Unspoken rule

Last updated

Unwritten rules (synonyms: Unspoken rules) are behavioral constraints imposed in organizations or societies that are not typically voiced or written down. They usually exist in unspoken and unwritten format because they form a part of the logical argument or course of action implied by tacit assumptions. Examples involving unspoken rules include unwritten and unofficial organizational hierarchies, organizational culture, and acceptable behavioral norms governing interactions between organizational members. These rules typically align with the behaviors of the local majority group and seem normal to them, but can be obscure, invisible, and exclusionary to minority groups. [1]

Contents

Noteworthy examples

For example, the captain of a ship is always expected to be the last to evacuate it in a disaster. Or, as Vince Waldron wrote, "A pet, once named, instantly becomes an inseparable member of the family". [2]

The Harvard Business Review considers it good business practice to bring unwritten rules to the surface and document them. Unwritten rules can cause uncertainty and stress for newer employees, and great clarity can improve productivity and profitability. [3]

Employment and discrimination

In the workplace, some unspoken rules can have a significant impact on one's job satisfaction, advancement opportunities, and career trajectory. [3]

In sports, Scottish football club, Rangers until 1989 had an unwritten rule of not signing any player who was openly Catholic. [4] Yorkshire County Cricket Club also historically had an unwritten rule that cricketers could only play for them if they were born within the historical county boundaries of Yorkshire. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

A convention is a set of agreed, stipulated, or generally accepted standards, social norms, or other criteria, often taking the form of a custom.

Management is the administration of organizations, whether they are a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administration respectively. It is the science of managing the resources of businesses, governments, and other organizations.

A sports governing body is a sports organization that has a regulatory or sanctioning function.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social norm</span> Informal understanding of acceptable conduct

Social norms are shared standards of acceptable behavior by groups. Social norms can both be informal understandings that govern the behavior of members of a society, as well as be codified into rules and laws. Social normative influences or social norms, are deemed to be powerful drivers of human behavioural changes and well organized and incorporated by major theories which explain human behaviour. Institutions are composed of multiple norms. Norms are shared social beliefs about behavior; thus, they are distinct from "ideas", "attitudes", and "values", which can be held privately, and which do not necessarily concern behavior. Norms are contingent on context, social group, and historical circumstances.

A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organization, also known as a non-business entity, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in contrary with an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a profit for its owners. A nonprofit is subject to the non-distribution constraint: any revenues that exceed expenses must be committed to the organization's purpose, not taken by private parties. An array of organizations are nonprofit, including some political organizations, schools, business associations, churches, social clubs, and consumer cooperatives. Nonprofit entities may seek approval from governments to be tax-exempt, and some may also qualify to receive tax-deductible contributions, but an entity may incorporate as a nonprofit entity without securing tax-exempt status.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Organization</span> Social entity established to meet needs or pursue goals

An organization or organisation, is an entity—such as a company, an institution, or an association—comprising one or more people and having a particular purpose.

A business rule defines or constrains some aspect of a business. It may be expressed to specify an action to be taken when certain conditions are true or may be phrased so it can only resolve to either true or false. Business rules are intended to assert business structure or to control or influence the behavior of the business. Business rules describe the operations, definitions and constraints that apply to an organization. Business rules can apply to people, processes, corporate behavior and computing systems in an organization, and are put in place to help the organization achieve its goals. For example, a business rule might state that no credit check is to be performed on return customers. Other examples of business rules include requiring a rental agent to disallow a rental tenant if their credit rating is too low, or requiring company agents to use a list of preferred suppliers and supply schedules. While a business rule may be informal or even unwritten, documenting the rules clearly and making sure that they don't conflict is a valuable activity. When carefully managed, rules can be used to help the organization to better achieve goals, remove obstacles to market growth, reduce costly mistakes, improve communication, comply with legal requirements, and increase customer loyalty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Institution</span> Structure or mechanism of social order

An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain individual behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and norms are all examples of institutions. Institutions vary in their level of formality and informality.

A family business is a commercial organization in which decision-making is influenced by multiple generations of a family, related by blood or marriage or adoption, who has both the ability to influence the vision of the business and the willingness to use this ability to pursue distinctive goals. They are closely identified with the firm through leadership or ownership. Owner-manager entrepreneurial firms are not considered to be family businesses because they lack the multi-generational dimension and family influence that create the unique dynamics and relationships of family businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Headingley Stadium</span> Sports ground in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England

Headingley Stadium is a stadium complex in Headingley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, comprising two separate grounds, Headingley Cricket Ground and Headingley Rugby Stadium, linked by a two-sided stand housing common facilities. The grounds are the respective homes of Yorkshire County Cricket Club and Leeds Rhinos Rugby League Club.

The Ordnung is a set of rules for Amish, Old Order Mennonite and Conservative Mennonite living. Ordnung is the German word for order, discipline, rule, arrangement, organization, or system. Because the Amish have no central church government, each assembly is autonomous and is its own governing authority. Thus, every local church maintains an individual set of rules, adhering to its own Ordnung, which may vary from district to district as each community administers its own guidelines. These rules are largely unwritten, yet they define the very essence of Amish identity. Conservative Mennonites refer to Ordnung by the English terms "discipline" or "standard" and are usually written.

