social architecture

""...social architecture is that which provides context (or meaning) and commitment to its membership and stakeholders.""

• It is a shared interpretation of organizational events guiding members in how to behave.
• ""It...generates commitment to the primary organizational values and philosophy -- that is, the vision that employees feel they are working for and can believe in.""
• Finally, an organization's social architecture serves as a control mechanism, sanctioning or proscribing particular kinds of behavior.""

  Social architecture refers to the same things as ""culture"" or the norms and values that shape behavior in an organization. The use of the term ""social architecture"" conveys some important differences. ""Culture"" is a very vague term that often conjures up the notion of rigidity and intractability, whereas ""social architecture"" implies a definable, designable, changeable something that is to be managed.

  Source: Bennis, 1985