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Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://pubsonline.informs.org Enculturation Trajectories: Language, Cultural Adaptation, and Individual Outcomes in Organizations
Sameer B. Srivastava, Amir Goldberg, V. Govind Manian, Christopher Potts
To cite this article: Sameer B. Srivastava, Amir Goldberg, V. Govind Manian, Christopher Potts (2017) Enculturation Trajectories: Language, Cultural Adaptation, and Individual Outcomes in Organizations. Management Science Published online in Articles in Advance 02 Mar 2017 . http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2671
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INFORMS is the largest professional society in the world for professionals in the fields of operations research, management science, and analytics. For more information on INFORMS, its publications, membership, or meetings visit http://www.informs.org MANAGEMENT SCIENCE Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17 http://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/mnsc/ ISSN 0025-1909 (print), ISSN 1526-5501 (online)
Enculturation Trajectories: Language, Cultural Adaptation, and Individual Outcomes in Organizations
Sameer B. Srivastava,a Amir Goldberg,b V. Govind Manian,b Christopher Pottsc a Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720; b Stanford Graduate School of Business, Stanford, California 94305; c Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305 Contact: [email protected] (SBS); [email protected] (AG); [email protected] (VGM); [email protected] (CP)
Received: December 8, 2015 Abstract. How do people adapt to organizational culture, and what are the consequences Accepted: September 24, 2016 for their outcomes in the organization? These fundamental questions about culture have Published Online in Articles in Advance: previously been examined using self-report measures, which are subject to reporting bias, March 2, 2017 rely on coarse cultural categories defined by researchers, and provide only static snap- https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2016.2671 shots of cultural fit. By contrast, we develop an interactional language use model that overcomes these limitations and opens new avenues for theoretical development about Copyright: © 2017 INFORMS the dynamics of organizational culture. We trace the enculturation trajectories of employ- ees in a midsized technology firm based on analyses of 10.24 million internal emails. Our language-based model of changing cultural fit (1) predicts individual attainment; (2) reveals distinct patterns of adaptation for employees who exit voluntarily, exit involun- tarily, and remain employed; (3) demonstrates that rapid early cultural adaptation reduces the risk of involuntary, but not voluntary, exit; and (4) finds that a decline in cultural fit for individuals who had successfully enculturated portends voluntary departure.
History: Accepted by Olav Sorenson, organizations. Funding: This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation [Grant BCS 1456077], the Stanford Data Science Initiative, the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley. Supplemental Material: The supplemental material is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/ mnsc.2016.2671.
Keywords: organizational culture • enculturation • cultural fit • attainment • linguistic accommodation
Introduction Although some prior work assumes that cultural Organizational scholars have long recognized the fit can change over time, especially during early new- importance of culture in shaping individual, group, comer adjustment to an organization (Bauer et al. and organizational success. For example, culture fea- 2007, Chatman 1991), compelling theoretical accounts tures prominently in research on the efficacy of new- of the dynamics and consequences of cultural fit comer socialization (e.g., Ashforth and Saks 1996), the remain largely absent from the literature (Shipp and productivity of groups and teams (e.g., Chatman et al. Jansen 2011). We trace this paucity of theoretical 1998), and organizational performance following the development to a methodological source: the tools merger of two firms (e.g., Weber and Camerer 2003). that have heretofore been used to measure culture Although the definitions of culture have varied some- within organizations—such as participant observation what across these research streams, prior research has (Kunda 2006, Van Maanen 1991) or self-report sur- tended to treat organizational culture as a static con- veys (e.g., O’Reilly et al. 1991, Jones 1986, Hofstede struct and therefore emphasized the importance of et al. 2010, Van Maanen 1975)—are simply ill-suited achieving cultural fit—an informal threshold that an to detecting fine-grained, temporal variation in cul- organizational member either ultimately succeeds, or
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. fails, to cross (Van Maanen and Schein 1979, Ashford tural fit. The absence of such a measurement tool and Nurmohamed 2012)—for various indicators of has constrained researchers to assuming that a per- performance (O’Reilly et al. 1991, Rivera 2012). Yet son’s cultural compatibility with an organization is organizational enculturation is a dynamic and ongoing fixed or, at most, monotonically increasing. According process. Cultural fit, therefore, is an elastic construct. to this view, newcomers remain probationary mem- In this paper, we examine the following question: bers of an organization unless and until they cross How is the specific temporal pattern of a person’s cul- some threshold level of cultural fit. This conceptualiza- tural compatibility with colleagues in an organization tion of cultural fit as threshold crossing, we contend, related to her career outcomes in that setting? has impeded theoretical progress on the dynamics of
1 Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 2 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
enculturation and has concentrated research attention From Cultural Fit to Trajectories of on either person–organization matching (e.g., Kristof Enculturation 1996) or early organizational socialization tactics (e.g., Cultural Fit as an End State Klein and Weaver 2000, Allen and Meyer 1990). Organizations exhibit remarkable cultural persistence By contrast, we propose that people can exhibit despite turnover, growth, and decline (Kotter and increases or decreases in cultural fit throughout their Heskett 1992, Harrison and Carroll 2006). How do tenures in an organization. We introduce the construct newcomers become aligned with an organization’s cul- of enculturation trajectory, which represents an individ- ture? Existing literature has generally highlighted two ual’s temporal pattern of cultural fit, and argue that distinct yet complementary mechanisms. One empha- the rate and direction of cultural adjustment is conse- sizes cultural matching that occurs at the hiring stage. quential for individual attainment. Drawing on previ- This work typically assumes that matching operates ous work on organizational socialization, we propose on ostensibly fixed attributes relating to individuals’ that understanding how cultural fit waxes and wanes ingrained psychological characteristics (Kristof 1996, at different stages of a person’s tenure can provide a Kammeyer-Mueller and Wanberg 2003) or accumu- window into two core mechanisms that underpin cul- lated cultural capital (Rivera 2012). Thus, organizations tural fit: (1) acceptance of a focal actor by her colleagues select (and are concomitantly selected by) individuals and (2) the focal actor’s attachment to her colleagues whose dispositions fit with the organization’s climate and the organization as a whole. Thus, we hypothesize or who are culturally congruent with those who have that different enculturation trajectories will be asso- already joined the organization. ciated with different career outcomes—namely, reten- The process of cultural alignment does not, how- tion, voluntary departure, and involuntary departure. ever, end once an individual joins an organization. To evaluate these ideas, we propose a novel mea- A second body of work—commonly referred to as surement approach, which is based on the language organizational socialization theory—focuses on the people use in communications with their colleagues enculturation that occurs post entry, when newcom- in an organization. Language, we contend, provides a ers acquire organization-specific cultural knowledge window into organizational culture that is less suscep- 1 tible to reporting biases, less topically constrained, and (Wanous 1992). Both cultural matching and encultur- more granular and scalable than self-report measures. ation lead to cultural fit, the state of being culturally It allows us to observe cultural fit as it unfolds over compatible with one’s colleagues in an organization. time, illuminating enculturation as a process rather than Organizations differ substantially in the extent to an end state. We apply our measurement strategy to a which they actively propagate specific desired cultural unique data set, which includes the complete corpus of features (Sørensen 2002) and in the relative emphases 10.24 million emails exchanged over five years among they put on cultural matching versus enculturation. 601 full-time employees of a midsized U.S. for-profit Even in the absence of an intentional effort to develop technology firm. a strong corporate culture, matching and enculturation Whereas prior studies using archived electronic naturally occur through a combination of homophily communications in organizations have relied on and peer influence (Carley 1991, Harrison and Carroll content-free metadata to infer positions in network 2006), leading organizations to vary in the levels of structure (e.g., Kossinets and Watts 2006, Kleinbaum cultural homogeneity they exhibit. Some organizations et al. 2013, Srivastava 2015, Aven 2015), we have access are strongly aligned with a purposefully cultivated not only to metadata but also to the natural language organizational culture, whereas others are more frag- of email content. We use the tools of computational mented (Martin 1992, Chatman et al. 2014). linguistics to transform this natural language into time- While work on cultural fit and enculturation is varying measures of individual-level cultural fit with too vast to be comprehensively summarized here (for colleagues in the organization. We then rely on per- reviews, see, for example, Bauer et al. 2007, Kristof- sonnel data to explore the relationship between encul- Brown et al. 2005), we draw on two fundamental turation trajectories and individual outcomes in the assumptions that animate these literatures. The first is organization. that individual cultural fit is positively associated with
