Foci and correlates of organizational identi cation

Transcription

1 Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2000), 73, Ó 2000 The British Psychological Society Printed in Great Britain 137 Foci and correlates of organizational identi cation Daan van Knippenberg University of Amsterdam, The Netherland s Els C. M. van Schie Ministry of Social AVairs, The Hague, The Netherland s Adopting the social identity perspective on organizational identi cation proposed by Ashforth and Mael (1989), the present study tested two hypotheses concerning the importance of work-group identi cation (WID) relative to organizational identi cation (OID). WID was predicted to be stronger than OID as well as more predictive of organizational attitudes and behaviour. Data about employees WID, OID, job satisfaction, turnover intentions, job involvement, and job motivation from two samples (N = 76 and N = 163) supported these predictions. We conclude that our understanding of organizational attitudes and behaviour has much to gain by an open eye for the multiple foci of identi cation that are associated with organizational membership, and that managerial practice may bene t from an increased focus on the work group. As the threats to employee loyalty embodied by organizational mergers, take-overs, and restructuring have become part of everyday organizational life, the ability to elicit a certain level of identi cation with the organization has become increasingly important to the well-being of both organizations and their members. A sense of organizational identi cation may prevent employees from becoming alienated and may be an important precondition for general feelings of job satisfaction. Moreover, members that identify with an organization may be more likely to remain with the organization and to expend evort on behalf of the organization (Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994). Yet, despite the fact that the importance of organizational identi cation has long been recognized (e.g. Brown, 1969; Hall & Schneider, 1972; Lee, 1971; Rotondi, 1975), to date there appears to be some controversy regarding the theoretical position of the organizational identi cation concept. In an attempt to remedy this, Ashforth and Mael (1989; Mael & Ashforth, 1992; Mael & Tetrick, 1992) propose a reconceptualization of organizational *Requests for reprints should be addressed to Daan van Knippenberg, University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology, Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands ( ao vanknippenberg@ macmail.psy.uva.nl).

2 138 Daan van Knippenberg and Els C. M. van Schie identi cation based on social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978; Tajfel & Turner, 1986). According to this theory, social identity, that part of an individual s self-concept which derives from his [or her] knowledge of his [or her] membership of a group (or groups) together with the value and the emotional signi cance attached to the membership (Tajfel, 1978, p. 63), derives from social identi cation. Through identi cation, individuals de ne themselves as members of social categories and ascribe characteristics that are typical of these categories to themselves. As a result, identi cation leads individuals to perceive themselves not only in terms of idiosyncratic characteristics that diverentiate them from other individuals, but also in terms of the characteristics they share with other members of their in-groups. This conception of the self as a group member provides a basis for the perceptual, attitudinal, and behavioural evects of group membership. The more one conceives of oneself in terms of the membership of a group, that is, the more one identi es with the group, the more one s attitudes and behaviour are governed by this group membership. Thus, social identi cation avects the self-concept as well as attitudes and behaviour (see Deaux, 1996; Hogg & Abrams, 1988; for comprehensive reviews of the social identi cation literature). Ashforth and Mael propose that organizational identi cation is a speci c form of social identi cation, and that, to the extent that an individual identi es with an organization, the organization provides the individual with a sense of identity. Thus, organizational identi cation provides a basis for organizational attitudes and behaviour just as social identi cation provides a basis for attitudes and behaviour. This essentially underlies organizational identi cation s potential bene cial evects on organizational functioning. The more an individual identi es with an organization, the more likely he or she is to take the organization s perspective and to act in the organization s best interest (Dutton et al., 1994; Mael & Ashforth, 1992). Aside from overing an explanation of organizational identi cation s potential bene cial evects, Ashforth and Mael s reconceptualization introduces a clear and conceptually distinct cognitive (i.e. self-de nitional) aspect to organizational identi cation (i.e. organizational identi cation as providing a partial answer to the question who am I? ; Ashforth & Mael, 1989). This self-de nitional aspect of social identi cation with the organization distinguishes it from organizational commitment and from prior conceptualizations of organizational identi cation as a part of commitment (Allen & Meyer, 1990; Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979) or a basis of commitment (O Reilly & Chatman, 1986). Theories of social identi cation suggest a number of factors that may avect organizational identi cation. First, social identity theory proposes that, through identi cation, the group s standing re ects on the self. As a consequence, because people desire a positive self-image (Tajfel, 1978), people tend to identify more with high status groups (Ellemers, 1993) and organizations (Mael & Ashforth, 1992). The relative size of a group is also a major determinant of identi cation. This follows from Brewer s (1991, 1993) proposition that people aim for optimal distinctiveness, balancing the desires for membership in social categories (inclusiveness) and individual distinctiveness (exclusiveness). Because identi cation with large-sized groups implies sameness with a large number of other people, identi - cation with relatively large groups forms a threat to individual distinctiveness.

