Cultural adaptation (acculturation) and its main stages

No matter how effective personnel selection processes are, new employees cannot get to know corporate culture and comply at once. That is why a company makes efforts to facilitate the process of corporate culture acquisition for new employees. This process of adaptation is called socialization or acculturation, i.e. the process is related to learning new cultural values.

An employee acutely feels the need to learn more about corporate culture in several situations: in unclear, vague or extraordinary; artificially created that employ knowledge of corporate culture. In the latter case we deal with training sessions that companies arrange for new employees (so-called RJPs – Realistic Job Previews), special programmes of ‘introduction to a new position’, some rehearsals of a real activity aimed at helping new employees to visualize corporate reality before or just after taking on a new job.

The first training session for new Proctor&Gamble’s employees, for instance, covers such topics as the principal objective of the company and its corporate values, the structure of the company, leadership methods and principles, personal professional growth, methods of handling customers, behavioural norms, etc. New Disneyland employees spend the first two working days watching films and attending lectures on a Disney employees’ behaviour and appearance. Training process in some companies may last up to a year – it includes IQ tests, teamwork etc.

Though training sessions make use of various resources and methods (lectures, videos, texts etc.). the aim of such training sessions is to give a new comer a “vaccination”, to prevent a new member from cherishing wrong assumptions and expectations. Materials, distributed at such sessions, give information on corporate values, symbols, management style, collaboration models, competition and support.

Companies usually arrange other programmes and training sessions outside their immediate office. Yet, all these methods have a drawback: they present the official point of view on corporate culture, desirable rather than real corporate values, officially recognized methods and processes rather than true ones. Unofficial information is always more useful for new members. More real contexts make new members more motivated to master cultural material, working contexts make information more meaningful.

While discussing acculturation, we should not see it as a one-way process, i.e. we should not think that it is only a company that influences a new employee. In fact, it is a two-way process, since a new member also influences his/her environment, staff members as well as corporate climate in general.

When new employees join a company is a very significant stage. It is on this stage that the company ‘makes worker fit in’, carves him/her into an ideal employee. Those new members who fail to master behavioural norms may become non-conformist, which later may lead to dismissal. A company continues adaptation of its new employees as long as they work for it, though it does not happen so obviously and intensively. Acculturation can be divided into several stages.

At the preliminary stage (up to an actual employment day) a new member gets information on his potential place of work in order to join the company with certain expectations and set of values. To a certain extent, the preliminary stage of acculturation is experienced in business-schools that provide their students with information on relations and behavioural patterns in the business world. This stage covers more than just a certain position in a certain company. An applicant forms a general idea of a company and of its employees.

At the clash stage, a new member faces real work in a company and compares it with his/her expectations. If his/her expectations have been more or less met, this stage just confirms assumptions formed before. If the expectations and the reality do not agree, a new member gets through the process of acculturation that would replace the previous assumptions with new ones that would correspond to rules, established in a company. At worst, a new member will be absolutely disappointed and quit. As a rule, the thoroughly elaborated process of personnel selection excludes this possibility.

And, finally, there is a metamorphosis stage. Here, a new employee have already solved all the issues of the previous stages. We can suppose that the process of acculturation has already been completed and there is a transformation: new employees feel comfortable and at ease in a new company. They have mastered all norms of corporate and group culture, they are self-confident and believe themselves to be competent enough to cope with tasks. They feel their colleagues respect and trust. They accept the company’s structure, rules, procedures and practices. They are aware of criteria for performance evaluation.

Significance of acculturation for maintaining corporate culture

One cannot overestimate significance of acculturation for a company’s corporate culture. Let’s discuss it in more detail.

As it has been mentioned, acculturation is a process of learning a culture of a company. Acculturation occurs every time a human being finds himself/herself in an unfamiliar environment, especially in new working conditions or mastering a new role (e.g. moving to a different locality or getting promoted). In this case, an employee has to master main skills of a new job, form relations with colleagues, understand norms and rules of a certain group.

When new members join a company, to become its part, they have to sacrifice part of their personal freedom and reject some of their assumptions, relations, values, if these do not agree with those of the company. Other employees must make new members understand what they are expected to do, what is a norm here, what is treated as the correct way of thinking/acting.

Different companies have different ideas of

• What is a well done job
• How much informality is allowed between colleagues
• Whether respect for the superior is/is not openly displayed and, if it is displayed, to what degree
• What dress code is expected
• How important to keep to working schedule
• What is the norm in relations with trade unions, colleagues, managers, clients
• How much employees are encouraged to communicate with colleagues outside the office

It is not enough for a new employee to be a qualified expert in order to become a full-right member of a company: he/she has to master all the rules and norms. Still, as some authors believe, a new member does not necessarily have to wholeheartedly believe in corporate values – one has to act in accordance with them.

