Masculine Conformity and Social Dominance’s Relation With Organizational Culture Change

Abstract

While the workforce is becoming increasingly more modernized and diverse, masculine norms are prevalent among certain organizations that remain male-dominated. Namely, the military is an institution that promotes masculine stereotypes and a culture where such stereotypes form a normative system of hierarchy. This study, surveying 145 military cadets at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), found that social dominance orientation, or preference for in-group superiority and out-group inequality, was associated with higher conformity to masculine norms. Moreover, higher levels of social dominance explained the relationship between masculine conformity and less acceptance toward cultural reforms in the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). These findings suggest that achieving true organizational culture change in the military involves challenging not only masculine norms but, more importantly, the dominant and nonegalitarian attitudes of social dominance.