Stefan Kühl (*1966) holds PhD's in sociology and economy. He is a researcher and professor of sociology at Bielefeld University. Kühl's research interests include social theory, interaction sociology and organizational sociology.

Stefan Kühl has written many books, which also have been translated into English. Subjects include:

- Organization structures; Flat hierarchies; "Wenn die Affen den Zoo regieren - Die Tücken der flachen Hierarchien" (1994); "Sisyphos im Management - Die vergebliche Suche nach der optimalen Organisationsstruktur" (2002)

- Coaching and Supervision; "Coaching und Supervision - Zur personenorientierten Beratung in Organisationen" (2009)

- Organizations;
"Organisationen: Eine Sehr Kurze Einführung" (2011)

- Eugenics, American Racism and National Socialism; "The Nazi Connection" (1993); The Holocaust; "Ganz normale Organisationen" (2014)

- Learning organizations; "Das Regenmacher-Phänomen: Widersprüche im Konzept der lernenden Organisation" (2015)

- Strategy; "Strategien entwickeln - Eine kurze organisationstheoretisch informierte Handreichung" (2016)

- Work; "Arbeit – Marxistische und systemtheoretische Zugänge" (2017)

- Organizational Culture; "Organisationskulturen beeinflussen" (2018)

- Organizational science; "Schlüsselwerke der Organisationsforschung" (2015) and "Handbook Methods of Organizational Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Methods" (2019)

- Rule violations; "Brauchbare Illegalität: Vom Nutzen des Regelbruchs in Organisationen" (2020)

One of many lessons provided involves a better understanding of organizational culture and informality in organizations. These two terms describe the same phenomenon: the undecided decision-making premises of an organization. Kühl makes a distinction between "undecidable decision premises" and "principally decidable but not decided decision premises" and by doing this he brings order into what he calls the "wild feature lists" of both informality and organizational culture literature.

My summary of Kühl's article Friendships and Groups, his books Organizations, Work, Influencing Organizational Cultures, Shadow Organization and a very short description of his book Ordinary Organisations can be accessed through clicking the buttons below: