Isomorphism and Cults
An area of intense interest within organizational psychology is that of change, and the received wisdom is that organizations need to change regularly to keep pace with a changing world. Ensuring that businesses meet their responsibilities towards their customers, their communities, and their workers, as well as deliver commercial performance, it is understood requires a certain ‘fleetness of foot’, in order to react to the pressures external entities impose upon them.
I’ve recently completed my Masters in Organizational Psychology so I thought it would be interesting to look at how, what we know about organizations, applies to cults and where it doesn’t. Today I’m looking at change. A popular model, within the study of organizations, is called Institutional Theory. Institutional theory attempts to explain organizational change, or as it is theoretically called isomorphism, not through internal technical pressures to improve performance, but as a response to outside pressures from the wider environment or field in which it operates. The three types of external pressures according to Institutional Theory are called: mimetic, coercive and normative. In this short piece of writing I’m going to look at each one of these and explore how they might apply to normal organizations and then compare how these pressures might relate to cultic groups.
Mimetic forces occur when the organization sees the need to mimic or copy other organization’s processes or activities. This is seen as necessary to increase a sense of legitimacy. An organization might identify practices by other establishments within its field that it wants or feels it needs to emulate. Many organizations adopt management and development practices that have become popular within their industry, sometimes leading to the mushrooming of certain industry fads and fashions.
Normative forces could be described as recognized requirements for an organization operating within the sector or field. As a way to ensure legitimacy, organizations often sign up to industry standards and join trade organizations or professional bodies. Terms such as industry standard and best practice become part of the vocabulary and are seen as benchmarks of minimum standards. These normative practices are often propagated through industry-wide resources such as training courses or other types of support. Normative pressures will also be reinforced by competition and customer expectations of certain minimum standards.
Coercive forces are those that are exerted by external entities such as governments or regulatory authorities that demand certain requirements and standards and that will lead to sanctions if not followed. A good example of this is employment law which normally includes areas such as health and safety requirements, equality legislation, and consumer protection legislation.
Together these three forces have the effect of influencing what is sometimes described as an organizational field, a group of organizations whose influence acts upon each other. In theory, this has an effect of levelling out certain aspects of organizations across the sector meaning a person leaving one institution and going to another within the same sector would recognise many similarities in relation to its structures, strategy and culture. This can often be seen in management systems and processes, health and safety practices, and learning and development. Even the organizational structure and organization chart may have a familiar look to it.
Through these processes, organizations identify the need for change to respond to these pressures. In fact, part of the very rationale and identified reason for change is often expressed explicitly in these terms, noting the need to ‘reach industry standards’ to ‘comply with legislation’ or to reach a certain ‘benchmark’. So, a need for change is identified, a plan devised to make the change, it is then implemented and reviewed to identify how closely it now conforms to the required standard. So, it’s important to remember that, looking at change through this lens, it can be seen as being initiated through pressures directly or indirectly applied by external entities such as similar organizations (including competitors), government agencies, customers, professional trade bodies etc. In modern times this has led to an increasing professionalism within sectors and a tightening up of rules and regulations to protect the workforce and the customers as well as wider society.
How does institutional theory apply to high control groups or cults? And what are the implications of this?
One of the assumptions of Institutional theory is that the organization is open to this isomorphic pressure. In other words that the organization is open to be influenced by external entities. This is by no means a given when it comes to cults. Cults are generally described as closed systems, with little obvious outside influence, in fact this is often one of the defining aspects of these types of group. Just how closed they are and thus how open to influence is something we will now explore by looking at each of the three types of force.
Cults and normative forces
At first glance it would seem that cults are likely to have little in the way of normative pressures. Certainly, they have many differences from other organizations, in fact it would seem difficult to even identify their ‘field’. This is complicated by the fact that cults come in different shapes and sizes. A High Control multi-level marketing group (MLM) for instance might look like a health supplements supplier, so it would be fair to ask whether other health supplements suppliers would form their field? Or a religious cult might appear to be a slightly fringe version of the local Church so would their field or sector be other religious groups? Another interpretation could be that actually the institutional field for a cult would be other cults regardless of the type of group they appear to be.
As far as I can see there is no research in this area, but a non-systematic observation suggests that cults are indeed quite resistant to normative forces. It is possible that some apparently openly commercial groups such as self-developmental cults or an MLM might see the benefits of joining a trade organization to gain the legitimisation membership provides. Some cults use multiple front organizations who are ostensibly normal businesses, such as web design, printing, personal development coaching etc. It is very possible that these front groups would become members of trade groups but how mow much influence such membership actually generates is questionable. Because the front organization for a cultic group is often not actually operating in the way others are, it is unlikely to come under the same pressures to conform to normative standards.
