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The purpose of this paper is to re‐conceptualize the relations between rhetorical strategies and material practices in the processes whereby leaders create or change organizational cultures.

The authors compare and contrast two broad perspectives on cultural change in organizations. The first perspective is informed by modern social science, and focuses primarily on material practices. The second perspective is rooted in classical rhetoric, and concentrates on discursive strategies.

It is found that both perspectives hold pertinent but partial insights. The authors propose an integrated perspective in which material practices and rhetorical strategies are seen as two analytical sides of the same ontological coin. This enables a fuller and more detailed explanation of how organizational cultures are created or changed. A brief illustration is provided of the merits of this approach by revisiting the case of Enron.

The paper constitutes an initial exploration of how social scientific and rhetorical perspectives on organizational change may be brought closer together. It may provide the first step towards the development of a new, integrated theory.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce this special issue on the subject of the rhetoric and narratives in management research.

The paper reviews selected contributions to the 4th Conference on Rhetoric and Narratives in Management Research held on March 24‐26, 2011 at the ESADE campus in Barcelona.

The paper reveals various views of rhetoric and narratives in management research including plagiarism, individual (personal) narratives , material and spiritual narratives and deception in storytelling.

The paper provides a useful introduction to the various papers on rhetoric and narratives in management research.

This paper inquires into the tendency of German food retailers to market organic products as private‐label (PL) products.

After a review of the literature, results of a survey of retailers and processors, are presented.

Interviewed processors of the 62.7 per cent produce organic PL. Retailers sell organic PLs, because they care about “food safety”, “retail as a brand” and “health”, hoping to reach new customers. Requests for entry fees, investment grants and equipment allowances are less important for processors of organic PLs than for those not producing PLs. However, PL producers have to meet other conditions imposed by retailers and feel slight more dependent on few customers.

The results present the first survey of the competitive relation between organic manufacturers and retailers in Germany.