Researchers into acculturation note that new members need to ease uncertainty, need to be able to foresee the future (colleagues reaction to new members, his/her attitude to corporate values and norms) and need to feel in control over the situation. The first step in acculturation is to understand how corporate culture helps companies’ employees. Employees of any company have a set of certain “reliable recipes”: collaborating within a number of shared values, they work out their methods of problem-solving in various situations. Looking for the right decision in an ambiguous situation, they ground this decision on the set of ‘reliable recipes’ that helps them to overcome difficulties.

To be a part of a group means mastering the set of assumptions, typical of all its members. The set may be treated differently: one may eagerly espouse and share these values and assumptions, one may resent them or subdue to the game rules. Still, in order to play any role within a group, a new member must be aware of this set of assumptions.

To become a part of a group means acknowledging its norms. Knowing what is considered the norm, what shared values exist in a company, a new employee can interpret what he/she observes, can foresee the future, can deal with uncertainty and surprises. Command of corporate culture is covert and unexpressed, it is contextual, informal, shared by all and amorphous, that is why it is a complicated task to teach corporate culture. For example, since the command of corporate culture is implicit, company members cannot just type them out in a text that would sum it up; since it is contextual, any statements without a context would be too sophisticated and ambiguous. Attempts to teach corporate culture may deliver only the official point of view rather than that of the majority of employees.

To master corporate culture resembles mastering a foreign language: ‘one has not only to learn how to write love letters but also when and to whom address them’. Or, as it was put by K.Geertz, it is an ability to tell winking from a meaningful conspiratorial sign.

Types of interactions during acculturation. Acculturation ‘agents’

Researchers into acculturation have acknowledged that this process is to a great degree implemented by new members and ‘agents’ (company members). As long as a new member turns into an ‘old-timer’, he/she has to get through a number of interpersonal processes that concern many aspects of acculturation: from mastering certain production activity through role relations in a group to living in the group and maintaining its culture.

Acculturation agents are company members (members of a relevant group or independent experts), other new employees, immediate boss, mentor, clients etc.

Relations in a group. Employees of an equal status contribute a lot to acculturation of a new member. They help him/her to interpret situations and to deal with problems, they explain informal roles, conventional methods and approaches cultivated in the company. The role of colleagues increases together with the significance, complexity of a task. Thus, for example, if a new employee has to deal with a lot of assignments and he/she has to single out those of a primary importance, it is his/her colleagues who can help him to do so. If a new employee turned to the boss, the latter, guided by official instructions, would probably say that all of the assignments are equally important for the company. It is interactions with equals that a new employee learns to deal with current problems. Watching colleagues, communicating with them, a new member becomes aware of not only his/her own place within the group, but also of the group norms, values and relations. Consequently, interactions with equals facilitate acculturation, in particular it enhances mastering group culture, including its norms, values, attitude to work and own place within a company.

Relations on the personal level. Sometimes, a new member establishes relations with one member of a group (in addition or instead of the whole group). A new member learns from this person how to understand certain production situations and how to act and in doing so he/she becomes emotionally attached. Here, it is very important how much older the ‘old-timer’ is: if the difference is great, a new employee may feel more respect but at the same time may feel difference between him/herself and the colleague. Yet, in any case, a colleague who has worked for a company for a long time is trusted more than a boss. As research data suggest, communication with colleagues is most useful in acculturation process.

Communication with other new employees. As a rule, new members feel better at ease while interacting with other new members. However, though new members can offer emotional support, they cannot help to deal with difficulties either, therefore they can provide false information. Consequently, acculturation process will be more complicated if a new employee communicates with his fellows: then he/she may neglect important rules or categories and may need more time to enter corporate culture.

Relations with superiors. An immediate boss in relations with a new member is an official ‘transmitter’ of corporate culture. His position, empowered to encourage or to punish, aroused less trust on the part of a new employee. Later on, a new member may establish other relations with the boss (that will reach further than official role distribution envisages) but it is hardly possible at initial stages of acculturation, since the superiors see and understand corporate culture differently from their subordinates. A boss may be a role model if he/she can be trusted and respected, but this is usually observed if there are no equals. Therefore, the immediate boss facilitates acculturation less than colleagues due to

· The fact that he/she knows less of inherent, covert relations on a lower level of the company;

· The fact that subordinates address to him less often for assistance.

The only sphere where superiors can help new employees is to realize interlevel relations (between departments of a lower and higher level).

Relations with a mentor. Unlike the boss, a mentor does not necessarily have to stand higher in a hierarchy to a new employee. Some companies develop special training courses where older employees teach younger ones. Mentors are volunteers, mentor and a trainee arrange their cooperation by themselves. A mentor provides less information on current assignments than other acculturation agents but he/she gives general information on past and future of the company. It is mentors’ advantages and disadvantages: providing a broad but rather abstract idea of corporate culture, a mentor cannot give prompts how to handle everyday problems. Consequently, relations with a mentor

• Facilitate acculturation process (in terms of ideology, corporate values, historical perspective of the company)
• Clarify a new employee’s place and role within the company.

Relations with clients. People who have no relations with the company but are only its clients, patients, partners etc. can also perform the function of ‘corporate culture conductors’. Communication with clients facilitates acculturation, in particular when norms, values, standard procedures are concerned.