Influencing Organizational Culture

In the management discourse few words are thrown about more carelessly than 'organizational culture'. While the term is usually defined too broadlyincluding such phenomena as assumptions, values, traditions, articles of faith, myths and artifactsthis book applies a far more narrow concept. Organizational culture, or the informal structure of an organization, is a term used to describe the behavioral expectations in an organization that have not been decided on in a formal way but that evolved by means of repetition and imitation. This book shows how this narrow definition makes it possible to more precisely observe and understand an organization's culture and its changes. Management's only way for influencing organizational cultureand this may sound paradoxical at firstis to change the organization's formal structure as for example its incentive schemes, goal-setting processes, strategic directions or hierarchy.

A precise system-theoretical definition of the concept of organisational culture A fundamental critique of the standard approach to cultural processes in organisations Description of the change in organisational culture via the change in formal structure

Autorentext

Stefan Kühl is professor of sociology at the University of Bielefeld in Germany and works as a consultant for Metaplan, a consulting firm based in Princeton, Hamburg, Shanghai, Singapore, Versailles and Zurich.

Inhalt

Preface.- Organizational CultureWhat Is It About?.- The Temptations and Limits of an Instrumental-Rational Approach.- Leverage for Influencing Organizational Culture.- Consequences for Influencing Organizational Cultures.- Bibliography.