Organizational Culture and Socialization

Introduction

The concept of culture is ubiquitous in all of the social sciences and is of paramount importance. It is most discussed, however, in anthropological and sociological analysis of societies and social behavior where it refers to an interrelated set of values, beliefs, assumptions, traditions, and practices that exist within a society. It also includes the accumulated corpus of knowledge in all areas that exist in a society. Used in this way, the focus is on the macro-level of analysis, whole societies. The notion of culture, however, is equally applicable to social structures couched at the meso or middle-range level such as organizations. All organizations have a distinct culture. An organization’s culture consists of its values, beliefs, expectations, philosophy, and notions of appropriate ways of interacting with its members, as well as key stakeholders which are outside of the organization such as customers, vendors, and other organizations. One can think of an...