Influencing Organizational Culture: A Very Brief Introduction (Second Edition 2025)

By: Stefan Kühl

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Synopsis: In the management discourse few words are thrown about more carelessly than &‘organizational culture&’. While the term is usually defined too broadly—including such phenomena as assumptions, values, traditions, articles of faith, myths and artifacts—this 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 culture—and this may sound paradoxical at first—is to change the organization&’s formal structure as for example its incentive schemes, goal-setting processes, strategic directions or hierarchy.