3 Organizational identi cation 139 Identi cation with smaller groups on the other hand may provide a suycient level of distinctiveness, whereas at the same time it ful ls a need for inclusiveness. As a consequence, people are more likely to identify with relatively small groups (Brewer, 1991). One other important determinant of identi cation is similarity between the individual and the group. People are more likely to identify with a group the more similar they are to the group, because identi cation is based on the categorization of the self as similar to others within the category (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). This holds for similarity to the people in the group as well as for similarity between the group s activities and the individual s preferences. Regarding the latter, for instance, Mael and Ashforth (1995) found in a study of US Army recruits that recruits identi cation with the army was positively related to a preference for outdoor activities (i.e. activities typical of army work framed diverently, this may be regarded as a positive relationship between person organization t and organizational identi cation; cf. Mael & Ashforth, 1995). In addition, the Mael and Ashforth (1995) study also suggested that some people are dispositionally more inclined to identify with groups and organizations out of a general preference for group attachments. Finally, social identi cation is context-dependent (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Turner et al., 1987). Both the presence of (members of) other groups (e.g. opposite sex for gender identity) and the extent to which individuals are approached on the basis of their group membership (e.g. police oycers tend to be approached on the basis of their group membership, i.e. as a police oycer rather than as an individual person) may render a speci c group membership salient and thus identi cation with that group more likely. Foci of organizational identi cation The focus of the abundance of studies on organizational commitment and the more limited number of studies on organizational identi cation tends to be on identi cation with and commitment to the organization as a whole (see e.g. Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Mathieu & Zajac, 1990; Morrow, 1993; for reviews). Yet, it would be an oversimpli cation to depict an organization as a single indivisible entity, without acknowledging that organizations are also networks of groups that may elicit feelings of identi cation in themselves. Indeed, the fact that organizational commitment may have multiple foci is explicitly recognized by Reichers (1985) who argues that divisions, departments, work units, and more informal groups within the organization may be just as likely foci of commitment as the organization as a whole (see also Becker, 1992; Becker & Billings, 1993; Zaccaro & Dobbins, 1989), and Ashforth and Mael (1989) put forward similar notions regarding the multiple foci of organizational identi cation. The observation that organizations provide their members with multiple group memberships (i.e. one may simultaneously be a member of the organization as a whole, of a department within the organization, and of a within-department work-group), and that all these memberships over potential foci of identi cation, gives rise to the question of which of these are the more important foci of identi cation. As we will argue

