Rethinking Organizational Culture: Redeeming Culture Through Stories

What is organizational culture? Why does it matter? This book demonstrates that conventional wisdom on this fundamental business topic has surpassed its usefulness. The author wants neither to praise scholarship on culture nor to bury it - rather he wants to build something fit for purpose by reflecting on the power of stories and storytelling.

Rethinking Organizational Culture argues that that the entrenched models of organizational culture wrench thinking, feeling, and action from a context that intuition warns us are complex and problematic. Arguing that novels and novelists offer an opportunity to redeem ’organizational culture’, the text invites readers to recognise that stories of organization offer connections with organizational profanity, organized polyphony, and the organizationally prosaic.

A stimulating and provocative read, this book will be welcomed by students, scholars, and reflective practitioners across the business field.

David Collins is Professor in Management at Northumbria University, UK and Visiting Professor in Management at the University of the Faroe Islands. His previous books include Organizational Change; Management Fads and Buzzwords; Narrating the Management Guru; Stories for Management Success; Management Gurus; and The Organizational Storytelling Workbook.