Organizational identification: Issues and implications

doi:10.1016/0030-5073(75)90007-0

Organizational Behavior and Human Performance

Volume 13, Issue 1, February 1975, Pages 95-109

Organizational Behav...

https://doi.org/10.1016/0030-5073(75)90007-0 Get rights and content

Abstract

This article examines the identification of individuals with their employing organization, or organizational identification. In evaluating the identification process, three methodological considerations are discussed: (a) the composition of the identification construct, (b) the transference of identification behavior among alternative organizational targets, and (c) the behavioral mechanisms underlying the identification response. It was hypothesized that in a research and development (R & D) environment, organizational identification is inversely related to effectiveness, creativity, occupational identification, and internal group identification. Data analysis from an empirical study of 107 scientific and engineering personnel supported the relationships with effectiveness and creativity, thus indicating that behaviors related to organizational identification may produce dysfunctional as well as functional outcomes in organizations.

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Cited by (86)

Motivations and solution appropriateness in crowdsourcing challenges for innovation
2019, Research Policy
Citation Excerpt :
Importantly, social identification can take different forms; crowd members may also identify with social units other than the platform (e.g., with peers or with a crowdsourcing movement), and this may have a different effect on the nature of their contributions (Bagozzi and Dholakia, 2006; Hertel et al., 2003; Nambisan and Baron, 2010). In addition, scholars reported non-significant or negative associations between identification and outcomes that relate to innovation (e.g., Madjar et al., 2011; Rotondi, 1975; see Conroy et al., 2017 for a review of detrimental outcomes of identification). In light of these, I encourage further future research on how (different types of) identification influence solution appropriateness in crowdsourcing platforms.
Crowdsourcing challenges are fast emerging as an effective tool for solving complex innovation problems. The main strength of the crowdsourcing model is that it brings together a large number of diverse people from all over the world to focus on solving a problem. This openness, however, results in a large number of solutions that are not appropriate, and this inhibits organizations from leveraging the value of crowdsourcing efficiently and effectively. It is therefore essential to identify ways to increase the appropriateness of solutions generated in a crowdsourcing challenge. This paper takes a step towards that by exploring what motivates the crowd to participate in these challenges and how these motivations relate to solution appropriateness. Drawing on data from InnoCentive, one of the largest crowdsourcing platforms for innovation problems, this paper shows that the various types of motivation driving crowd members to participate were related in different ways to the appropriateness of the solutions generated. In particular, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation were positively related to appropriateness whereas for learning and prosocial motivation the relationship was negative. The association between social motivation and appropriateness was not significant. The results have important implications for how to better design crowdsourcing challenges.
Age and career commitment: Meta-analytic tests of competing linear versus curvilinear relationships
2019, Journal of Vocational Behavior
Career commitment refers to individuals' dedication to their career, profession, or occupation, and has been studied for nearly four decades. Over time, multiple definitions and operationalizations of career commitment have emerged within the literature, making direct comparisons across primary studies difficult. Likewise, mixed findings with respect to the relationship between age and career commitment can be found across studies. To address these issues, we present the results of an updated meta-analysis of the relationship between age and career commitment. Drawing from life-span, life-space theory, we offer competing hypotheses about potential linear and curvilinear relationships between age and career commitment. Consistent with past meta-analytic work, we find evidence for a small positive relationship between age and career commitment (r_mean = 0.079, 95% CI 0.050 to 0.108, K = 112 independent samples, N = 54,481 respondents). Qualifying this, however, we also find evidence that this relationship is non-linear, exhibiting a curvilinear relationship. This finding is explored using two different meta-analytic strategies, at both the between-person and between-study level of analysis, and through two primary empirical studies. Although the form of the curvilinear relationship observed differs based upon the level of analysis considered, the results of this work generally support propositions from life-span, life-space theory, and associated predictions from related theories of aging and career development, about the age-graded nature of career commitment.
The effect of gender and firm identification on auditor pre-negotiation judgments
2019, Advances in Accounting
Citation Excerpt :
Gender is one social identity thought to be relevant to audit research; another identity is related to the auditor's firm (organizational) identity4 – that is, as a professional member of their accounting firm. Firm identification is one of the important forms of employee attachment to organizations (Brown, 1969; Rotondi Jr, 1975). Firm identification is a specific form of social identification in which individuals define themselves in terms of their membership in a particular organization (Mael & Ashforth, 1992).