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. To preview our results, we find that employees with individual success in the organization. Although the slow enculturation rates in the early stage (i.e., within reasons are multifaceted, two explanations for the link their first six months in the organization) are more between cultural fit and attainment are paramount. likely to exit involuntarily than those with rapid ini- One is grounded in the psychological benefits of cul- tial enculturation rates and that positive enculturation tural fit. High cultural fit is thought to lead to greater can offset the downsides of initial low cultural fit. We job satisfaction, stronger identification and attachment also find that cultural fit can decline for some employees with the organization, higher motivation, and reduced later in their careers, and that, when it does, it portends stress. As a result, people achieve higher levels of per- their choice to exit voluntarily. formance and a longer tenure with the organization Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS 3
(O’Reilly et al. 1991, Chatman 1991, Meglino et al. Although enculturation is often assumed to be an 1989). The other is rooted in culture’s role as a solu- ongoing process, empirical studies of socialization tion to the complexities and challenges of interper- have, in practice, tended to treat organizational culture sonal coordination under conditions of uncertainty. as fixed and monolithic and conceived of individual- Colleagues who fit in culturally with each other are level cultural fit as a static end state that people either assumed to have more efficient and efficacious inter- achieve or fail to achieve through processes of selec- actions with one another, resulting in better coordina- tion and posthire enculturation (e.g., Allen and Meyer tion and higher productivity (Kreps 1990, Weber and 1990). But maintaining cultural alignment requires Camerer 2003, Van den Steen 2010). constant investment. Moreover, culture is known to be A second common assumption in enculturation an evolving, group-level adaptive response to inter- research is that the process unfolds in distinct stages. nal and external pressures (Schein 2010, Ravasi and Although they use different terminology and iden- Schultz 2006), represented by the jagged boundary in tify slightly different break points, enculturation mod- panel (B) of Figure1. Enculturation, as panel (B) illus- els typically include three core stages (Bauer et al. trates, is therefore better understood as a journey an 1998): (1) anticipatory adjustment, which occurs prior organizational member takes, rather than as a thresh- to entry, (2) early adjustment, which occurs immedi- old he or she successfully traverses. This cultural jour- ately following entry, and (3) final adjustment, when ney, we argue, is as important to understand as the newcomers are fully accepted as insiders. It is often destination. assumed that the second stage, when newcomers expe- Thinking of enculturation as a process helps point rience high levels of uncertainty and stress as they to two mechanisms through which cultural fit relates learn and update their expectations about the organi- to individual attainment: peer acceptance and individ- zation and try to make sense of its normative order, ual attachment. Cultural fit can lead to acceptance by is the most critical for subsequent attainment. This is colleagues because it is interpreted as a signal that presumed to be the period of most consequential orga- an individual’s values, beliefs, and styles of work are nizational learning. compatible with those of her coworkers. It also serves as a manifestation of her attachment to the firm since Enculturation as a Process those who feel they belong in an organization are less To summarize, the process of enculturation is often likely to adopt countercultural behaviors to assert their conceptualized, to use Van Maanen and Schein’s (1979) divergent social identities. Although both peer accep- imagery, as a newcomer’s radial movement from out- tance and attachment are consequential for attainment side the organization’s formal boundary into its cul- in the organization—one cannot succeed without being tural core, as illustrated in panel (A) of Figure1. accepted by others, and a lack of attachment damp- Cultural matching occurs at the point of entry into ens one’s impetus to be a productive organizational the organization during hiring, followed by a proba- member—each pathway tends to be more salient at dif- tionary period of early cultural adjustment. Once the ferent stages of the enculturation process. We illustrate newcomer passes an informal threshold of acceptance, this in panel (B) of Figure1. he or she presumably becomes a full member of the Early enculturation relates to a newcomer’s ability to organization. gain acceptance by peers. It is during this probationary
Figure 1. An Illustration of Cultural Fit as an End State (A) and of Enculturation as a Process (B)
(A) Cultural fit as an end state (B) Enculturation as a process
Cultural matching Probationary membership Peer acceptance
Full
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. membership
Attachment
Notes. In the end-state framework (panel (A)), the newcomer needs to cross the formal organizational boundary (full line) and the informal acceptance boundary (dotted line) to attain cultural fit and become a full member. In the process framework (panel (B)), the cultural journey is ongoing; the mechanisms of peer acceptance and attachment are consequential during different phases of this journey. Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 4 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
phase that newcomers’ identities and behaviors are peer acceptance should be reflective of that individ- most heavily scrutinized by their colleagues. And, as ual’s declining attachment to the organization. previous research has shown, it is during this period Conceptualizing cultural fit as a static end state that newcomers experience heightened anxiety and obscures these different processes. Whereas low uncertainty and therefore a strong incentive to conform cultural fit might lead to negative evaluations by col- culturally (Jones 1986). Even if meticulously screened leagues, it could also be an indicator of low attach- on cultural matching and culturally trained during the ment to the organization. Just knowing that a person organization’s formal “onboarding” process, newcom- has failed to achieve a high level of cultural fit tells us ers are still required to tune into and adopt the ineffa- very little about which of these two mechanisms—peer ble aspects of the organizational code (March 1991), to acceptance or attachment—might be operative. Rather, learn which behaviors are appropriate and which are the timing and pattern of enculturation are likely to be frowned upon, to assess what idiosyncratic rituals and crucial in disambiguating these underlying pathways. symbols signify, and to infer what implicit assumptions We hypothesize that different outcomes in the and expectations are informing colleagues’ behaviors organization leave different enculturation signatures. (Van Maanen 1991). As Schein (2010) points out, mak- Three such outcomes are particularly important: reten- ing sense of these cultural artifacts is rarely a straight- tion, voluntary exit, and involuntary exit. We inter- forward task. Yet whatever choices and actions the pret retention to mean that a person has been newcomer takes, the success of this process is ulti- accepted culturally by others and remains motivated mately determined by his or her colleagues, who to stay culturally compliant with others’ expectations. decide whether to accept the newcomer as an insider We interpret voluntary departure as an indication of (Wanous 1992). low commitment to the firm in light of other outside Once this implicit boundary is passed, however, opportunities. Involuntary departures, on the other cultural alignment becomes less a matter of gaining hand, are imposed on the individual and therefore typ- ically indicate the inability to gain acceptance by one’s acceptance by colleagues and more a challenge of self- colleagues. Although these different exit types reflect maintenance of cultural compatibility. Although indi- different underlying processes—attachment and peer viduals vary in the extent to which they buy into acceptance—previous research on enculturation has the culture and in their ability to take on cultural often overlooked the distinction between them either facades, diffusing the tension between front-stage nor- by measuring turnover irrespective of exit type (e.g., mative compliance and back-stage identity manage- Kammeyer-Mueller and Wanberg 2003, Cable et al. ment requires significant and constant emotional work 2013) or by focusing only on voluntary exit (e.g., Allen (Goffman 1959, Hochschild 1979, Cable et al. 2013, 2006, Chatman 1991). This inattention is reflective of a Kilduff and Day 1994, Grandey 2003). The employees theoretical tendency to conflate the effects of cultural in Kunda’s (2006) ethnography of “Tech,” for exam- fit on attachment with its effects on evaluations by oth- ple, constantly partook in exchanges of cynicism and ers and to treat cultural fit as a boundary that is either detachment as a means to reassert their authenticity crossed or never traversed. and membership in the organization while resolving By contrast, we expect that these different pathways the inherent tension between both identities. relate to different patterns of enculturation and, corre- Organizational members need to put in work to spondingly, different individual outcomes. Organiza- remain normatively compliant even in the context tional members who are successfully integrated into of a stable organizational culture. Their need to do the organization should exhibit a capacity to adjust cul- so is amplified when the organizational landscape turally post entry—and concomitantly gain the accep- itself changes. These changes need not be the result tance of their peers—as well as continued motivation to of dramatic shocks or concerted cultural retooling. increase their cultural alignment after this inclusionary Rather, the cultural content in organizations constantly boundary has been traversed. Their cultural fit should and organically evolves as new symbols are intro- increase steadily over time. By contrast, people who fail duced and existing ones reinterpreted, as recent events to adapt culturally in the early stages of their tenure
