this two-week period that the summer staff is creating and developing the structures of

meaning they will use throughout their employment. Many of these practices are passed down

from year to year by returning staff members, but a few are unique to each particular summer.

4

Nagy

Relevant constructs are the events and processes that employees engage in every day as

a part of routine function; the terms that are assigned to these different tasks are responsible for

normalizing them into routine (Mumby 145). Different staffs across all of ASP’s counties follow

the same basic timeline for their day. Some of the tasks on their schedule include going to the

hardware store, waking the volunteers, the workday, lunch, shower time, dinner, evening

gathering, lights out, and staff meeting. To focus in on just one of these relevant constructs, the

concept can be seen in the act of the nightly staff meeting. These meetings are designed for the 4

member staff to regroup after a long day, debrief what was accomplished throughout that day,

and to plan for the next day. These meetings occur every night, and while often tedious, they can

have aspects of laughter and silliness. These meetings construct a culture of ASP staff that

separates their day from the day of a volunteer.

Facts are the “social knowledge,” or shared understanding, that help members of an

organization understand what holds meaning in the group (Mumby145-146). One fact that all

ASP staffers inherently understand is the idea that Copperhead snakes are more likely to live in a

pile of construction waste the longer that waste pile is sitting outdoors. This knowledge is

passed along through word of mouth and stories throughout the years of staff experience, even

though it is unlikely to happen. This fact shows the staff’s intense business because tasks like

removing waste often gets pushed back, the general fear of snakes as a motivating force, and the

understanding of the environmental factors of working in Central Appalachia.

Practices are the acts of organizing within daily life that ensure organizational goals are

met. These practices are the routine features of an organization that help it respond to events by

using agreed upon sense-making practices (Mumby 146). A practice seen in ASP summer staff

is the process of loading the volunteers’ vans in the mornings with tools and supplies for their

5

Nagy

workday. This process requires finding different materials, making sure the right supplies are

going into the correct vehicles, and solving a wide array of logistical problems as they inevitably

arise. Once a vehicle has been loaded, volunteers must check out with one of the staffers to

confirm that they have all of their materials and to relay any additional information that the staff

needs to know, including deliveries and additional purchases that must to be made. The practice

of speaking with every volunteer group helps to communicate information between the

volunteers and the staff to increase productivity and efficiency throughout the workday.

Vocabulary is understood to be a tremendous signifying feature of an organization, as it

is easily identifiable and it ostracizes those who fail to communicate in the correct way (Mumby

146). ASP staffers use many unique terms, such as “schedulemizer,” “garannimals,” “border

patrol,” “staff picks,” “the Breaks,” and “runs” to identify unique aspects of a staffer’s work or a

way in which they discuss their personal life that is only used by staffers. Another way ASP’s

vocabulary is exclusive is through acronyms, such as “CD” for center director, “CC” for

construction consultant, “PM” for program manager, “EG” for evening gathering, “IHV” for

initial home visit, “GL” for an adult group leader, and a great deal of others. This language

expedites communication and is a staff’s shorthand when discussing these topics that would be

completely unintelligible to an outsider.

The last sense-making process of culture theory that we see in ASP summer staff is the

rites and rituals that members participate in to create a sense of consistency and order. These

rituals show that culture eventually falls into a routine social reality that members can participate

in to show their belonging in the group (Mumby 149). In ASP staffs this is seen nearing the end

of the day when each staffer shares his or her “happy and crappy” from the day. This ritual

happens at the beginning of every staff meeting, with the intention of clearing the air before the

6

Nagy

staff must focus; it eliminates distracting tangents from coming up during the meeting and lets

each staffer speak freely about their day for a few minutes. Each time this is shared, staffers are

being integrated further into the ASP culture by using the sense-making processes previously

discussed to understand their day and to relay that information in a formal manner.

Finally, it is important to note that the ASP summer staff culture follows the pragmatist

approach of culture theory. The culture of ASP has been created by the administrative staff and

past staffers, and has been passed down to each new group of staffers. These cultural techniques

are learned and applied to each situation, and not inherently present. ASP culture is very social

atmosphere in which one participates to feel as though he or she belongs to the group. It is also

clear that this is a pragmatist approach because there is one overarching culture that everyone

participates in, rather than multiple competing subcultures, which results in a unifying and

applicable set of ideologies that all staffers implement into every aspect of their work.

It is clear to see how culture theory can be applied to ASP summer staff due to its focus

on creating webs of significance and a wide array of sense-making processes. This culture

provides the framework for how a staffer understands his or her summer working for the

organization and how the staffer understands his or her role in the organization. ASP provides

life-changing work experiences for its summer staff and this is due to the culture it has created

for individuals to participate in and belong to.

7

Nagy

Works Cited

Mumby, Dennis K. "Communication, Culture, and Organizing." Organizational

Communication: A Critical Approach. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2013. 133-53. Print.

8