A cultural perspective on organizations: the need for and consequences of viewing organizations as culture-bearing milieux

Meryl Reis Louis is an Assistant Professor of Organizational Sciences in the Department of Administrative Sciences at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Management at UCLA. Before returning to the University for her doctorate, she was a management consultant on the staff of Arthur Andersen and Co. for 5 years and for several years served as a counselor working with individuals and groups in a community mental health center. Previously, Professor Louis was on the faculty at the University of illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in the Department of Business Administration. Her research interests center on cognitive and cultural processes in organizational settings, career transition management, early career decisions of MBA graduates, and epistemological issues in organiZational research. She has published articles in Adminstrative Science Quarterly, the Academy of Management Review, and the Proceedings of the Society for General Systems Research. She has contributed to several edited volumes, including Organizational Symbolism (edited by Louis R. Pondy et aI., Scott Foresman, in press) . Professor Louis is on the Board of Directors of the Organizational Behavior Teaching Society and is an active member of the Academy of Management.

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