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. are mythicized and old stories are forgotten and as are less likely to be accepted by their peers and there- new implicit agreements emerge to substitute for old fore face a greater hazard of experiencing involuntary ones (Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil et al. 2013, Rafaeli and exit. Finally, people who succeed in adapting culturally Pratt 2006, Ravasi and Schultz 2006). Because keeping early in their tenure and gain acceptance by colleagues pace with the organizational culture requires energy but then—at a later stage in their tenure—experience and attention, it also necessitates motivation. Unless a decline in cultural fit are likely detaching from the prompted by an unusual shift in the organization’s organization. We posit that such a pattern heralds their culture, a decline in the level of cultural alignment voluntary exit from the organization. In other words, by an organizational member who has already gained we expect the following. Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS 5
Hypothesis 1. A secular increase in cultural fit is predic- be thought of as an individual’s levels of cognitive tive of retention. and behavioral alignment with her peers; namely, the extent to which she shares understandings with her Hypothesis 2. Slow rates of enculturation early in a per- son’s tenure in an organization are predictive of involuntary peers and is normatively compliant with their expec- exit. tations. Cognitive cultural fit is rarely observed in the organization; members have only limited and indirect Hypothesis 3. A decline in cultural fit later in the tenure access to their colleagues’ cognition. Instead, people of a person who was previously enculturated into an organi- infer their own level of cultural fit, as well as assess zation presages voluntary exit. the cultural fit of their colleagues, by observing their peers’ behavior and comparing it to their own. They Enculturation and Language Use interpret behavioral cultural alignment as an indica- Studies of organizational culture have mostly es- tion of cognitive alignment. Such an interpretation is chewed questions relating to enculturation trajectories, not necessarily correct, as some individuals put on in large part because culture is a complex construct facades that mask their true beliefs and values. Yet that is difficult to measure consistently over time (Mohr such incongruent “surface acting” is emotionally tax- 1998, Goldberg 2011). Organizational scholars have, ing and is often either resolved by readjusting one’s of course, studied cultural processes extensively, but inner thoughts and feelings or by departing from the methodological limitations have precluded the sys- organization (Hochschild 1979, Grandey 2003). tematic analysis of enculturation patterns. Participant Language is central to these processes. It is among observation provides rich insight into the workings of the most salient organizational indicators of an indi- enculturation (e.g., Kunda 2006, Van Maanen 1991), but vidual’s level of behavioral cultural alignment.4 At its given that a researcher can only be present in one set- most basic level, language is a set of conventions that ting at a given time, he or she cannot feasibly observe connect symbols with meanings, providing a solution all organizational members on a consistent basis. Pre- to a complex coordination problem (Lewis 1969). Orga- vious work systematically examining individual vari- nizations converge on distinct linguistic conventions ability in enculturation has therefore mostly relied on that relate to their particular context and the oppor- self-reports to operationalize individual cultural fit. tunities and challenges they face (Crémer et al. 2007). Self-reports suffer, however, from a variety of lim- An individual’s level of compliance with these con- itations (Greenwald and Banaji 1995, Srivastava and ventions is therefore essential for becoming a produc- Banaji 2011): they presuppose a small set of cultural tive member of the organization. But language is not dimensions, often overlooking organizationally spe- merely functional; these conventions also come to sig- cific cultural manifestations; are subject to a variety nify social identities and roles, and their normative use of social and cognitive reporting biases; and, by their is an indication of an organizational member’s degree nature, sacrifice qualitative richness for observational of assimilation. Whether conscious or not, people’s breadth, leading to a focus on core cultural dimensions linguistic choices are crucial for establishing relation- that are often most resistant to change. Most impor- ships with their interlocutors (Giles et al. 1991, Labov tant, self-reports are inevitably limited in scope, given 2001). For example, linguistic compatibility minimizes that individuals cannot be surveyed constantly and perceived social distance between interaction partners, exhaustively.2 While they provide access to subjective whereas linguistic divergence strengthens symbolic dispositions and perceptions, self-reports are limited boundaries between them (Gumperz 1982, Bernstein in their ability to systematically address fundamen- 2003, Niederhoffer and Pennebaker 2002, Danescu- tal questions that relate to the evolution of individual Niculescu-Mizil et al. 2012). This happens because an enculturation over time.3 individual’s tendency to accommodate others linguis- Language as a Signal of Cultural Alignment tically both affects others’ evaluations (e.g., Rickford How one measures enculturation invariably relates et al. 2015) and is a reflection of her self-perceived sim- to how one defines culture. Although scholars have ilarity with her interlocutors (e.g., Ireland et al. 2011).
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. offered a variety of definitions, most would agree Thus, language use is intrinsically related to the pro- that organizational culture comprises two fundamen- cesses by which individuals fit, or fail to fit, into their tal dimensions: a cognitive dimension, relating to orga- social environments. nizational members’ shared assumptions, beliefs, and The language people use in their daily interactions values, and a behavioral dimension, relating to norms can also provide a window into their underlying cat- and expectations that emerge from these values and egories of thought and value systems (Pinker 2007). that govern interaction in the organization (Schein Take swearing as an example.5 Organizations—and the 2010, Hofstede et al. 2010, Ravasi and Schultz 2006, various subgroups they house—vary in the extent to Chatman et al. 2014). Cultural fit can concomitantly which they condone or reject the use of profanities. Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 6 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
A newcomer’s ability to comply with the norms con- subcultures (Martin 1992). Under such circumstances, cerning the degree and appropriate use of vulgar lan- an organization-level culture is more an analytical fic- guage serves as a strong signal of her ability to read tion than an experienced organizational reality. PG fit, the organizational code and conform to it. But the use by contrast, allows for cultural variation within the of swear words also taps deeper systems of mean- organization but assumes that such variation neces- ings. In an ethnography of counterculture youth in sarily follows formal organizational boundaries. Yet England in the 1960s, for example, Willis (2014) finds research suggests that informal organizational rela- that while hippies use ornate forms of language to sig- tionships chronically crisscross formal and semifor- nal their defiance of mainstream British society, bik- mal boundaries (Biancani et al. 2014, Srivastava 2015). ers do the same through pervasive use of profanities. There is no a priori reason to believe that cultural vari- Willis links these different linguistic styles with the ation necessarily forms along formal rather than infor- hippies’ middle-class and bikers’ working-class back- mal fault lines (e.g., occupational ones; see Van Maanen grounds, arguing that the latter’s use of vulgar lan- and Barley 1984). guage relates to their celebration of muscularity. Rather than reifying formal organizational units as As Pinker (2007) points out, swear words invoke meaningful cultural groups, we make two different strong emotions and are a form of symbolic violence assumptions. First, we assume that the linguistic man- and power display. By extension, an organizational cul- ifestations of cultural fit might vary across settings ture that is tolerant of the use of swear