4 140 Daan van Knippenberg and Els C. M. van Schie below, despite the fact that organizational research tends to focus on attachment to the organization as a whole, a number of considerations suggest that work-group identi cation will generally be both stronger and more predictive of organizational attitudes and behaviour. Why should we expect work-group identi cation to be stronger than organizational identi cation? First, work-groups should be the more likely focus of identi cation because work-groups are more or less by de nition smaller than the encompassing organization. This follows directly from Brewer s (1991) proposition that people are more likely to identify with relatively small groups, because identi cation with large-sized groups embodies a threat to individual distinctiveness. Secondly, individuals will generally have more in common with their work-groups than with the organization as a whole in terms of the actual work and in terms of common work-related fate and history. Even though work-group composition may greatly avect the degree of perceived similarity between individual and group, this generally higher degree of similarity is likely to lead to higher levels of identi cation, because people are more likely to identify with a group the more similar the group is to themselves (Turner et al., 1987). In addition, as Moreland and Levine (in press) note, the fact that people spend most of their organizational life in their work-groups renders their own work-group familiar and attractive (Moreland & Beach, 1992), which will also lead to relatively high levels of identi cation. Furthermore, the average organizational context is likely to focus employees on their subgroup membership rather than membership in the organization as a whole, because most employees are both more likely to encounter (members of) other subgroups within the organization than (members of) other organizations and more likely to be approached in terms of their subgroup membership rather than in terms of their membership in the organization as a whole (Kramer, 1991). 1 On the basis of these considerations, we may predict that identi cation will be stronger with the own work-group than with the organization as a whole (Hypothesis 1). The more strongly an individual identi es with a certain group, the more he or she is likely to think and act in terms of this group membership (cf. Hogg & Abrams, 1988; Tajfel, 1978). Thus, because it is the strength of one s identi cation that partially mediates the evects of group membership on attitudes and behaviour, we may predict, on the basis of the expectation that work-group identi cation is stronger than organizational identi cation, that work-group identi cation is more strongly related to organizational attitudes and behaviour than identi cation with the organization as a whole. The present study tested this prediction by assessing four variables that may be expected to be related to organizational identi cations. Speci cally identi cation should be negatively related to turnover intentions, because employees that identify strongly should value their work group and organizational membership more and hence should be less willing to leave 1 This is notwithstanding the fact that in other situations, i.e. outside the organization, contact with others (e.g. family and friends) may focus the individual more on membership in the organization as a whole (cf. Dutton et al., 1994). Even so, most interactions referring to work-related identities are likely to take place within the organizational context. Hence, overall, context evects should focus the individual primarily on within-organization subgroup membership.

5 Organizational identi cation 141 the work-group and the organization (cf. Mael & Ashforth, 1995). Because identi cation instigates one to take the group s or organization s point of view, identi cation should also be related to the willingness to expend evort on the work-group s and organization s behalf (cf. Dutton et al., 1994). Therefore, we may expect that feelings of identi cation are positively related to employees job motivation and job involvement. In addition, identi cation leads individuals to ascribe group-de ning characteristics to themselves (self-stereotyping; Turner et al., 1987). Thus, through identi cation, the job becomes in a sense part of the self. Although this will be far from suycient to lead to job satisfaction in itself, it may be expected to add to feelings of job satisfaction because people tend to evaluate attitude objects associated with the self positively (cf. Beggan, 1992). Thus, to summarize, since we hypothesized that work-group identi cation is stronger than identi cation with the organization as a whole, we predict that work-group identi cation is more strongly related to turnover intentions, job motivation, job involvement, and job satisfaction than identi cation with the organization as a whole (Hypothesis 2). Method Data relevant to the above hypotheses were collected in two surveys, the rst of a local government, the second of a university. Both surveys assessed identi cation with the organization as a whole, identi cation with own work-group, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The second also incorporated measures of job involvement and job motivation. 2 Sample 1 Sample 1 was derived from a mail survey of a division of a local Dutch government. Questionnaires were mailed to all 210 employees at their home address, with a follow-up 3 weeks later. A total of 76 usable questionnaires was returned. Fifty-four per cent of the respondents were male, 46% female, and 75% of respondents were between 31 and 50 years of age. Consultation of the organization s management indicated that the sample was comparable to the overall population in these respects. The part of the survey relevant to the present purposes assessed organizational identi cation with a Dutch translation of Mael and Ashforth s (1992) organizational identi cation scale and work-group identi cation with a modi ed version of the same scale. The Mael and Ashforth scale consists of items like When someone criticizes (name of organization), it feels like a personal insult and When I talk about this organization, I usually say we rather than they. The scale has been shown to be reliable (Mael & Ashforth, 1992; Mael & Tetrick, 1992) and empirically distinguishable from the most widely used organizational commitment measure (Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulian, 1974, OCQ; see Mael & Tetrick, 1992). Respondents lled out two versions of this scale that were only diverent in the target of identi cation the items referred to: to assess identi cation with the organization as a whole (OID), the items referred to the organization s name, to assess identi cation with own work-group (WID), the items referred to my work-group (e.g. When someone criticizes my work-group, it feels like a personal insult ). Job satisfaction was measured with the Bray eld and Rothe (1951) job satisfaction scale and turnover intentions were assessed by a 3-item scale adapted from Mobley (1977) 2 Because of space limitations data for Sample 1 were gathered in the course of a rather extensive health survey job motivation and job involvement could not be assessed in Sample 1.

