Theories of Organizational Culture

Abstract

The notion that organizations may have specific cultures is found sprinkled in a vast array of publications on strategy and business policy, on organizational behaviour and theory. Although the absence of a solid theoretical grounding for the concept of organizational culture has been frequently lamented, little effort has been exerted to bring within the perimeter of the management and organizational field the relevant concepts found in cultural anthropology. The purpose of this paper is therefore three-fold: First, to provide a typology of schools of thought in cultural anthropology in order to understand the diverse and complex theories of culture advanced in this field; Second, to relate these different points of view to the emerging notions of organiza tional culture found explicitly or implicitly in the management and organization literature; Third, to pull together the insights and findings derived from this enquiry in order to propose an integrative concept of organizational culture as a useful metaphor for studying the processes of decay, adaptation and radical change in complex organizations.