Culture and Conformity
An Essay on Individual Adaptation in Centralized Bureaucracy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9889584 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Steven P Feldman (0000-0002-1285-9758, Case Western Reserve University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1985 |
| Volume | 38 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 341-356 |
| Publication date | 1985-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Human Relations (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-7267 • E-ISSN: 1741-282X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/001872678503800404 |
| OpenAlex | W2167293416 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 16 |
The cultural aspects of organizations have been mostly overlooked in the study of management. This is particularly important because the Protestant ethic which organized the sociopsychological matrix for the industrial revolution no longer commands enough authority to continue organizing individual motivation and societal needs. Thus, local solutions have evolved to deal with cultural ambiguity and they have evolved with little thought as to their implications. In this essay, the cultural aspects of interpersonal relations in a telephone company are analyzed. This analysis was carried out during a year long full-time fieldwork period which employed participant observation, structured and semi-structured interviews, and document analysis for data collection purposes. Strong demands for conformity were found to dominate interpersonal relations. Three types of response to these demands were discovered: acceptance based on conscious suppression of personal interests, acceptance based on unconscious distortion, and secret rejection. These mechanisms for dealing with strong demands for conformity were found to affect managerial development, interpersonal communications, and organizational adaptability. Given these kinds of superior-subordinate relations, it was anticipated that the Bell System will have great difficulty adapting to a competitive marketplace
Adaptation (eye · Bureaucracy · Conformity · Interpersonal communication · Organizational culture · Participant observation · Political science · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Consumer Behavior in Brand Consumption and Identification · Customer Service Quality and Loyalty · Law · Psychology · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology
Center and periphery
The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment
Group psychology and the analysis of the ego.
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
From Max Weber
On the Division of Labor in Society
The Bureaucratic Phenomenon
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Identity—Youth and Crisis
The Economics of Information
Folie A Deux
The Sociology of Georg Simmel
Steps to an Ecology of Mind
| Citations per year | 0.13 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1987 - 2023 (37) |
| Highly cited | No |