How Culture Influences Behavior

Employees are brought into the organization’s culture through a process called enculturation, or socialization. Through socialization, employees learn ‘‘the ropes.’’ Socialization can occur through formal training or mentoring, or through more informal transmission of norms of daily behavior by peers and superiors. New members learn from observing how others behave or through informally transmitted messages. When effectively socialized into a strong culture, employees behave in ways that are consistent with expectations of the culture. They know how to dress, what to say, and what to do. With socialization, people behave in ways that are consistent with the culture because they feel they are expected to do so. Their behavior may have nothing to do with their personal beliefs, but they behave as they are expected to behave in order to fit into the context and to be approved by peers and superiors.8 As an example, the president of a huge financial firm once took a young, high-potential manager out to lunch and walked him right over to Brooks Brothers for a new suit. ‘‘You can’t get where you’re going in a cheap suit,’’ the president told the young man, who continued to buy his suits at Brooks Brothers.

But individuals may behave according to the culture for another reason— because they have internalized cultural expectations. With internalization, individuals have adopted the external cultural standards as their own. Their behavior, though consistent with the culture, also accords with their own beliefs. They may come into the organization sharing its values and expectations, thus making for a very smooth transition. Or, they may internalize cultural expectations over time. In the above example, the young manager may have initially bought the Brooks Brothers suit because he felt compelled to; but over time, he continued to buy those suits perhaps because he had internalized the expectation and wanted to do so.

The concepts of socialization and internalization apply to understanding why employees behave ethically or unethically in an organization. Most people prefer to behave ethically. When they join an organization with a strong ethical culture, the messages about honesty and respect resonate with their personal beliefs and are easily internalized. They act ethically because it’s natural for them to do so and consistent with the cultural messages they’re receiving. But unfortunately, most employees can be socialized into behaving unethically, especially if they have little work experience to contrast with the messages being sent by the current unethical culture. If everyone around them is lying to customers, they’re likely to do the same as long as they remain a member of the organization.

ETHICAL CULTURE: A MULTI SYSTEM FRAMEWORK

We said earlier that ethical culture can be conceptualized as representing a slice of the organization’s broader culture. Ethical culture is created and maintained through

a complex interplay of formal and informal organizational systems Formally, executive leader communications, selection systems, orientation and training programs, rules, policies and codes, performance management systems, organizational structures, and formal decision-making processes all contribute to creating and maintaining ethical culture. Informally, heroes and role models; norms of daily behavior; rituals, myths, and stories; and language indicate whether the formal ethics-related systems represent reality or facade. The next section provides examples of each of these important ethical culture systems. Although we discuss these systems separately, keep in mind that they are all interconnected.