From 1950 to 1954, he worked on his final degree, a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The book is still today a classic multidisciplinary study of the behavior of complex organizations as entities.
The book considers individuals behavior only in the extent that it helps explain the nature of organizations.
James D. Thompson offers 95 distinct propositions about the behavior of organizations, all relevant regardless of the culture in which they are found.
A number of theoretical perspectives have developed subsequent to Thompson's work, most notably, organizational ecology and institutional theory.