Question

Reality and Truth in Cultural Analysis

Explain the role that reality and truth play in cultural analysis. Discuss shared assumptions about reality and truth. Discuss the levels of reality. If you performed a cultural analysis of an organization for the leadership of that organization, would you want to supply them with data, information, or knowledge? Explain the differences among data, information, and knowledge.

Answer 1

Organizations, groups and societies to live together, need to agree with assumptions, as to what constitutes their internal integration and external adaptation. I.e. they need to establish, what is real and how truth or fallacy will be determined in a given situation.

These assumptions guide the group members on how to determine what are the relevant information and how that information should be interpreted, when it should be acted upon, and what actions should be taken.

Levels of reality:

• External physical reality: here at this level things can be argued upon and reality is established empirically, objectively.
• Social reality: this level refers to the things members of the group/organization regards as a matter of achieving consensus to ascertain reality. These matters cannot be tested empirically and externally.
• Individual reality: this is the extent to which a said person learns from his/her personal experience, and thus constitutes as the absolute truth for that person.

Information, data and knowledge:

How a given group tests for reality and comes at their decisions also needs their consensus on what stands as data, information and knowledge for them. In general, data includes facts about a given situation. Information on the other hand, provides context to the data, through proper management and analysis of data. Knowledge is what develops overtime based on the information a person uses. It is basically the awareness and understanding a person develops about a certain domain.

When servings as the leadership of an organization; I would like to supply them with knowledge.