Title

Individual in Organization or Society

Description

Basic Responses to Socialization

New members often find that the norms are unclear, confusing, and restrictive.As a result, they may react in different ways when entering an organization .At one extreme, a new member may choose to conform to all the norms of the organization, resulting in uniformity of behavior and complete acceptance of organizational values.This conformity may result in stagnation, nonresponsiveness, and a loss of creativeness.At the other extreme, a new member may choose to rebel, to reject all the values, or to leave the organization altogether.

A less obvious alternative is for new members to accept the pivotal norms and seriously question the peripheral norms,which can be termed creative individualism.This is the ideal behavior for a healthy and effective organization, but it is often difficult for a newcomer to correctly determine which norms are peripheral and which are pivotal. What may be a pivotal norm in one department may be a peripheral norm or not a norm at all in another department of the same organization. Since norms are changing and dynamic, the organization member must have the awareness to discern the differences between pivotal and peripheral norms.

Designer

Brown, Donald R.

Harvey, Don

Date

2006

Source

An Experiential Approach to Organization Development

Bibliographic Citation

Brown, Donald R, and Donald F Harvey. 2006. An Experiential Approach to Organization Development. Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 13

Edgar H. Schein, “Organization Socialization and the Profession of Management,” Industrial Management
Review, vol. 9 (1968), p. 8.

depict things of type

Sequence or Process