Towards a Theory of Organisational Culture

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Abstract
Students of organisation generally hold that deciphering the subtleties and nuances of behaviour, speech and artifacts in order to describe and understand organisational culture can only be done through such observational field methods as ethnography. Owens and Steinhoff question this assumption and the methodological limitations inherent in it. They sought to develop a paper-and-pencil instrument that may be used to probe the unseen, unvoiced, virtually preconscious elements that underlie and give rise to the organisational culture of schools in order to assess systematically the organisational cultures in them. The authors explain the theory of organisational culture which guided the development of their research instrument, the Organisational Culture Assessment Inventory (OCAI).