Social norms vs. market norms

Continuing the theme from my last post, I was recently reading the book Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely (Duke University) and was struck by his use of the metaphor of living in two worlds simultaneously, “…one where social norms prevail, and the other where market norms make the rules.” (pg. 68)

Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions

He starts with the story of enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner at the in-laws and to show your appreciation you offer to pay your mother-in-law for the dinner.  In a situation that calls for social norms, introducing market norms is offensive and can damage relationships.  Through several social experiments, he shows that it is difficult for these two norms to co-exist in a situation and generally market norms will overpower the social norms. 

The implications to online communities was blogged about several months ago by Jeffrey Henning at vovici (Social Norms and Market Norms in Online Communities).  Jeffrey makes the case that it is important to understand the nature of the community from the beginning and to be consistent on whether it will be driven by social norms or market norms.

The same can be said for organizations that are trying to take advantage of the social aspects of work.  When does going above and beyond the job requirements to help out a colleague (because of the social relationships) become activities that should be compensated by the company?  Returning to Ariely, the title of the chapter is “the Cost of Social Norms” and he discusses the implications of companies that try to develop a social relationship with customers or employees.  If, or when, the organization has to shift to a market norm, there is a feeling of betrayal and the relationship is worse off than if it had been governed by market norms all along.

A Metaphoric Struggle

Recently I was pulling together some content around governance for social software and it reminded me of a quote from a book that struck me about 10 years ago. 

“Finding the right metaphor or model is even more critical than developing a better set of policies.  ...A metaphoric struggle is currently in progress over how we should imagine our organizational structures for communication and decision making. ... the network is in the process of replacing the pyramid. ...  All of these metaphoric frames of reference elevate different values and lead in different directions for an institution's culture and governance.” (emphasis added)

(Eric Mount, (1990). Professional Ethics in Context: Institutions, Images and Empathy. Louisville: Westminster / John Knox Press. pg. 85)

Published in 1990 !!  That is almost 20 years ago!  And we are still in the middle of this struggle.  I find it interesting the linkage between our use of metaphors and how we imagine our organizations and the values and governance.  Our core values would seem to fit some metaphors better than others … do we ever have cognitive dissonance?

How do we think about our organizations?  … our customers?  … the competition? … the world?  

New beginnings

I had used a public blog in the past and ended up ignoring it too much.  I am starting a new blog to change the emphasis on what I wanted to spend time on.  I have recognized over the years that one of the common themes that links my interests is the basic assumption that we are all connected and our concepts and thinking processes are also connected.  Someone once said,  “Tug on anything at all and you'll find it connected to everything else in the universe.” (John Muir, an American naturalist)

So this new blog will ‘follow that thread’ … one idea leads to another … one person leads to another.  We are fundamentally embedded within our cultures and world-views. 

I will be blogging about where this leads me and the tools that seem to help along the way.  A couple of recurring themes are trying to see the systems underlying our behaviors and motivations, understanding our personal connections through social network analysis, and visualizations (since I am a visual learner).

My work right now is driving the network view of the world and since there is so much happening in this area,  this will certainly be a major area of focus.  I am deeply involved with several customers who are implementing social software and working on the cultural issues related to that.  I am certainly learning a lot from them and will share those experiences.