Roles
Roles are "standardized patterns of behavior required of all persons
playing a part in a given functional relationship, regardless of personal
wishes or interpersonal obligations irrelevant to the functional relationship"
(Katz and Kahn, p. 43).
Norms
"Norms are the general expectations of a demand character for all role
incumbents of a system or subsystem" (Katz and Kahn p. 43)
Values
'Are more generalized ideological justifications for roles and norms, and
express the aspirations that allegedly inform the required activities"
(Katz and Kahn p. 43).
Roles, norms and values are in order of increasing abstractness and applicability.
They help tie collective action together. But the relative weight is different
in different systems.
Durkheim (1947) noted that in primitive societies values were more important,
since there was little role differentiation. As society has become more
complex with more subsystems, societal integration is based more on normative
practices and role interdependence (Katz and Kahn, p. 44). The norms and
values are created through the activities of the organization and are thus
somewhat different in each organization.