MIT Sloan Management Review

Human Resource Management and Industrial Relations, Leadership and Organizational Studies

Organizational Socialization and the Profession of Management

By Edgar H. Schein

October 15, 1988

EDGAR SCHEIN'S 1968 ARTICLE examined the process by which a new member adapts to the value system of an organization. It pointed out that both nonconformity and overconformity to an organization's norms present their own dangers.In his afterword, Dr. Schein reflects on the paradoxes that have arisen in the field of organizational development in the past twenty years. Some experts now argue that corporate culture should encourage diversity; others argue that it should stress loyalty (in a sense, nonconformity versus overconformity). Schein himself defends a less "canned" approach: accept the culture that exists and make the best of it. Ed.

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I CAN DEFINE MY TOPIC of concern best by reviewing very briefly the kinds of issues upon which I have focused my research over the last several years. In one way or another I have been trying to understand what happens to an individual when he enters and accepts membership in an organization. My interest was originally kindled by studies of the civilian and military prisoners of the Communists during the Korean War. I thought I could discern parallels between the kind of indoctrination to which these prisoners were subjected, and some of the indoctrination which goes on in American corporations when college and business school graduates first go to work for them. My research efforts came to be devoted to learning what sorts of attitudes and values students had when they left school, and what happened to these attitudes and values in the first few years of work. To this end I followed several panels of graduates of the Sloan School into their early careers.

When these studies were well under way, it suddenly became quite apparent to me that if I wanted to study the impact of an organization on the attitudes and values of its members, I might as well start closer to home. We have a school through which we put some 200 men per year—undergraduates, regular master's students, Sloan Fellows,... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.

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