Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The essence of tradition is sequential pattern, a sequence of related meanings that are received and transmitted over time. The meanings can be related by association to common themes, in the contiguity of presentation and transmission, or in descent from a common origin ( Shils 1981 ). For example, pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson has maintained a company “credo” since the 1930s. The credo has been changed multiple times during this period, but similar themes, the style of education and communication, and the connection to its origin have remained. Thus, Johnson & Johnson has a business philosophy tradition. This tradition can be seen in the way managers thought about and reacted to the Tylenol crisis in the early 1980s. Tradition is anything but unitary or static. Indeed, its form and content are continuously changing. Tradition represents an accumulation of experience that is continuously updated or corrected as new experience challenges accepted beliefs or practices. For example, in 1975 James Burke, then a senior executive at Johnson & Johnson, held a series of “challenge meetings” to reinvigorate the credo and bring it into line with current business and social realities. These meetings brought out the fact that the credo was seen differently by different people. Tradition, in organizations as in societies, is a complex and diversified object, for many ... log in or subscribe to read full text