words might and groups within an organization. Even organiza- indicate a shared value system that accepts aggres- tions with strong and uniformly shared beliefs and sion and coercion as legitimate forms of interpersonal value systems might exhibit variation in the normative coordination. Contrast such an organization with the expressions of these shared understandings. Kitchen Body Shop, where the expression of emotion is nor- workers in Fine’s (1996) ethnography of restaurant matively encouraged.6 Such “bounded emotionality” work, for example, converge on a variety of linguis- (Martin et al. 1998) is reflective of an underlying belief tic conventions for expressing flavor (e.g., “cooked to system that values personal well-being and commu- death” versus “soothing”), even if they have similar nity and that rejects the assumption that workplace conceptualizations of what “good” taste constitutes. stress enhances productivity. As these examples illus- Second, we assume that in organizations with a suffi- trate, linguistic alignment between an individual and ciently large number of employees (e.g., several hun- her peers can serve as an indication of that individual’s dred), people cannot feasibly interact with more than level of cultural fit. a subset of members. It is the set of colleagues with whom an organizational member interacts on a fre- Linguistic Reference Group quent basis who form an impression of that individ- Any investigation of cultural fit must contend with ual’s degree of cultural assimilation and who are most the choice of reference group against which to com- consequential for determining the individual’s cul- pare a focal individual’s degree of fit. The extant lit- tural fit. erature commonly distinguishes between two levels of Consequently, we shift the focus from a formal to fit: person–organization (PO) and person–group (PG) informal structure and conceptualize cultural fit as the fit, the latter normally conceived of as the individual’s linguistic alignment between an individual and her fit with her department or functional unit. The dif- interaction partners in the organization. In organiza- ference between these two constructs is not merely a tions with a strong homogeneous culture, this opera- matter of level of analysis. While PO fit relates to align- tionalization will be very consistent with PO and PG ment between the individual and the baseline beliefs approaches to measuring cultural fit. In more frag- and values shared across all members of the organiza- mented (and arguably more typical) organizations, tion, PG fit is more attuned to the specific assumptions however, our approach has the advantage of being and norms evolved in one’s particular organizational robust to cultural heterogeneity within the organiza- unit. Research indicates that both types of fit tend to tion and to mismatches between the culture observed be correlated and are generally predictive of individual within formal organizational boundaries and that pre-
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. attainment and positive group and organization out- vailing in informal patterns of interaction. comes (Kristof-Brown et al. 2005, Adkins and Caldwell 2004, Elfenbein and O’Reilly 2007). Both constructs presume that organizational cul- An Interactional Language-Use Model of ture follows the contours of formal organizational Enculturation structure. This assumption introduces problems for We define cultural fit as an individual’s level of linguis- both constructs. First, PO fit assumes a unitary cul- tic compatibility with her interaction partners during a ture across the entire organization. Yet many organi- given observation window and an enculturation trajec- zations exhibit cultural differentiation across distinct tory as the temporal pattern of individual cultural fit.7 Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS 7
Our measure of cultural fit is defined in terms where the JS divergence between the two probability of textual records of interactional language use (e.g., distributions is defined as email exchanges, text messages, phone call transcripts). We assume a method ϕ for mapping texts to linguistic JS O I 1 KL O M + 1 KL I M , (4) ( k ) 2 ( k ) 2 ( k ) units in lexicon L (e.g., words, bigrams, noun phrases, emotional categories). To reduce the effects of domain- and where M 1 O + I and KL O M is the Kullback- 2 ( ) ( k ) and task-specific vocabulary, we use the Linguistic Leibler (KL) divergence of M from O: Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) (Pennebaker et al. 2007) lexicon as the mapping method ϕ to code each X O l KL O M O l log2 ( ) . (5) email message relative to a set of semantic categories. ( k ) l L ( ) M l ∈ ( ) The LIWC is an established framework for measuring linguistic style (e.g., as reflected in the use of pronouns, JS divergence is a symmetric measure of dissimilar- swearing, or negations) that allows us to measure inter- ity between two probability distributions. It smooths locutors’ normative, as opposed to substantive, linguis- the KL divergence values and ensures that they are tic congruence.8 Measuring alignment with respect to always finite. As we have defined it here in terms of these linguistic categories helps to ensure that our mea- log , its values always fall in the interval 0, 1 . This 2 [ ] sure of cultural fit does not merely reflect functional approach builds on previous efforts to estimate linguis- coordination between two individuals. For example, tic accommodation using probabilistic language mod- two employees troubleshooting a customer problem els (Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil et al. 2012, Hughes et al. may be using the same terminology in email exchanges 2012). We have found that the smoothing properties of in which they diagnose the problem, but whereas one our measure are particularly well suited to the sparse, interlocutor may be using swear words, the other might power-law distribution of words in natural language not. Such an interaction is culturally incongruent, even use (Zipf 1949, Baayen 2001, Piantadosi 2014). if topically aligned. The intuition behind JS is fairly straightforward. The We segment the data into monthly observation win- term log2 O l M l in Equation (5) equals 0 when dows to study trajectories of enculturation. To mea- O l M (l ((that)/ is,( )) when the probability of linguis- sure the cultural fit of individual i during period T, tic( unit) l( is) equal in both distributions). The prod- we tokenize each textual record—in our case, email uct O l log2 O l M l increases as O l grows and messages—into LIWC category frequencies, and we O l ( )M l (. Thus,( )/ ( the)) summation in( Equation) (5) create two probability distributions giving the normal- grows( ) when( ) high probability units in O have signifi- ized frequencies for linguistic units in i’s outgoing and cantly lower probability in M.9 KL divergence can be incoming messages in T. Let −→m it be a message sent by interpreted as the amount of information necessary to person i at time t, let ←−m it be a message received by translate one distribution into another; when it equals person i at time t, and let l L be the list of 64 LIWC ∈ zero, the two distributions are identical. Because M is categories. Our procedure iterates over all messages the average between the two distributions O (i’s out- l and for each produces −→m it , which counts the number going messages) and I (i’s incoming messages), then if of terms relating to LIWC category l contained in mes- the two are identical, both perfectly predict their aver- sage −→m it . It then aggregates over all messages −→m it sent age, leading to JS O I 0. As O and I diverge, their by person i during period t T to produce the nor- ( k ) ∈ averaged dissimilarity in Equation (4) increases, and malized probability of category l for person i during therefore, i’s cultural fit in Equation (3) decreases.10 period T, as follows: Our language-based measurement approach over- l comes the fundamental limitations of self-report mea- −→m iT Ol . (1) sures that are commonly used to measure cultural iT P k k L −→m iT ∈ fit in organizations. First, because language use is a The procedure similarly normalizes over all messages behavioral outcome, our method is not subject to self- received by person i during period T to produce the report bias. Second, in relying on naturally occurring normalized probability over LIWC categories in i’s unstructured textual exchanges, it is not limited to
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. incoming messages: cultural dimensions assumed by the researcher and
l contained in a survey instrument. A language-based ←−m iT Il . (2) approach does not require the researcher to make the iT P k k L ←−m iT usual trade-off between the richness of ethnographic ∈ research and the reach of survey research. It instead We define i’s cultural fit at time T as the negative log of taps into more subtle forms of cultural difference the Jensen–Shannon (JS) divergence (Lin 1991) between among people. Third, since language use is pervasive, these two normalized distributions, stated formally: we can measure cultural fit at scale and at high gran- CF i log JS O I , (3) ularity over time. Fourth, as noted above, measuring T ( ) − ( ( iT k iT )) Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 8 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
