From findings of diverseness in the formulations of organizational goals, the purpose of this study is to understand if and how these differences affect the relation between organizational goals and practices. The empirical data consists of eleven interviews with representatives of a municipality. Two of the informants were local politicians, five were executives and four white-collar workers. The data was analyzed in light of Neoinstitutional Theory an its concepts of goals. Based on these conceptions we understand the goals to have various attributes. The result of this study indicates that the combination of goal attributes affects whether the relation between goal and practice can be understood as strong or weak, explicit or ambiguous. It also shows how weak relations can be understood as the organization is decoupling the goals from the practices to avoid conflicts and to preserve its legitimacy.