Despite the surge of interest over the last decade in cultural phenomena in organizations, researchers of widely differing disciplinary backgrounds, epistemologies, methodological preferences, and political ideologies continue to disagree about fundamental issues--with good reason. Consolidating a diverse array of theoretical and empirical studies into an analytical framework that clarifies and challenges the assumptions that have guided organizational culture
research, this pathbreaking book delineates three competing perspectives and offers a way out of the conceptual chaos caused by conflicts among these viewpoints. This analysis acknowledges
incommensurabilities without creating pressures toward assimilation, while offering insights unavailable to any single perspective. Exploring tcpks to major intellectual developments (postmodernism, feminist theory, environmental dependence) within and outside of organizational theory, Cultures in Organizations brings a critical, interdisciplinary perspective to the field. This theoretical approach has an extensive empirical base, drawing on studies of a wide variety of organizations,
including a large multi-national electronics corporation, the Peace Corps, universities, small non-profit organizations, and several large and small private-sector companies. By alternating between
theoretical abstractions and studies of particular organizations, Joanne Martin delineates and bridges divergent approaches to the study of cultures in organizations, offering a breadth and an openness to multiple viewpoints not available elsewhere.
Industry Reviews
"Undoubtedly one of the most intelligent and coherent works to date on the topic of organizational culture."--Academy of Management Review
"A truly insightful look which explains culture, organizations and a post-modern perspective in a clean and interesting manner."--Don R. Osborn, Bellarmine University
"Great book! It's going right onto my organizational theory seminar required reading."--Howard Aldrick, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
"Joanne Martin is an astute and insightful analyst of organizational culture, who continually probes below the surface to reveal the reality buried beneath official pronouncements."--Rosabeth Moss Kanter, author of When Giants Learn to Dance
"A pioneering effort by a leading student of organizational culture to bring order to the maze of perspectives that this research area has thus far comprised....An insightful and articulate volume that will challenge scholars at the same time it edifies students. One need not accept the author's theoretical relativism in order to appreciate and embrace the practical reflexivity that she advocates and that the book exemplifies. This is a book that the
organizational-culture field has needed."--Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University
"A work of intellectual depth and synthesis enlivened by a direct and personal writing style."--Andrew M. Pettigrew, Warwick Business School
"Every social scientist should read this book. Joanne Martin makes Ockham's razor as obsolete as Gillette made the straight razor. She shows why clear, simple theories block scientific progress, and she shows us a better way to theorize."--William H. Starbuck, Stern School of Business, New York University
"Martin has mastered the elusive concept of organizational culture and shows us how to think about it and think with it. This book should become the conceptual benchmark for future studies of culture."--Karl E. Weick, The University of Michigan
"The strength--and educational value--of this book is that it gives the reader the comfort of a solid theoretical framework and, at the same time, the desire to go beyond it."--Pasquale Gagliardi, Istituto Studi Direzionale
"One of the best references I've seen."--Velma M. Guillory-Taylor, Sonoma State University
"The of the most intelligent and coherent works to date on the topic of organizational culture."--Book Reviews
