institution

1. Christian Church the appointment or admission of an incumbent to an ecclesiastical office or pastoral charge

2. Christian theol the creation of a sacrament by Christ, esp the Eucharist

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

institution

an established order comprising rule-bound and standardized behaviour patterns. The term is widely acknowledged to be used in a variety of ways, and hence often ambiguously. SOCIAL INSTITUTION refers to arrangements involving large numbers of people whose behaviour is guided by NORMS and ROLES. In functionalist theory (see FUNCTIONALISM), the concept of institution is linked to that of FUNCTIONAL PREREQUISITES OR FUNCTIONAL IMPERATIVES. MALINOWSKI lists seven social institutions which meet biological and social-psychological NEEDs. GOFFMAN uses the term TOTAL INSTITUTION to refer to bureaucratically organized establishments (see BUREAUCRACY) in which the inmates have little possibility of escape from the norms and roles of the administrative structure. INSTITUTIONALIZATION refers to the process whereby the norms and roles expected in various social settings are developed and learned. Although this often involves an OVERSOCIALIZED CONCEPTION OF MAN, researchers influenced by PHENOMENOLOGICAL SOCIOLOGY stress the creative and adaptive aspects of social life.

Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Institution

an organization established to carry out a particular kind of activity. The USSR has both state and public institutions, governed by charter or statute and, as a rule, enjoying the rights of a body corporate. State institutions include ministries, as well as organizations that perform functions not associated with material production, such as schools, hospitals, theaters, and libraries.

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References in periodicals archive

However, if such an institution decides to use the same firm for both internal and external audit work, the audit committee should document both that it has pre-approved the internal audit outsourcing to its external auditor and has considered the independence issues associated with this arrangement.

Federal banking regulators release updated internal audit policy statement, guidance on corporate governance, audits and reporting requirements

The Nova Institution is a multi-level security institution for federally sentenced women.

First maximum security unit for women offenders opens in Truro. (General)

This grant will support the planning, development, and conduct of radiation oncology clinical research trials in institutions that care for a disproportionate number of medically underserved, low-income, ethnic, and minority populations but have not traditionally been involved in NCI-sponsored research.

Fellowships, grants, & awards

Depending upon which federal agency is, making the request and how big the institution that's under inspection is, the agency may have specific regulatory authority to demand the workpapers.

Workpaper reviews: what you can do; how auditors can satisfy bank regulators and keep their clients happy

Currently, each educational institution delivers its own version of the industry message to likely applicants.

Who will run tomorrow's mills? New strategies are needed to attract and retain a skilled workforce

According to Bill Hartnett, global director of financial services at Microsoft, "Interest in the Identrus global trusted network is very high among our financial institution customers.

UNISYS, MICROSOFT, BALTIMORE TECHNOLOGIES TO COLLABORATE ON IDENTRUS ENABLED TRUST SOLUTION

rank, sex, and control and level of institution: Selected years,

Percentage of full--time instructional faculty with tenure for degree--granting institutions with a tenure system by academic rank, sex, and control and level of institution: selected years, 1993-94 through 2011-12

Consider the case of one private two-year institution in New England.

The net or the noose: develop sustainable financial aid strategies to prevent budgetary troubles

The institution itself is only one factor, albeit a critical and important one, in the lives of the students attending the institution.

Measure for measure

In fact, after economists determined that slave holding made rational economic sense, and that in fact the price of slaves showed masters' assumptions that the institution would survive into the 20th century, there has been no serious return to models of non-economic behavior in terms of slave holding itself.

The old social history and the new social sciences

"If a financial institution does not block and report a cross-border ACH transfer and another financial institution does, then it may face civil or even criminal penalties," Salaris said.

ELECTRONIC PAYMENT NETWORK DEBUTS WEB-BASED SOLUTION