6 142 Daan van Knippenberg and Els C. M. van Schie by van Breukelen (1991). Table 1, left-hand side, provides descriptive statistics and correlations for Sample 1. Sample 2 Sample 2 was derived from a mail survey of a Dutch university faculty. Questionnaires were mailed to all 603 employees at their oyce address, with a follow-up 3 weeks later. A total of 163 usable questionnaires were obtained. Forty-four per cent of the respondents were male, 56% female, and the mean age of respondents was (SD = 8.93). Comparison with demographic data obtained from another source indicated that the sample was representative of the population in these respects. OID, WID, job satisfaction and turnover intentions were assessed with the same measures employed in Sample 1. In addition, job motivation was measured with Hackman & Lawler s (1971) internal motivation scale and job involvement was measured with a 6-item scale with statements such as I feel involved in my work and I am always prepared to do my best (responses on 5-point agree disagree scales). Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations for the second sample are displayed in Table 1, right-hand side. Results To assess whether the OID and WID scales did indeed measure two diverent identi cations rather than one single identi cation, for Sample 2 we entered the items comprising the two measures in a principal component analysis (PCA) with OBLIMIN rotation (Sample 1 was deemed too small for a meaningful analysis). The PCA yielded two factors, which accounted for 56.1% of the variance. All except one of the items loaded above.50 on the intended factor, and there were no cross-loadings of.35 or higher. One item had a loading of.36 on the intended factor and.20 on the other. To maximize comparability with other studies, this item was retained (note that, if anything, this works against our hypotheses). Thus, although not perfect, results support the conclusion that the WID and OID scales assess diverent constructs rather than one single identi cation. This conclusion is corroborated by the intercorrelations between WID and OID (see Table 1). WID and OID were uncorrelated in Sample 1 and not particularly strongly related in Sample 2. Our rst prediction was that WID would be stronger than OID. This turned out to be the case, both in Sample 1 (t(75) = 9.66, p <.0001; see Table 1 for means) and in Sample 2 (t(158) = 11.94, p <.0001; M WID = 3.48, SD =.82; M OID = 2.65, SD =.80; means for this analysis diver slightly from those presented in Table 1 due to missing values). Thus, Hypothesis 1 was supported. WID was not only expected to be stronger than OID, but also to be more strongly related to job satisfaction, turnover intentions, job involvement, and job motivation. Inspection of the intercorrelations displayed in Table 1 showed that this was indeed the case. In Sample 1, WID was signi cantly related to job satisfaction whereas OID was not (WID and OID were equally unrelated to turnover intentions, which, in itself, does not support our predictions). In Sample 2, WID was more strongly related to job satisfaction, turnover intentions, job involvement, and job motivation than OID. Thus, the pattern of correlations

7 Organizational identi cation 143 Table 1. Descriptives and correlations, Samples 1 and 2 Sample 1 Sample 2 M SD N M SD N WID (.73) (.83) OID (.82) *** (.83) Job satisfaction *.03 (.87) ***.18* (.92) Turnover intention *** (.80) **.14.51*** (.77) Job involvement ***.27**.71***.36*** (.72) Job motivation ***.15.32***.18*.41*** (.86) *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001. Note. Scores are on 5-point scales, with higher scores indicating higher identi cation, satisfaction, etc. CoeYcients alpha for each scale are given in parentheses on the diagonal. WID=identi cation with own work-group; OID=identi cation with the organization as a whole.

