Reification

Although it makes sense, reification is a concept that I have never heard of. According to Eisenberg et al., Reification “refers to the process whereby socially constructed meanings come to be perceived and experienced as real, objective, and fixed, such that members “forget” their participation in the construction of those meanings”. This happens a lot with culture in general, not just in organizations. People forget that cultures are socially constructed, they are not “just the way they are”. An example of this in an organization is when in the history of a certain company, the CEO have always been a guy, the women in the company gave up their dreams to be the companies CEO as being a CEO is impossible as only guys can be CEO’s. Those women unaware of the constructed issue, did not realize how they also participated in constructing it.