Successful socialization of an organizational culture: A critical analysis of the messages of student members of Southern Nazarene University.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine students' messages, gathered through post-exit interviews, in order to compare how they talk about membership in the organizational culture of Southern Nazarene University with the institution's espoused values and underlying assumptions as presented in official institutional documents. This analysis illuminates their successful socialization into and their individualization, remaining separate from, the organizational culture. The cultural notion of masculinity and femininity is used to identify the values of SNU through the students' discussion of gender role expectations in marriage, the church, and the workplace. Through the discussion of assimilation, the students' statements were examined against Marcia's (1980) notion of identity status, based on Erikson's (1968) identity crisis, and Hymes' (1974) SPEAKING grid. This study recommends the development of an explicit, global definition of successful organization socialization. Through post-exit interviews, this project considers the perspective of organizational leavers (Jablin, 2001) from an academic organization, extending the sparse literature which exists considering this perspective could be developed further through the examination of additional organizations. Based on the discussion of the members' gender role expectations, further research is recommended to consider the perspective of members of other religious organizations.