Cults and mimetic forces
Cults do appear to mimic other organisations and this it at the heart of many of the deceptions they use to draw people in. Some of them appear to be religions, others self-improvement courses, wellness programmes, health programmes, get-rich-quick schemes etc. In Institutional Theory organizations identify practices that they can mimic in order to increase levels of legitimacy, and this would seem to be the motive of cults too. For religious cults they also want to benefit from the many perks that come along with being a charity — something that normally comes along with the label of religion. Research by Ashworth, Boyne and Delbridge into isomorphic pressures on Public Sector organizations, suggest that external pressures may have a significant effect on culture, which is closely related to organizational values. Due to the nature of cults, it is difficult to replicate this type of research within such groups, so we are left to ask the question whether the response of cults to mimetic pressures reaches this deep into the organization, or whether they simply create a superficial mask. From what we know about the deceitful behaviour of cults I would suggest the latter.
An interesting question would be, whether they feel mimetic forces to copy other cultic organizations. There is some evidence that groups do seem to borrow ideas from one another. Many groups deploy similar psychological tactics of recruitment and retention, for example in the practice of disassociation, disfellowshipping or shunning. If groups do mimic each other in this way, they are likely to do so not for reasons related to Institutional Theory, in the desire to increase legitimacy, but for purely technical/rational reasons and are unlikely to draw attention to this.
Cults and coercive forces
Cults who appear to be commercial businesses might feel pressures to follow legislation about the treatment of its workers. However, many high control groups find ingenious ways around such laws including working time directives, health and safety and the minimum wage. Cults who are religious in nature — at least on the surface are often exempt from legislation that demands proper treatment of their workers. Many, if not all their people are volunteers, and some could accurately be described as slave labour. As discussed in the previous edition of ‘cults as organizations’, these organizations are effectively able to operate with impunity.
Treatment of workers is not the only concern here. Policies around equality and diversity, the treatment of women and attitudes towards the right to an individual’s own sexuality are all concerns, as cults who clothe themselves in the protective cloak of a religious group are exempt from legislation, which is the practical means by which coercive pressure is applied in other organizations. Processes related to the protection of children from abuse have recently been in sharp focus with some high control and cultic groups being far from cooperative with authorities.
Conclusions
The research tools used in Organizational Psychology are rarely applied to High Control or cultic groups but a brief examination of cults through this lens suggests a potential opportunity to identify similarities and differences between normal and high control groups, as well as understand more about the mechanisms within them.
Cults are rightly described as essentially closed systems. They normally work hard to separate themselves from society to varying degrees. However, for most, there are reasons why they cannot be completely closed, and therefore isomorphic pressures are still felt. Mimetic pressures appear to be the most significant. They want to look like a genuine religion, self-improvement program or wellness group but in many respects this is illusory. Cults are shapeshifters. They appear to be one thing to the innocent victim and turn out to be something else once the person has committed to the Group.
Normative pressures would seem to be least influential. So long as they can superficially mimic whatever type of organization they are fronting, they are likely to see little need to benchmark themselves against other organizations. They are also highly unlikely to benchmark themselves against other cults! Although this does pose an intriguing question as to whether certain groups whose leadership are entirely cognizant of their deception compare their performance to other leading cults. There seems to be no direct evidence to support this, however.
Cults are vulnerable to coercive influence from governments and authorities. Democracies tend to use a light touch, which contrasts with authoritarian governments who often impose draconian measures upon them. Recent attention by governments into institutional handling of accusations of child sexual abuse suggests that, expecting cults to be influenced by normative pressures is a mistake and clear direction, backed up by the threat of sanction is required. In my opinion this is a lesson, governments need to learn when dealing with high control groups. Cults are not like normal institutions who feel pressure to conform to recognised benchmarks or best practice within an organizational field. They do not perceive themselves as being part of such a field so do not feel such pressure. They may attempt to mimic other organizations, but this is unlikely to lead to meaningful change. On the other hand, draconian action also seems to be self-defeating as it plays into their ‘us and them’ mentality, setting up a righteous battle between themselves and the authorities.
Given the fact that cults do not feel normative pressures to progress meaningful change, and mimetic pressures are essentially window-dressing, clear, reasonable, and proportionate legislation, and the enforcement of this would appear to be important to prevent the worst excesses of these groups. They are simply not going to converge with other organizations within their field as they do not recognise themselves as being part of it. I argue that complete immunity from workplace rules and regulations and from reporting criminality are areas that need to be closely re-examined. Laws that protect people in most organizations should apply to religious ones too, unless there is a clear reason to make them exempt. Ironically some cults may actually welcome clear direction from governments and authorities as it removes ambiguity for them.
References
Ashworth, R., Boyne, G., & Delbridge, R. (2009). Escape from the iron cage? Organizational change and isomorphic pressures in the public sector. Journal of public administration research and theory, 19(1), 165–187.
