Cultural Organization: Fragments of a Theory,

Although organizations are often said to have cultures, it is perhaps more accurate to conceive of organizations as collections of subcultures. This paper first proposes an abstract model of organizational subculture defined in terms of structural constraints of time and space, an interactional matrix, collective understandings, a transformation of socially shared into individually held knowledge and belief. The model is given particularistic substance by drawing on data from a number of organizations and occupations. Finally, social mechanisms likely to spawn organizational subcultures are outlined. Author