cultural fit with respect to a person’s interaction part- predictive of individual attainment.12 We reasoned ners allows for the possibility of cultural heterogene- that, if our measure is reflective of cultural fit, it should ity across groups within the organization, as well as be positively associated with individual career suc- over time within individuals. Together, these features cess (O’Reilly et al. 1991). Consistent with this expecta- enable us to measure enculturation trajectories with tion, our measure of cultural fit strongly predicts both high resolution and in a consistent manner that enables positive and negative attainment in the organization. comparisons across individuals. Figure2 reports the cumulative probabilities of being promoted to a managerial position (positive attain- Data ment) and being asked to leave involuntarily (negative attainment), as estimated by two separate Cox pro- We obtained access to the complete corpus of elec- portional hazard models (each including controls for tronic messages—including metadata and content— sociodemographic and organizational attributes; see exchanged among the full-time employees at a Table 1 of the supplemental material for details). Rank- midsized technology company between 2009 and 2014. and-file employees with high cultural fit have a cumu- To protect employee privacy and company confiden- lative probability of 48% of being promoted to a man- tiality, we stored all data on secure research servers agerial position by the end of their third year at the that we purchased and installed at the firm, elim- firm (see Figure2, panel (A)), which is 1.5 and 2.7 times inated messages exchanged with parties external to greater than their counterparts who exhibit median fit the firm, excluded messages exchanged with any of and low cultural fit, respectively. The implications of the company’s attorneys, and deleted message con- low cultural fit for involuntary exit are particularly dra- tent and all identifying information about employees matic (see Figure2, panel (B)): at 46%, the cumulative after applying our natural language processing algo- probability of involuntary exit after three years is four rithms. The resulting data set included 10,236,668 dis- times greater for an employee with low cultural fit than tinct messages. it is for one with median cultural fit. In addition to email data, we obtained human Consistent with our expectations, cultural fit is not, resource records that included employee age, gender, however, a static personal attribute. Rather, for the tenure, and, for employees who departed the company, average employee, cultural fit follows an upward- whether this departure was voluntary or involuntary. sloping trend, as depicted in Figure3. For ease of We inferred departmental affiliations and promotions interpretation, cultural fit is standardized such that from distribution lists and applied additional refine- zero cultural fit corresponds to the average employee ments to the data. The resulting data set includes 9,885 at the firm. As the figure illustrates, newly hired person-month observations for 601 full-time employ- employees initially exhibit rapid linguistic accommo- ees. These form the basis of the analyses reported dation, reaching the mean level in the firm by the below.11 end of their first year. The growth rate of their cul- tural fit gradually decreases thereafter. In other words, Results our method demonstrates that newcomers to the firm Before testing our hypotheses related to encultura- are, on average, culturally adaptable; they achieve cul- tion trajectories, we sought to establish whether our tural assimilation despite initially being culturally dis- interactional-language-use measure of cultural fit is tant from their colleagues. It is also consistent with
Figure 2. Cumulative Probability of (A) Being Promoted to a Managerial Position and (B) Exiting Involuntarily, as Estimated by Separate Cox Proportional Hazard Models (A) Promotion (B) Involuntary exit 0.5 0.5 Low cultural fit (5th %ile) 0.4 Median cultural fit 0.4 High cultural fit (95th %ile)
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0.2 0.2
0.1 0.1 Cumulative probability Cumulative probability
0 0 6 1218243036 6 1218243036 Months employed Months employed Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS 9
Figure 3. Cultural Fit (Standardized) as a Function of cultural fit (as discerned from conversations we con- Number of Months Employed ducted with its chief people officer), newcomers exhibit 0.4 large variation in initial levels of fit. If cultural fit relates to a person’s ability to integrate successfully with her 0.3 colleagues, as we hypothesized earlier, then we should
0.2 find that different enculturation trajectories explain dif- ferences in individual outcomes in the firm. 0.1 We test our hypotheses by differentiating among three types of employees: (1) those who remained 0 2 employed, (2) those who left the firm involuntarily, –0.1 Employed and (3) those who left voluntarily. As noted above, we
Cultural fit Voluntarily departed interpret involuntary departure as indication of rejec- –0.2 0 tion by colleagues and voluntary departure as an indi- cation of weakened attachment. Figure4 reports the –0.3 Involuntarily Cultural fit departed –2 marginal effects of tenure on cultural fit for these differ- –0.4 ent employee types as estimated by several fixed-effects 6 1218 243036 models. –0.5 6 1218243036 The first model, reported in panel (A), estimates Months employed cultural fit as a function of months of employment. Tenure in months and its square term are interacted Notes. The main diagram plots a cubic linear fit with 95% confidence interval (black line) and mean observed values (gray dots). The inset with dummy variables for voluntary and involun- plots enculturation trajectories of varying lengths of tenure at the tary exit, such that nondeparted employees serve as firm for 30 randomly sampled employees. Highlighted employees the omitted category. We include period (monthly) vary in employment status. fixed effects to account for unobserved heterogene- ity that is time related—for instance, firm-level (e.g., previous work that assumes enculturation entails dis- growth, contraction, or changes in hiring practices) and tinct phases. market-level (e.g., supply of job applicants) variation Yet the general trend illustrated in Figure3 masks that might systematically affect cultural fit, departure considerable heterogeneity. Employees vary signifi- and entry rates, or individual outcomes. We constrain cantly in their average and peak levels of linguistic the sample to three years of employment to enable accommodation, as well as in their overall encultur- a comparison between employee types.13 The results ation trajectories, as the inset of Figure3 (plotting a are consistent with our hypotheses; namely, retained random sample of individuals) illustrates. While the employees exhibit an increase in cultural fit, involun- average employee at the firm exhibits positive encul- tarily departed employees do not exhibit a statistically turation throughout her career, some employees expe- significant increase in cultural fit, and those departing rience a decline in cultural fit. Moreover, although the voluntarily follow an inverted U-shaped pattern of firm in question puts a strong emphasis on hiring on enculturation.
Figure 4. Marginal Effect of Tenure on Cultural Fit (Standardized), as Estimated by (A) Period Fixed-Effects Model, (B) Matched-Pair Fixed-Effects Model, and (C) Two Independent Individual Fixed-Effects Models
(A) Period fixed-effects model (B) Matched-pair fixed effects model (C) Individual fixed-effects models 0.4 0.4 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0 0 0 –0.1 –0.1 –0.2 –0.1 –0.2
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Cultural fit –0.4 Cultural fit Cultural fit –0.4 –0.3 –0.5 –0.6 –0.5 Nondeparted Nondeparted –0.4 –0.6 –0.7 Voluntarily departed Voluntarily departed –0.5 Voluntarily departed –0.8 Involuntarily departed –0.7 Involuntarily departed Involuntarily departed –0.9 –0.8 –0.6 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 Tenure (months) Tenure (standardized) Tenure (standardized)
Notes. Effects plotted by employment status. Shaded areas correspond to 95% confidence intervals. Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 10 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
However, the estimates reported in panel (A) exhibit their colleagues’ acceptance; we interpret their consis- a degradation in confidence intervals as time goes tent positive enculturation as an indication of a strong by because departed employees drop out of the sam- attachment to the organization. ple. Moreover, as Figure3 illustrates, we observe that By contrast, and consistent with Hypothesis2, those employees differ not only in their enculturation trajec- who eventually leave involuntarily fail to accommo- tories but also in their rates of enculturation: among date their colleagues linguistically from the moment those who enculturate, some do so quickly whereas they join the organization. The first third of their tenure others take longer to meet their peers’ level of cultural is characterized by consistently low cultural fit, which fit. We assume that the consequences of enculturation is then followed by a gradual decline that moves them are affected by these differences in individual tempo— culturally further apart from their nondeparted coun- that is, that cultural adaptation and its relationship terparts. This lack of cultural adaptability has many with individual outcomes is related to an individual’s causes, which vary across individuals and situations, life cycle at the firm rather than to that person’s abso- and that may be related to individual motivation or to lute number of months at the firm. Consequently, we capabilities (Weber and Camerer 2003, Harrison and standardized time by employees’ tenure at the firm, Carroll 2006, Jones 1986); regardless, these individuals’ such that it ranges from 0 to 1. Let ei be the month inability to enculturate portends their failure to gain of entry for individual i, and let di be the month of their peers’ acceptance and to integrate successfully departure for that individual. We calculate standard- into the firm. ized tenure as τ t e d e , where t corre- i ( i − i)/( i − i) i Those departing voluntarily, on the other hand, fol- sponds to the month individual i is observed at the low a different trajectory. Initially, they are statistically firm. indistinguishable from nondeparted colleagues who While departed employees are observed throughout had joined the firm at the same time. Both