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Institutionalization

Institutions emerge as the largely unplanned products of social living. People find some workable patterns which harden through repetition into standardized customs. As time passes these patterns acquire a body of supporting folklore which justifies and sanctions them. For example, banks developed as the need for storing, transferring, borrowing, and lending money gave rise to a series of standardized ways of doing these things. Over the time, people codified and gave legal endorsement to these practices as they continue to develop and change. Institutionalization consists of the establishment of definite norms which assign status positions and role functions to behavior. A norm is a group expectation of behavior. Institutionalization involves replacement of spontaneous or experimental behavior, which is expected, patterned, regular and predictable. A set of social relationships has become institutionalized when a regular system of statuses and roles has been developed. A system of status and non-expectations has been generally accepted in the society.There are institutions established by communities as well as those that associations set up.They result from a deliberate act of establishment and gradually attain social recognition and grow into an establishment. All institutions are crescive even if it is deliberately established.