This paper extends current auditor negotiation research by considering the effects of two dimensions of auditors' identity that are posited to be relevant to auditors' negotiation: gender and audit firm identification. Women earn over half of college degrees in accounting, and hold more than half of accounting and auditing positions in the US, yet the balance of the gender of partners at audit firms is currently not equal (AICPA, 2017). However, as more women advance into partnership positions in firms, it is increasingly important to have an understanding of how gender affects the behaviors, processes and outcomes of negotiation, and thus the quality of financial statements. The auditor-client negotiation context has features, such as ambiguity and representation of others that can “trigger” the salience of auditors' gender and firm identity. Once salient, these two dimensions of auditors' identity shape auditors' motivational orientation towards negotiations, which, in turn, affects the auditors' negotiation behavior and negotiation outcomes.
The study finds that male and female auditors approach the negotiation over audit adjustments differently. Although many negotiation studies find that males negotiate more aggressively than do females, auditor-client negotiation offers a unique setting that has been found to reverse this common trend. We hypothesize and find that female auditors recommend higher audit adjustments than males. However, the level of firm identification moderates female's recommended audit adjustments such that at higher levels of firm identification, the larger audit adjustments recommended by females decrease. This finding is consistent with the growing research on gender differences in auditing and the research on gender and risk tolerance, which find females to be more risk averse, but contrary to much of the negotiation research which shows males as more aggressive and achieving higher negotiated outcomes. In supplemental analysis, we find that our results hold in the senior manager subsample but not in the partner subsample. This result is consistent with theory on gender differences which suggests that the differences will disappear with increased occupational socialization (Smith & Rogers, 2000). Practical implications are discussed.
Organizational identification and workplace behavior: More than meets the eye
2017, Research in Organizational Behavior
Citation Excerpt :
Specifically, our framework suggests voice climate may enhance the link between identification and voice behavior for different reasons: by redefining organizational norms for those with an affiliative motivational orientation or by diminishing the perceived risks and costs of voice (Morrison et al., 2011) among those with an organizational-welfare orientation. In terms of organizational change, we posit that strong identification may not only produce resistance to change (Ashforth, 2016; Haslam et al., 2006; Rotondi, 1975), but may also prompt strongly identifying employees with an organizational-welfare orientation to be change agents. Yet the prognosis for their success will depend on their organization’s context, because highly identified, organizational-welfare-oriented employees who perceive a need for change, and who act accordingly, may be viewed with great suspicion in means-focused organizations (see also Packer, Miners, & Ungson, in press).
Organizational identification is a theoretically profound and practically important construct. It fundamentally transforms the relationship between employees and their work organizations, because highly identified employees integrate their organizational memberships with their sense of who they are. This transformation enhances highly identified employees’ work performance and contributions to the organization. However, despite considerable research on the benefits of organizational identification for employee behavior, theorizing about this effect and its underlying mechanisms remains underdeveloped. In particular, there has not been sufficient theoretical development regarding the specific types of work behaviors that follow from organizational identification, the psychological mechanisms that underlie these behavioral consequences, or observers’ evaluations of these behaviors and those enacting them. To address these issues, we present a framework of the behavioral consequences of organizational identification as well as observers’ reactions to them. Our framework highlights two distinct motivational orientations that underlie organizational identification, one that reliably leads to conformist work behaviors and one that may lead to deviant work behaviors that violate the status quo to advance organizational interests. Moreover, our framework highlights that reactions to these behaviors will differ depending on the organization’s emphasis on means versus ends. Overall, we emphasize that the benefits of organizational identification for work behavior are not as straightforward or as widely recognized as implied in prior research.
Sensemaking About the Organization–Occupation Relationship in Constructing Identification at Work: A Cross-Occupational Approach
2023, SAGE Open
THE DARK SIDE OF STRONG IDENTIFICATION IN ORGANIZATIONS: A CONCEPTUAL REVIEW
2022, Academy of Management Annals

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Organizational identification: Issues and implications

Abstract

Individual and mass behavior in extreme situations

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

The dynamics of bureaucracy: a study of interpersonal relations in two government agencies

Identification and some conditions of organizational involvement

Administrative science quarterly

Principles of organization

Some implications of self-esteem for social influence

Group psychology and the analysis of the ego

Components of effectiveness in small organizations

Administrative science quarterly

Cosmopolitans and locals: toward an analysis of latent social roles—I

Administrative Science Quarterly

Correlates of organizational identification as a function of career pattern and organizational type

Administrative science quarterly

Personality correlates of susceptibility to persuasion

Journal of Personality

The concept of identification

Psychological Review

Compliance, identification, and internalization: three processes of attitude change

Journal of Conflict Resolution

Scientists in industry: Conflict and accomodation

Organizational identification of scientists

Academy of Management Journal

A relationship between self-esteem and persuasibility

Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

On prestige and loyalty of university faculty

Administrative Science Quarterly

The human organization