groups their tenure in the firm, observations of nondeparted follow the same upward trajectory of enculturation. employees are right censored: some may leave in the Once they peak in cultural fit, roughly at their half- future. Because we do not observe their departure, life in the firm, those who depart voluntarily begin we cannot standardize their tenure. To address these to exhibit a decline. Unlike those who end up leav- problems, we employ a matched-pairing approach. ing the firm involuntarily, those who exit voluntar- We randomly pair each departed employee with one ily are clearly capable of adapting. It appears that at nondeparted employee in the month of arrival to the some point in their tenure, they cease to accommodate firm, and we model both employees’ cultural fit only their colleagues linguistically. Consistent with Hypoth- throughout the departed employee’s tenure. We stan- esis3, this late decline in cultural compatibility with dardize the nondeparted employee’s tenure by the colleagues appears to foreshadow an intention to leave departed employee’s. That is, for each departed indi- 14 vidual i, we randomly matched a nondeparted indi- the organization. Although our modeling strategy allows us to com- vidual i0 such that e e and define τ τ . Thus, i i0 i0t it we compare departed employees’ cultural fit to that pare nondeparted employees to those departing vol- of their counterparts who had joined the firm at untarily or involuntarily within the same model, it the same time and have remained in the firm since. precludes usage of individual fixed effects (given that We model cultural fit as a function of standardized exit type is fixed per person). We therefore cannot rule tenure and, once again, use interaction terms to differ- out that the different patterns depicted in panel (B) of entiate between exit types (with nondeparted employ- Figure4 are attributable to stable differences among ees serving as the omitted category; see Section 3 of individuals (such as those related to human capi- the supplemental material for more details). We also tal or to psychological capabilities that facilitate cul- include matched-pair fixed effects. Our modeling strat- tural assimilation). To address this limitation, we egy allows us to account for heterogeneity in indi- model cultural fit by standardized tenure using an vidual tenure lengths among the departed as well as individual fixed-effects model estimated separately address unobserved time-related heterogeneity. for voluntarily and involuntarily departed individu-
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. Panel (B) of Figure4 illustrates the marginal effects als (excluding nondeparted individuals). Individual of standardized tenure on cultural fit as estimated by fixed-effects models account for unobserved hetero- this matched-pairs model. The three employee types geneity across individuals and therefore mitigate con- exhibit distinct enculturation trajectories. Confirming cerns about omitted variable bias (Greene 2012). They extant literature on the relationship between cultural allow us to isolate individual enculturation trajectories fit and attainment, and consistent with Hypothesis1, by examining the relationship of within-person tenure individuals who are retained by the organization change on cultural fit, net of an individual’s baseline exhibit a gradual increase in their level of cultural cultural fit. The marginal effects estimated by these alignment. Not only do these individuals seem to gain models are illustrated in panel (C) of Figure4. 15 They Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS 11
reproduce the trends illustrated in panel (B) of Figure4, Table 1. Cox Proportional Hazard Models of Exit suggesting that the differences in enculturation trajec- tories by exit type cannot be explained merely by dif- Model 1: Model 2: Involuntary Voluntary ferences in individual baseline capacity for cultural fit. The different trajectories depicted in the three pan- Enculturation rate 0.086∗∗ 0.281 2.66 1.40 els of Figure4 are striking. However, because we do (− ) (− ) not have access to the cognitive processes producing Initial fit 0.575∗∗ 0.681 2.97 1.57 these results, only to their behavioral manifestations, (− ) (− ) Age 1.119 0.967 we cannot determine their causes. It is nevertheless evi- 1.00 0.25 ( ) (− ) dent that, whereas the voluntarily departed are capable Age2 0.999 1.000 of enculturation, the involuntarily departed are either 0.49 0.07 (− )( ) incapable of cultural adaptation or unwilling to adapt. Female 1.286 1.927∗ Given that involuntary departure is imposed on the 0.88 2.10 ( )( ) individual, while voluntary departure is a choice, we Manager 0.857 1.098 0.31 0.21 interpret these results as suggesting that lack of cul- (− )( ) tural adaptability relates to a negative reception by col- Department controls Yes Yes leagues, whereas a drop in cultural fit for previously N 8,238 8,238 χ2 37.370 20.386 encultured individuals is indicative of a decline in an Log-likelihood 2,003.94 1,656.18 − − individual’s attachment to the organization. Number of exits 68 56 The results in Figure4 also point to the importance Note. Exponentiated coefficients; t-statistics in parentheses. of enculturation, relative to initial cultural fit. By the ∗ p < 0.05; ∗∗ p < 0.01; ∗∗∗ p < 0.001. time the departed leave the firm, the three employee types exhibit different levels of cultural fit: those still employed by the firm are significantly above average; and early enculturation reduce the risk of involun- those voluntarily exiting are significantly below aver- tary, but not voluntary, departure: a one-third standard age; and those leaving involuntarily exhibit dramati- deviation increase in cultural fit per month (which cally low levels of cultural fit, significantly lower than roughly corresponds to the 90th percentile of encul- the average newcomer’s ( 0.52 compared with 0.3; turation rate) decreases the hazard ratio of involun- − − 16 see Figure3). This is not the case upon arrival at tary exit by 30%. In other words, failure to assimilate the firm, however. Although the nondeparted exhibit early on appears to be related to a failure to receive relatively high levels of cultural fit when they join acceptance by others but not to one’s attachment to the the firm (panel (A)), because there is great variability organization. in initial cultural fit and in tenure lengths, employee We report the results from Model 1 in Table1 types are statistically indistinguishable when they are as cumulative hazards in Figure5. We distinguish properly matched (panel (B)). The different encultur- between different levels of initial cultural fit and early ation signatures depicted in Figure4 strongly sug- adaptation rates, depicting hazard for newcomers with gest that employees’ fates are not merely the result low initial cultural fit and either high (black solid line) of their prehire cultural fit but also their capacity for or low (black dashed line) enculturation rates, new- enculturation. As we hypothesized, initial encultur- comers with high initial cultural fit and either high ation seems particularly consequential for successful (gray solid line) or low (gray dashed line) encultura- integration: those who do not adapt to their colleagues tion rates, and newcomers at the median level of ini- early on appear to be at high risk of being asked to tial fit and with median enculturation rate (light gray leave. sparsely dashed line). Although those entering the firm To explore this further, we calculated the encultura- with high cultural fit are at lower risk of being asked to tion rate for each employee during her first six months leave (with a one-standard-deviation increase in initial at the firm, which, as our nonstandardized estimates fit reducing the overall risk of involuntary exit by more
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. (panel (A)) and previous evidence (Bauer et al. 1998) than 40%; see Table1), the rate of initial enculturation suggest, is the critical period during which early encul- can offset the consequences of initial cultural fit. New- turation unfolds. We do so by fitting a simple linear comers with initially low cultural fit who are quick to model, effectively measuring the slope of cultural fit adapt (solid black line) fare better than those entering during a newcomer’s first six months. We estimated with median fit and who adapt at a median rate (gray two Cox proportional hazard models, estimating the sparsely dashed line), or even those entering with high risk of involuntary and voluntary departure as a func- cultural fit but who are culturally inadaptable (dashed tion of this slope and various control variables. As gray line). It appears that one’s capacity to enculturate the results in Table1 demonstrate, initial cultural fit is at least as important as one’s initial level of fit. Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 12 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
Figure 5. Hazard of Involuntary Exit as a Function of Yet our results go beyond reaffirming that cultural fit Initial Cultural Fit and Rate of Enculturation During a matters; importantly, they also shed light on the pro- Newcomer’s First Six Months, Estimated with a Cox cesses by which individuals adapt to their colleagues Proportional Hazard Model within the organization. Measuring cultural fit over time enables us to theorize about and empirically test propositions related to a novel construct in socializa- tion research: enculturation trajectories. We find that people are, on average, highly capable of encultura-
tion and that different outcomes in the organization are associated with unique enculturation trajectories. In other words, how people enculturate, not merely whether they enculturate, matters for their integra- tion into the firm. Previous literature has tended to conflate enculturation processes related to acceptance by others and those related to intrinsic attachment by treating turnover as a one-dimensional outcome.
