Organizations can motivate and coordinate work by socializing members to internalize organizational values. Existing theories posit that organizations achieve normative control through encapsulation, wherein peers and managers are primary sources of members’ socialization. Drawing on ethnographic data from a not-for-profit school, I show how an external actor—beneficiaries—can become a source of normative control. I develop a multistage process that explains how teachers were socialized by parents, specifically by hearing these parent beneficiaries narrate their needs; engaging in collective storytelling about beneficiaries; experiencing episodic shaming centered on how teachers’ daily performance met (or did not meet) beneficiaries’ needs; and receiving validation from beneficiaries. Because these sequential stages establish beneficiaries as sources of control through social interactions set in specific times and places, and establish shared emotional states among organizational members, I theorize that these stages compose a ritual of integration. Although teachers initially arrived at the school with heterogeneous values, this ritual led many of them to internalize the organizational value of self-sacrifice. Teachers who were unmoved by parents’ stories or came to see parents as exploitative did not internalize this value, and they tended to exit the organization. This study reveals how normative control can arise not only through socialization from in-group members but also from ritual interactions with and about beneficiaries.

中文翻译：

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受益人如何成为规范控制的来源

组织可以通过使成员社交化来内化组织价值观来激励和协调工作。现有理论认为组织通过封装实现规范控制，其中同事和管理者是成员社会化的主要来源。我利用一所非营利学校的人种学数据，展示了外部参与者（受益人）如何成为规范控制的来源。我开发了一个多阶段的过程，解释教师如何与家长进行社会化，特别是通过聆听这些家长受益人讲述他们的需求；集体讲述受益人的故事；经历的间歇性羞辱集中在教师的日常表现如何满足（或没有满足）受益人的需求；并接受受益人的确认。因为这些连续的阶段通过特定时间和地点的社会互动将受益者确立为控制源，并在组织成员之间建立共享的情感状态，所以我认为这些阶段构成了一种整合仪式。尽管老师们最初带着不同的价值观来到学校，但这种仪式使他们中的许多人内化了自我牺牲的组织价值。那些对父母的故事无动于衷或认为父母具有剥削性的教师不会内化这种价值观，他们往往会退出组织。这项研究揭示了规范控制不仅可以通过群体内成员的社会化产生，而且还可以通过与受益人之间的仪式互动来产生。