8 144 Daan van Knippenberg and Els C. M. van Schie supported Hypothesis 2. To put Hypothesis 2 to a more explicit test, we conducted two additional analyses. First, we conducted one-sided t tests for dependent r s (Cohen & Cohen, 1983) to determine whether WID was more strongly related to satisfaction, motivation, involvement, and turnover intentions than OID. For Sample 1, no signi cant diverences were found, which for satisfaction might be attributable to low statistical power. For Sample 2, WID was more strongly related to job satisfaction (t(151) = 3.39, p <.001), job involvement (t(155) = 2.44, p <.01), and job motivation (t(154) = 1.92, p <.05) than OID, whereas no signi cant diverence was found for turnover intentions. Secondly, we aimed to assess whether a focus on WID has anything to add to the more conventional focus on OID in terms of predictive power. To this end, we conducted, for each sample and criterion variable, a hierarchical regression analysis in which OID was entered rst and WID second. Results of these analyses indicate that for each criterion, WID added signi cantly to a prediction based on OID alone (R 2 change for the second step: job satisfaction, Sample 1:.07, p <.05, Sample 2:.17, p <.001; turnover intentions, Sample 1:.00, n.s., Sample 2:.04, p <.05; job involvement:.16, p <.001; job motivation:.07, p <.001). Thus, on the basis of these results, we may conclude that, in comparison with OID, WID is the more important correlate of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, job involvement, and job motivation (cf. Hypothesis 2). Discussion Before focusing on the conclusions that may be drawn from these ndings, we brie y discuss what should not be concluded on the basis of the present study. First, despite the fact that we adopted a data analysis strategy (regression analysis) that might suggest that WID and OID are seen as causes of satisfaction, turnover, involvement, and motivation, the present study makes no claims regarding causality. Indeed, aside from the fact that it is impossible to base conclusions concerning causality on cross-sectional studies like the one reported here, theoretical considerations suggest that organizational identi cations and job-related variables like for instance job satisfaction mutually avect each other. Secondly, since all variables were assessed with the same questionnaire, common method variance may have in ated relationships. Hence, some care is in order where conclusions regarding the absolute importance of organizational identi cation are concerned (i.e. as opposed to the importance of WID relative to OID), and more de nite conclusions should await future research employing a more diverse set of data gathering methods (e.g. measuring actual turnover). Despite these limitations, some important conclusions may be based on the present ndings. Of primary importance is the fact that the present study demonstrates that other foci of identi cation may be more important in day-to-day organizational life than the organization as a whole. The nding that WID was both stronger than OID and more strongly related to organizational attitudes demonstrates that a sole focus on the organization as a whole may result in serious oversights in the study of organizational behaviour. A look at the results of the

9 Organizational identi cation 145 correlational and regression analyses shows that if we had only taken the more common focus on identi cation with the organization as a whole, this would have resulted in an underestimation of the importance of feelings of identi cation in the present samples. Thus, our ndings strongly suggest that our understanding of organizational attitudes and behaviour has much to gain by an open eye for the multiple foci of identi cation that are associated with organizational membership (see also Becker, 1992). On the more practical side, the nding that WID was the stronger correlate of job satisfaction, turnover intentions, job involvement, and job motivation suggests that attempts to improve an organization s identi cation-eliciting abilities in the hope of achieving bene cial evects on organizational attitudes and behaviour might be more evective when directed at the work-group level than at the organizational level. In fact, identi cation-enhancing interventions may also be a lot easier to implement at the work-group level (e.g. team building) than at the organizational level. Thus, the practice of management as well as organization research may bene t from an increased focus on the work-group. Yet, in this regard, a word of caution is in order. Although WID might be more important in determining organizational attitudes and behaviour, dominance of WID over OID may have some less bene cial evects as well. A strong focus on own work-group might elicit feelings of competition or even hostility between diverent workgroups (cf. Kramer, 1991), which may be detrimental to the organization s functioning (although a sense of competition might also boost performance). Another potential negative evect of strong feelings of identi cation with the own work-group might be its evect on within-organization mobility: high work-group identi cation may render employees unwilling to transfer to another work-group, and, when forced to do so, unmotivated to work within their new work-group. Moreover, if work-group norms and organizational norms diver substantially, work-group identi cation may be detrimental to the organization s functioning, because identi cation with a social category tends to result in conformity to the category s norms (Turner et al., 1987; see e.g. Blau, 1995, for an example of the potential negative evects of work-group norms). Thus, although WID may be more important than OID in determining organizational attitudes and behaviour, we should not conclude that high levels of WID are always to the organization s advantage. Finally, although WID clearly dominated OID in the present study, and the variables studied were chosen because of their importance to organizational behaviour and their prevalence in organizational behaviour research, we should not conclude that WID will always be stronger than OID, nor that WID will be more strongly related to all organizational attitudes and behaviours. There may be individual diverences (cf. Becker & Billings, 1993) or inter-organizational diverences (cf. Ashforth & Mael, 1989) in the extent to which the one identi cation prevails over the other, and although most attitudes and behaviours may primarily avect or be avected by WID, others might predominantly avect or be avected by OID (cf. Becker & Billings, 1993; Zaccaro & Dobbins, 1989). Future research pursuing these possibilities may deepen our understanding of the dynamics of organization-based identi cations.

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