#UMULATIVE PROBABILITY OF INVOLUNTARY EXIT By contrast, we distinguish between voluntary and involuntary exits and identify their different encultur- -ONTHS EMPLOYED ation signatures. Newcomers who do not rapidly con- form to cultural norms are rejected by their colleagues -EDIAN NEWCOMER and ultimately forced to exit, whereas those who had ,OW INITIAL FITn!DAPTABLE successfully enculturated earlier in their careers but ,OW INITIAL FITn)NADAPTABLE subsequently exhibited a decline in cultural fit appear (IGH INITIAL FITn!DAPTABLE (IGH INITIAL FITn)NADAPTABLE to detach from the organization and subsequently exit voluntarily. Note. Cumulative probability is plotted for different levels of Organizational scholars have theorized extensively employee’s initial cultural fit (low at the 25th percentile, median, and high at the 75th percentile, shade coded) and rate of enculturation about the dynamics and consequences of encultura- (low at the 5th percentile, median, and high at the 95th percentile, tion in organizations (Van Maanen and Schein 1979, line styling). Harrison and Carroll 2006, Wanous 1992, Bauer et al. 1998). Because individual enculturation is difficult to measure reliably and consistently, however, empirical Discussion and Conclusion work has often treated cultural fit as a static end state. The past three decades have seen the proliferation of Thus, cultural matching has typically been studied as a vast and multifaceted literature on cultural fit and a selection process whereby an individual either fits enculturation in organizations. Across these studies, or does not fit culturally with an organization, and one theme appears to be pervasive: those who are enculturation has been viewed as an early postentry able to fit culturally enjoy significant benefits, whether process whereby an individual either adapts success- in psychological well-being, increased performance, fully or fails to do so. Our findings are not inconsistent favorable perceptions by colleagues, or likelihood of with the view that a priori cultural fit, or early encul- retention. Indeed, these benefits accrue not only to turation, is consequential for eventual integration into the individual in question but also to the organi- a firm. Rather, we too find that initial cultural fit and zation as a whole; contemporary firms consequently early enculturation predict longevity at the firm. Yet invest considerable resources in cultural matching and the implications of cultural compatibility are not lim- enculturation. Using a language-based method for ited to entry. Variation in cultural fit at different stages measuring cultural fit that is more scalable, more eas- in a person’s tenure in an organization can provide a ily generalized across settings, higher in resolution, window into different underlying mechanisms. Early and less susceptible to biases than existing self-report in an individual’s tenure, low cultural fit is likely to be
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. measures, we were able to discern these difficult-to- associated with the failure to gain social acceptance by observe effects as they unfolded over time. Lending colleagues; later, it is likely to reflect low attachment. further support to the claim that cultural compati- This suggests that researchers and practitioners alike bility leads to attainment, our findings are consistent should pay more attention to enculturation trajectories with a large body of work on cultural fit in orga- as signatures of acceptance and attachment and as dif- nizations. Building on this vast literature, we use a ferentiated predictors of integration and attainment. language-based measure to provide further evidence Organizational leaders have not been blind to corpo- that cultural alignment is consequential for individual rate culture. To the contrary, some argue that the pre- survival and success in an organization. vailing tendency to cultivate strong corporate cultures Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS 13
constitutes a managerial fad (Abrahamson 1996). Pop- setting, we suspect that these patterns are likely to ular depictions of cultural management have tended to extend to other for-profit and nonprofit organizations. focus on screening on cultural fit or on early cultural Whether because of measurement difficulty or theoret- training (for a recent example, see Bouton 2015), but, ical focus, economic research has tended to downplay as our findings show, enculturation is an ongoing pro- the effects of cultural fit and adaptation on organi- cess. It therefore requires continuous cultivation. In an zational success. Our findings suggest, however, that organization that consciously invests significant time variability in cultural adaptability is consequential for and effort to hire on cultural fit, it is striking that we individual outcomes and, as others have shown, influ- observe tremendous variability in initial cultural fit. ences organizational effectiveness (Weber and Camerer This seems to suggest that the individual differences 2003, Harrison and Carroll 2006, Van den Steen 2010). in cultural compatibility observed in the literature Although firms are particular types of social sys- may not be merely a function of person–organization tems, we expect that our results will also apply in other, fit but also of variance in enculturability—an individ- less formal group settings (e.g., Fine 1987). For exam- ual’s capacity for and susceptibility to enculturation. ple, similar to culturally inadaptable employees, school It remains unclear whether enculturability is a fixed children incapable of cultural adaptation are probably individual trait that newcomers bring with them to at higher risk of being rejected by their classmates. An any new organization, whether it varies by individual inverted U-shaped trajectory of cultural adaptation, on experience (for example, if newcomers without previ- the other hand, would likely indicate a child’s transi- ous work experience are more amenable to cultural tion into a different social milieu at school, similar to an transmission; see Battilana and Dorado 2010), whether employee’s imminent voluntary departure. Indeed, the it is context dependent and therefore a property of interactional language use model we have developed the person–organization relationship, or whether it can be readily adapted to analyzing not only school changes during “sensitive periods” when people are socialization but also a wide range of other social especially likely to be imprinted by their social environ- dynamics and their implications for productivity. For ments (Marquis and Tilcsik 2013). Although we cannot example, analyses of the communication patterns of explore these questions further in our data, our find- scientists could help research centers in selecting indi- ings suggest that identifying antecedents to encultur- viduals for, and constructing teams that engage in, ability may be as effective as hiring on cultural fit or interdisciplinary research projects. posthire cultural training. Individual-level measures of cultural fit and adapta- Questions naturally arise about the causal rela- tion can also be aggregated to higher levels of analysis tionships among individual enculturation, linguistic and, in similar fashion, have the potential to pave new accommodation, and attainment. It is conceivable, theoretical pathways about culture change in groups for example, that unobserved attributes of individ- and organizations. For example, cultural fit can be cal- uals are associated with their tendency to encultur- culated not between a focal actor and a reference group ate and linguistically accommodate others, as well of all active interlocutors but instead between all pairs as their likelihood of achieving success in the orga- of individuals that constitute the organization. This nization. Although we cannot conclusively rule out dyad-level measure could then be aggregated to the these possibilities, the individual fixed-effects mod- level of functions, departments, or teams. Group-level els reported in panel (C) of Figure4—which account measures of fit could be used to inform organization for time-invariant, unobserved heterogeneity among design choices—for example, determining which sub- individuals—partially mitigate such concerns about units would be most culturally compatible with one spuriousness. At the same time, however, and in keep- another if they were combined or which departments ing with general findings in sociolinguistics that lan- actually consist of multiple, culturally fragmented sub- guage use and social identity are inseparable (Rickford groups. In a similar fashion, dyad-level measures of and Eckert 2001), it is likely that anticipated attainment cultural fit could be aggregated to the level of organi- outcomes have reciprocal effects on enculturation and zations as a whole. Such measures could, for example, linguistic accommodation. Language use is both an yield useful diagnostic information about the relative Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. outcome and a cause: it reflects self-perceptions about ease or difficulty of merging two firms. Computational one’s social standing, and it acts as an identity signal sociolinguistic techniques will continue to provide us that affects others’ judgments. Our findings are consis- with novel ways of understanding these cultural pro- tent with such a mutually constitutive interplay among cesses and their impact on organizational dynamics. language, identity, and social outcomes. We treat lan- guage use as the behavioral signature of the complex Acknowledgments processes that underlie organizational integration. The first two authors listed are joint first authors; other Although one should take caution in generalizing authors are listed in alphabetical order. The authors thank findings based on observational data from a single Soo Min Cho for research assistance, as well as Jennifer Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 14 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
Chatman, Mathijs de Vaan, Andreea Gorbatai, Stine Grodal, Figure A.2. (Color online) Examples of Normalized Ming Leung, Jo-Ellen Pozner, Jesper Sørensen, Glenn Carroll, Distributions Over LIWC Categories During a Given Shai Bernstein, and participants of the Strategic Management Month for a Hypothetical Reference Group and Two Seminar at the University of Toronto, the Interdisciplinary Hypothetical Individuals Committee on Organizational Studies (ICOS) Seminar Series Reference group LIWC distribution at the University of Michigan, the Strategy and Policy Sem- 0.10 inar at the National University of Singapore, the Strategy
Seminar at INSEAD, and the Organization and Management 0.05 Seminar at Yale School of Management for valuable input.
