Enculturation Essay ⋆ Business Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Enculturation is the process whereby an established culture influences and teaches an individual, group, or organization to the extent that the target adopts the particular culture’s values, norms, and behaviors and the target finds an accepted role within the established culture. The concept is distinct from acculturation, cultural adjustment, and cultural adaptation. The individual process of enculturation also applies to enculturation within organizations. An awareness of the processes of enculturation is important in effective intercultural training. The process of enculturation is not entirely passive or unconscious, as the cultural transmission (or transmutation) involves processes of teaching and learning that are reflective, deliberate, incidental, and functional.

The term enculturation was first coined by cultural anthropologist Melville Herskovits in 1948. Anthropologist Margaret Mead clearly defined enculturation in 1963 as a process distinct from socialization in that enculturation refers to the actual process of cultural learning with a specific culture whereas socialization refers to the universal developmental process of social learning. Enculturation is the process of learning a culture in all its uniqueness and particularity whereas socialization is a process common to all human societies. The process of enculturation establishes a context of boundaries and correctness that dictates what is and is not permissible within a society’s framework.

The concept of enculturation is also distinct from acculturation. Acculturation is the modification of the culture of a group or individual as a result of contact with a different culture. Enculturation is the original process whereby the learner acquires a primary cultural identity within their ethnic or organizational group apart from engagement with another culture. For example, consider the case of Company “A” and Company “B” merging. In this merger, enculturation refers to the initial process whereby the employees of Company A adopt Company A’s culture, whereas acculturation refers to the process whereby a Company A employee adopts some of the cultural values of Company B.

The process of enculturation includes learning about the material aspects of one’s own culture such as identifying symbols, ceremonial artefacts, and cultural icons. Acquiring the nonmaterial aspects of culture includes cultural values, attitudes, beliefs, and corresponding behavior patterns. For example, a child from an individualistic culture such as the United States may learn to place greater value on making personal goal-oriented independent decisions over collective decisions, whereas a child from a collectivist culture such as Japan may learn to primarily value consensus-based group decisions rather than group oriented collectivist decisions. This enculturation process in developing ethnic identity may be mirrored in adopting an organizational identity, where a new employee will learn to primarily value making either individual goal-oriented or group consensus–oriented decisions through supervisory feedback and performance management processes.

An understanding of enculturation is an important part of training global staff in developing intercultural skills. Intercultural training often begins with activities that make the trainees aware of their own ethnocentrism, and their enculturation into their own culture. The individual must come to realize that as they developed and acquired competence within their culture, they also acquired cognitive maps that continue to guide their behavior, whether they are living in that cultural context or not. Related to this enculturation awareness training is training to develop an understanding of how others have been enculturated into very different cultures.

In the global business context, successful organizations develop an enculturation process to orient and align the values of a new employee to the values of the organization. Communicating organizational culture may involve initiation rituals, learning stories of the organization’s founding, reference to symbols, heroes, slogans, and ceremonies. Membership in the Boy Scout movement, for example, usually involves learning stories of the founding of the organization, initiation ceremonies, familiarization with symbols, and reciting the Scout promise. The processes of enculturation within an organization may include utilizing systems of employee participation that rely on systems of incremental commitment, utilization of groups for control of members, and utilization of reward systems involving recognition and approval.

Enculturation has sometimes been confused with cultural adjustment and cultural adaptation. Cultural adjustment has been defined as the social and psychological adjustment of individuals or cultural groups to the new cultural environment in which they now reside. Cultural adaptation involves a process of mutual change and accommodation between newcomer and relevant environmental factors. Cultural adjustment and adaptation, therefore, are more related to acculturation rather than an individual or group initially acquiring a cultural identity and role through enculturation.

Bibliography:

Davidson, A. Simon, and P. R. Woods, Management: An Australasian Perspective, 4th ed. (Wiley, 2008);
R. Harrison and G. R. Carroll, “Keeping the Faith: A Model of Cultural Transmission in Formal Organizations,” Administrative Science Quarterly (v.36, 1991);
R. Harrison and G. R. Carroll, “The Dynamics of Cultural Influence Networks,” Computational & Mathematical Organization Theory (v.8, 2002);
J. Hatch, “The Dynamics of Organizational Culture,” Academy of Management Review (v.18/4, 1993);
J. Herskovits, Cultural Anthropology (Alfred A. Knopf, 1955);
Mead, “Socialization and Enculturation,” Current Anthropology (v.4/2, 1963);
Shimahara, “Enculturation—A Reconsideration,” Current Anthropology (v.11/2, 1970);
Eero Vaara, Janne Tienari, and Risto Santti, “The International Match: Metaphors as Vehicles of Social Identity-Building in Cross-Border Mergers,” Human Relations (v.56/4, 2003).

This example Enculturation Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.