This book is more or less a text book on organizational culture. It was written with a purpose of creating awareness about the nature, structural elements, approaches, methods, functions and the ways of thinking of organizational culture. Further, this book is a “cry for breaking out of the information systems/ logical-positivist/ quasi-experimental mold that has placed a mental and emotional straight-jacket on organizational theory and theorists for too many years (ix).” As is clear from this statement, this book was written at a time when organizational culture perspective was just beginning to gain prominence and the organizational theory was just beginning to move beyond structures.

We can divide the book in two halves. First four chapters generally discuss the concepts and terminology used in the field of organizational culture. Additionally, sources for origin, development and perpetuation of culture are also discussed. The second half of the book discusses the development of the cultural perspective and the methodological approaches for studying the culture in organizations.

Though the terms associated with this perspective are commonly used, the distinction between various terms is not very apparent to everyone. Therefore, it would be useful to summarize all the terms here in a sentence or two. First, “culture is to the organization what personality is to the individual- a hidden yet unifying theme that provides meaning, direction, and mobilization.” It consists of shared values, beliefs, assumptions, perceptions, norms, symbols, artifacts and patterns of behavior.

» Read more: Book Review – The Organizational Culture Perspective by Steven Ott