Athletes, Best Friends, and Social Activists: An Integrative Model Accounting for the Role of Identity in Organizational Identification

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Brickson, Shelley L.
• 署名单位: University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Chicago; University of Illinois Chicago Hospital
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.1110.0730
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 226-245
• 关键词: ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY; individual identity; ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTIFICATION; IDENTITY ORIENTATION; self-construal; STANDARDS; expectations; self-esteem; self-continuity; identity motives; organizing; Stakeholder theory

摘要

Organizational identification links together organizational and member identity, yet we currently lack theory explicating the role of organizational and member identity variations in members' evaluations of organizations as identification targets. In this theoretical paper, I outline a model of organizational identification that aims to do three things account for the role of identity in the identification process, integrate and extend disparate approaches to organizational identification, and illuminate social comparison processes underlying members' organizational evaluations. The model proposes that members undertake two identity comparisons to assess the value of organizational membership for identification purposes. In one, they compare the organization's current identity with their own identity, allowing them to assess the organization's ability to meet their motivation for self-continuity. In the other, they compare the organization's current identity with its expected identity, allowing them to assess the organization's ability to meet their motivation for self-esteem. After introducing the identity congruence framework, I apply to it the identity orientation lens to make specific predictions about how organizational and member identity shape the nature and outcomes of the specific social comparison content drawn upon in each of the two identity comparisons. This analysis reveals how the metrics used to evaluate organizations fundamentally vary by organizational and member identity. Implications for organizational studies are addressed, including those related to organizing and stakeholder theory.