CCJ-4450 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Organizational Culture, Role Conflict, Acculturation
11 Dec 2016
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Occupational Socialization
Occupational Socialization
- The process by which a person acquires the values, attitudes, and behaviors of an
ongoing occupational social system.
- It is a continuous process.
- Habitual behaviors (both good and bad) persist as long as members remain supportive
to them.
o Intentional influences- training
o Unintentional influences- loker roo talk
- Katz and Kahn (1978) – they argue that organizations are best understood as a system
of roles and they link the individuals within the organizations.
Organizational Culture
- A set of assumptions, values, and beliefs shared by members of the organization.
o These create language, symbols, folklore, and direct the behaviors of the
organizational members.
- The proess of soializatio seres to ipost the orgaizatio’s patters of asi
assumptions upon its new members.
- Organizational cultures are invented, discovered, or developed by groups in order to
cope with external influences and internal change
- Key Terms
o Culture—often defined as the complex whole of a society
o Values—Desirable goals
o Norms—specify what people should/should’t do
o Folkways—Standard way of doing things
o Mores—Strong views of right and wrong
o Laws—Codified mores
o Social Control—process of perpetuating conformity to established culture
o Sanctions—rewards/punishments for conformity (both formal and informal)
o Subcultures—groups that have own beliefs and norms while sharing values of
dominate culture
o Counterculture—groups whose shared values differ substantively from dominate
culture
- Multi-department organizations have multiple internal cultures that require integrations
into organizational culture.
- Role of top-level administrators:
o Defie orgaizatio’s issio
o Identify the problem(s) the agency has been mandated to solve
- Role Behavior is the visible outcome of cultural constraints.
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The Socialization Process
- Stages of Socialization
o 1. Anticipatory: Looking towards demands and expectations of future jobs.
o 2. Formal sanctions: abstract and stem from impersonal sources
o 3. Informal sanctions: ongoing process that molds individual to organizational
culture
▪ Informal sanctions can be personal and invoked by the sanctioned
person.
- A Model of Influences (Katz and Kahn, 1978)
o Role expectations- standards by which the behavior of an organizational
member is judged.
o Sent role- refers to the communications of those expectations to the member
o Received role- the persons perception and understanding of the set role
o Role behavior- the person response to the complex information they received
(behavior of a social setting)
Problems in the Socialization Process
- Most socialization problems are related to role conflict.
o The occurrence of 2 or more role expectations such that compliance with one
makes compliance with another difficult or impossible
o Example: Whe people sa rie is ireasig, people’s due proess rights begin
to be violated
- Role Ambiguity
o Uncertainty about what the occupant of a particular office is supposed to do.
▪ The sent message is unclear.
- Official Deviance
o Actions taken by officials that violate the law and/or the formal rules of the
organization but which are clearly oriented toward the needs and goals of the
organization, as perceived by the official, and thus fulfill certain informal rules of
the organization (Lee and Visano, 1981)
- Corruption
o Goes well beyond official deviance.
Socialization and the Police
- Police officers are subjected to a rather intense socialization process.
o Formal Socialization Process for Police- most elaborate form of police
socialization than in any other criminal justice job.
o Informal Socialization Process for Police- learning from peers
- Structural factors that connect police officers:
o Police work is depersonalizing
o The drive toward police professionalism
o The ambiguous nature of police work
- Westley (1970) - Studied a mid-western police department and they found that there
ere suultures goig o, the had serets ad did’t dislose ertai iforatio.
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find more resources at oneclass.com
Socialization in Corrections
- Corrections officers have a different socialization process than the police.
o Informal socialization appears to be more influential than formal socialization.
- Rookie corrections officers grapple with conflicting role expectations.
o Acculturation- the difference between what ou’re traied to do versus real on
the jo eperiee.
Socialization and Community Expectations
- Community expectations affect the socialization process in the CJ system.
- Within the context of community expectations:
o Appropriate behaviors are rewarded with public recognition
o Inappropriate behaviors are punished by public criticism.
- Criminal justice professionals perceive that they are viewed negatively by the public.
The puli teds to hae reall high respet for the ourt ad eliee i it.
Strategies for Socialization (Implications for Administrators)
- By design, managers continuously influence socialization process.
- A direct influence on socialization occurs during recruitment and selection.
- In the formal stage, training process and its content directly influence role taking.
o Collective Socialization- involves training people in groups
o Individual Socialization- being mentored/trained individually
o Sequential Socialization- training process goes through stages
o Serial Socialization- experienced employees train new people.
o Divestiture Strategies- strips characteristics out of people before they can join
the group (Ex. Military)
- Socialization is more prevalent during the early than the later stages of a career; thus,
recruits more susceptible than experienced workers.
o Klofas and Toch (1982)
Ethical Considerations
- Close ad Meier 15 ote that ethial oers the stud of right ad rog, dut,
resposiilit, ad persoal harater
- The formal socialization process is a mechanism for the organization to impose it’s
dominate belief system and rules upon its members.
- Autocratic management styles tend to drive wedges between employees and the
organization which may result in various forms of unethical behavior.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
The process by which a person acquires the values, attitudes, and behaviors of an ongoing occupational social system. Habitual behaviors (both good and bad) persist as long as members remain supportive to them. Intentional influences- (cid:862)training(cid:863: unintentional influences- (cid:862)lo(cid:272)ker roo(cid:373) talk(cid:863) Katz and kahn (1978) (cid:862)they argue that organizations are best understood as a system of roles and they link the individuals within the organizations. (cid:863) A set of assumptions, values, and beliefs shared by members of the organization: these create language, symbols, folklore, and direct the behaviors of the organizational members. The pro(cid:272)ess of so(cid:272)ializatio(cid:374) ser(cid:448)es to i(cid:373)post the orga(cid:374)izatio(cid:374)"s patter(cid:374)s of (cid:271)asi(cid:272) assumptions upon its new members. Organizational cultures are invented, discovered, or developed by groups in order to cope with external influences and internal change. Multi-department organizations have multiple internal cultures that require integrations into organizational culture. Role of top-level administrators: defi(cid:374)e orga(cid:374)izatio(cid:374)"s (cid:373)issio(cid:374) Identify the problem(s) the agency has been mandated to solve.