0 Appendix A. Illustration of the Cultural Fit Model To illustrate how our cultural fit measure works, we pro- Person A LIWC distribution JS = 0.5197 CF = 0.6546 vide two email examples. To protect the company’s and its 0.3 employees’ identities, we draw these emails from two pub- 0.2 licly available data sources: the WikiLeaks Sony Archive (available at https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails, accessed 0.1 August 25, 2016) and the Enron email archive (avail- 0 able at http://www.ferc.gov/industries/electric/indus-act/ wec/enron/info-release.asp, accessed August 25, 2016). For Person B LIWC distribution JS = 0.159 CF = 1.8386 comparison, we include one email sent by Amy Pascal, who 0.15 was chairperson of the Motion Pictures Group at Sony Pic- 0.10 tures Entertainment at the time, and another by Kenneth Lay, chairman and chief executive officer of Enron at the time. 0.05 The email contents and their normalized frequencies over 0 LIWC categories are illustrated in Figure A.1. The two emails clearly differ in content, tone, and style, which translates into different normalized frequencies. Figure A.2 (for illustration purposes, we choose uneven dis- Our procedure iterates over all emails sent and received tributions). We also report the JS divergences between these by focal individual i during period T to create outgoing and two outgoing distributions and the incoming distribution, as incoming probability distributions, as described above. We well as their corresponding levels of cultural fit (CF). As is illustrate a probability distribution over LIWC categories for easily visible, person B’s distribution is more congruent with a hypothetical set of incoming messages, as well as two distri- the incoming reference group’s and consequently has lower butions of outgoing messages for two hypothetical people in JS and higher CF than person A’s.
Figure A.1. (Color online) Examples of Emails and Their Normalized Frequencies Over LIWC
Sony Sony Enron
Achievement Achievement Adverbs Adverbs Affect Affect Anger Anger Article Article Aux verb Aux verb Biological Biological Body Body Cause Cause Certain Certain Cognitive process Cognitive process Conjunction Conjunction Discrepancy Discrepancy Exclusive Exclusive Feel Feel Filler Filler Friends Friends Future Future Hear Hear Humans Humans I I Inclusive Inclusive Inhibition Inhibition Insight Insight Impersonal pronoun Impersonal pronoun Leisure Leisure Money Money Enron Motion Motion Negation Negation Negative emotion Negative emotion Numbers Numbers Past Past Perceptual Perceptual Positive emotion Positive emotion Personal pronoun Personal pronoun Preposition Preposition Present Present Pronoun Pronoun Quantifier Quantifier Relativity Relativity Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. Sad Sad See See Sexual Sexual 3rd person 3rd person Social Social Space Space Swear Swear Tentative Tentative Time Time Verbs Verbs We We Work Work You You 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.10 Normalized frequency Normalized frequency
Notes. For illustration, two words are highlighted and mapped to their corresponding LIWC categories. “Total function word” category omitted for ease of presentation. Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS 15
The examples above are illustrative. To help validate Table B.1. Backward Selection Analysis our measure of cultural fit, we conducted a supplemen- tal analysis using another publicly available data set: Column LIWC category the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA; 1 First person singular http://corpus.byu.edu/coca/). We applied our cultural fit 2 Sadness model to the entire 2010–2012 “spoken” subcorpus, which 3 Friends consists of speech fragments from television and radio 4 Numbers shows. Our analysis, reported in full in Goldberg et al. (2016), 5 Exclusive demonstrates that TV networks exhibit distinctive cultures. 6 Article 7 Future 8 Relativity Appendix B. Cultural Content 9 Family Our approach is generally agnostic to the cultural content 10 Causation being exchanged, such that different individuals might be 11 Social processes determined to have similar levels of cultural fit even if they 12 Death use different words and communicate about distinct topics. 13 Work What matters is the extent to which their communication 14 Second person aligns with that of their interlocutors, as reflected in their 15 Quantifiers word distributions over LIWC categories. 16 Fillers Nevertheless, to further validate our approach, we imple- 17 Negation mented a backward selection analysis to identify the LIWC 18 Leisure categories that matter most for cultural fit in the specific orga- nization we study. The backward selection procedure orders LIWC categories, weighted by their inverse frequency in the Endnotes 1 email corpus, based on their relative contribution to vari- The term “socialization” is typically used to describe several dimen- ance in individual cultural fit. Weighting term frequency by sions of individual adjustment, which include role clarification, task its inverse document frequency (conventionally referred to mastery, and cultural assimilation (Bauer et al. 2007). As Schneider et al. (2013) point out, the literatures on organizational culture and as term frequency-inverse document frequency, or TF-IDF in socialization have grown increasingly apart in recent years. Work short) is a common approach in linguistic analysis for identi- on socialization typically does not focus on cultural compatibility fying linguistic units with high information content. (Bauer and Erdogan 2014), whereas research on organizational cul- Our iterative procedure removes LIWC categories one by ture has tended to downplay processes of socialization. We use the one in order of their contribution to variance, until all cat- term “enculturation” because it specifically denotes the process of egories have been removed. In each step, the procedure cultural adjustment. identifies the highest contributor to variance by running 2 Longitudinal designs typically survey respondents in 4- to 12- multiple regression analyses. Each regression estimates cul- month intervals, leaving much to be missed in between. tural fit with all remaining LIWC categories (weighted by 3 Self-report methods differ as to whether they elicit self-perceptions their inverse document frequency), excluding a different cat- of cultural fit (e.g., Chao et al. 1994) or use more indirect approaches egory at a time. The LIWC category whose exclusion con- (e.g., Chatman 1991). But because they invariably rely on data col- tributes to the greatest decline in R2 is then determined to lected through surveys—as opposed to naturally occurring behav- be the greatest contributor to variance for that step. At the ioral manifestations of cultural fit—they are all, to varying degrees, end of the procedure, we arrayed the LIWC categories by susceptible to measurement constraints. Scholars are naturally aware the magnitude of decline in R2 that their removal produced. of these limitations (e.g., Bauer et al. 1998) and have devised inven- The result of this procedure is reported in Table B.1. tive ways to overcome them. The Organizational Culture Profile Removing the “First person singular” category resulted (O’Reilly et al. 1991), for example, cleverly uses the Q-sort method to elicit individual value orientations. This approach is neverthe- in the biggest drop in R2. Removing “Sadness” resulted 2 less resource intensive and therefore limited in granularity, relies in the second biggest drop in R , and so on. After cate- on prominent informants to devise the parameters of organizational 2 gory 18 (“Leisure”) the subsequent declines in R were no culture, and is ultimately constrained by the dimensions contained longer statistically significant. Thus, we consider these 18 cat- in the survey. egories as the most important for cultural fit. The fact that 4 Our distinction between behavioral and cognitive cultural fit is anal- categories such as “Sadness,” “Friends,” “Death,” “Family,” ogous to de Saussure’s (1972) distinction between langue and parole. “Social processes,” and “Negation” are on the list supports Interlocutors observe each other’s parole, the enactments of which are the view that our measure is measuring normative com- governed by a shared cognitive representation of langue. In that vein,
Downloaded from informs.org by [171.67.216.23] on 04 March 2017, at 15:04 . For personal use only, all rights reserved. pliance, and potentially tapping more fundamental cogni- spoken language can be thought of as the behavioral manifestation tive orientations. Organizational cultures (and subcultures) of cognitive cultural fit. vary in the extents to which they implicitly allow or frown 5 Swearing is the least common linguistic category in the email cor- upon the expression of sadness or disagreement, discus- pus used for this study. The use of swear words, although rare, is thus sions of death, and reference to friendship or other social an extremely strong linguistic indicator of cultural misalignment in processes in email communication (as the illustrative exam- the organization used as our research site. ples in Appendix A also demonstrate). Thus, it appears 6 For a nuanced view of the seeming incompatibility between mas- our measure is indeed tapping into an important facet of culine and emotional cultures, see O’Neill and Rothbard (2015). organizational culture and is indicative of individual-level 7 Our language-based measure taps into an important facet of behav- cultural fit. ioral cultural fit. It does not, however, encompass all aspects of Srivastava et al.: Enculturation Trajectories 16 Management Science, Articles in Advance, pp. 1–17, © 2017 INFORMS
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