Culture Clash: The Corporate Socialization Process Meets Non-Congruent Organization Subcultures

The literature on organization socialization suggests characteristicsassociated with strong organization culture. Key among these is a socializationprocess that emphasizes well-defined roles, rules, routines, and values;reinforcement with intrinsic and extrinsic reward systems; and conditioningexperiences. That literature also suggests that an organization exhibiting astrong culture and socialization process will likely elicit participant behavior thatis highly congruent with the espoused values and objectives stated by theorganization.This paper uses a case study of General Motors' Saturn Corporation tosuggest an enrichment of this theory. We argue that Saturn fulfills all therequirements of a strong culture and socialization process yet we find patterns ofbehavior seemingly at odds with the espoused values and objectives articulatedin the environment. Co-existing with and within the strong corporate culture atSaturn, we found work group subcultures whose socialization processes can bejust as strong as those at the corporate level but whose values suggest individualbehaviors that conflict with those espoused at the corporate level.These observations lead us to suggest a model of culture-influencedbehavior that explicitly addresses the existence of distinct subgroup cultures.Interestingly, the workgroup subcultures that generated behaviors at odds withthe outcomes desired at the corporate level were encouraged by exactly thosereward systems designed by Saturn to reinforce the espoused values ofconsensus decision-making at the workgroup level. Such observationsunderscore the complexity and subtlety involved in designing coherentorganization-wide cultures and reinforcing mechanisms.