The Amish blueprint for expected behavior, called the Ordnung, regulates private, public, and ceremonial life. Ordnung does not translate readily into English. Sometimes rendered as ordinance or discipline, the Ordnung is best thought of as an ordering of the whole way of life ... a code of conduct which the church maintains by tradition rather than by systematic or explicit rules. A member noted: The order is not written down. The people just know it, that's all. Rather than a packet of rules to memorize, the Ordnung is the understood behavior by which the Amish are expected to live. In the same way that the rules of grammar are learned by children, so the Ordnung, the grammar of order, is learned by Amish youth. The Ordnung evolved gradually over the decades as the church sought to strike a delicate balance between tradition and change. Specific details of the Ordnung vary across church districts and settlements.

The Kolpak ruling is a European Court of Justice ruling handed down on 8 May 2003 in favour of Maroš Kolpak, a Slovak handball player. It declared that citizens of countries which have signed European Union Association Agreements have the same right to freedom of work and movement within the EU as EU citizens. Thus any restrictions placed on their right to work are deemed illegal under EU law. The legal actions in Germany set a precedent for professional sports in Europe, which have had a wide-ranging effect, especially in regard to English county cricket and European professional rugby.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rakesh Khurana</span> American educator (born 1967)

Rakesh Khurana is an Indian-American educator. He is a Professor of Sociology at Harvard University, Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School and the Dean of Harvard College.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social organization</span> Pattern of relationships between and among individuals and social groups

In sociology, a social organization is a pattern of relationships between and among individuals and social groups.

The informal organization is the interlocking social structure that governs how people work together in practice. It is the aggregate of norms, personal and professional connections through which work gets done and relationships are built among people who share a common organizational affiliation or cluster of affiliations. It consists of a dynamic set of personal relationships, social networks, communities of common interest, and emotional sources of motivation. The informal organization evolves, and the complex social dynamics of its members also.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Onboarding</span> Management jargon for introducing new employees to employers policies and practices

Onboarding or organizational socialization is the American term for the mechanism through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective organizational members and insiders. In standard English, this is referred to as "induction". In the United States, up to 25% of workers are organizational newcomers engaged in onboarding process.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fraternity</span> Organization, society, or club of people associated together for various religious or secular aims

A fraternity or fraternal organization is an organization, society, club or fraternal order traditionally of men associated together for various religious or secular aims. Fraternity in the Western concept developed in the Christian context, notably with the religious orders in the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages. The concept was eventually further extended with medieval confraternities and guilds. In the early modern era, these were followed by fraternal orders such as Freemasons and Odd Fellows, along with gentlemen's clubs, student fraternities, and fraternal service organizations. Members are occasionally referred to as a brother or – usually in a religious context – frater or friar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cricket</span> Bat-and-ball game

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a 22-yard (20-metre) pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striking the ball bowled at one of the wickets with the bat and then running between the wickets, while the bowling and fielding side tries to prevent this and dismiss each batter. Means of dismissal include being bowled, when the ball hits the stumps and dislodges the bails, and by the fielding side either catching the ball after it is hit by the bat, but before it hits the ground, or hitting a wicket with the ball before a batter can cross the crease in front of the wicket. When ten batters have been dismissed, the innings ends and the teams swap roles. The game is adjudicated by two umpires, aided by a third umpire and match referee in international matches. They communicate with two off-field scorers who record the match's statistical information.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harold Leavitt</span> American psychologist

Harold Jack Leavitt was an American psychologist of management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unwritten rules of baseball</span> Informal behavioral code followed by some baseball players

There is a set of unwritten rules of baseball that some players and managers follow. The rules often concern gamesmanship and not disrespecting players on the opposing team. Incidents have occurred when one or more players interpret the actions of another player as violating the unwritten rules, which can result in beanballs and bench-clearing brawls. As the rules are unwritten, and in many cases vague, the interpretation is left to the players involved.

References

  1. Pensky, Jennifer; Richardson, Christina; Serrano, Araceli; Gorski, Galen; Price, Adam N.; Zimmer, Margaret (August 2021). "Disrupt and demystify the unwritten rules of graduate school". Nature Geoscience. pp. 538–539. doi:10.1038/s41561-021-00799-w.
  2. Vince Waldron, The Official Dick Van Dyke Show Book , Hal Leonard, 2001, p. 176.
  3. 1 2 Fosslien, Liz; Duffy, Mollie West (26 October 2020). "Write Down Your Team's Unwritten Rules". Harvard Business Review .
  4. Murray, Ewan (10 July 2009). "Why Mo Johnston still stirs emotions across Glasgow". The Guardian.
  5. Tim Rich (19 July 2009). "'New' Yorkshire ready to restore forgotten glories - Cricket, Sport". Independent.co.uk . Archived from the original on 19 July 2009.