Organizational identification (OI) is a term used in management studies and organizational psychology. The term refers to the propensity of a member of an organization to identify with that organization. OI has been distinguished from "affective organizational commitment". Measures of an individual's OI have been developed, based on questionnaires.
Definitions of identification and organizational identification Cheney and Tompkins state that identification is "the appropriation of identity, either by the individual or collective in question by others. Identification includes "the development and maintenance of an individual's or group's 'sameness' or 'substance' against a backdrop of change and 'outside' elements." Salient symbolic linkages (through communication) are important to identification, identification is a process, and the nature of a particular individual's or group's identification with something is continually changing. Identification, to organizations or anything else, is "an active process by which individuals link themselves to elements in a social scene" and identifications help us make sense of our world and thoughts and help us to make decisions. The process of identification occurs largely through language as one expresses similarities or affiliations with particular groups, including organizations.
Phillip Tompkins was one of the first to use the phrase 'organizational identification' and is a pioneer in the study of organizational communication. Simon has also been given credit for establishing organizational identification in theory and scholarship. Notions of organizational identity started with broader thinking about self-identity and identification in general. After a number of years of research into identity and identification in organizations, Cheney and Tompkins clarified the application of these concepts in organizations.
OI is a form of organizational control and happens when "a decision maker identifies with an organization [and] desires to choose the alternative which best promotes the perceived interests of that organization". Other authors have defined OI as an alignment of individual and organizational values, as well as the perception of oneness with and belongingness to the organization. OI has been researched as an individual's view and classification of self in terms of organizational membership. Social identity theory has combined the cognitive elements of OI described above with affective and evaluative components. For example, emotional attachment, feelings of pride, and other positive emotions that are derived from organizational membership have been incorporated in the operationalization of OI.
O’Reilly and Chatman conceptualized OI in terms of affective and motivational processes. They argued that OI arises from attraction and desire to maintain an emotionally satisfying, self-defining relationship with the organization. Perhaps the most comprehensive definition of OI would conceptualize it as a perceptual link to an organization. This link is established by employees through various cognitive and affective processes that occur as employees and an organization (including all its constituents—co-workers, supervisors) interact. While the widening of OI helps to discover additional sources and processes via which OI can be established, it also complicates the distinction between OI and other constructs — namely, affective organizational commitment — in IO psychology research.
Implications of Organizational Identification Organizational identification correlates to the relationship between self-identification and commitment to an organization. Organizational identification instills positive outcomes for work attitudes and behaviors including motivation, job performance and satisfaction, individual decision making, and employee interaction and retention. Employee satisfaction and retention have implications for productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and profit.
Ashforth, Harrison and Corley offer four reasons why organizational identification is important. First, it is important to concepts of self-identity: it is one way in which people come to define themselves, make sense of their place in the world and appropriately navigate their worlds. Second, there is an essential human need to identify with and feel part of a larger group, and identifying with an organization fulfills this need, as well as the need to enhance self. Third, OI is associated with a number of important organizational outcomes, including employee satisfaction, performance and retention. Although recent research has begun to explore the potentially negative outcomes of OI, including reduced creativity and resistance to change. Finally, links have been made between OI and other organizational behaviors, including leadership, perceptions of justice and the meaning of work.
The strength of an employee's identification with a company can be linked to the organization member's attitudes. Issue such as company policies, rules, communicated mission values and strategy all interplay in employee's identification. The field of organization identification studies and questions organizational control of employees through efforts to increase or improve organizational identification.
Cheney states that organizational policies actually affect the development of identification "in terms of what is communicated to the employee". "Organizational identification guides behavior by influencing which problems and alternatives are seen and by biasing choices that appear most salient to organizational success".
Organizations choose to communicate particular values and beliefs in particular ways, when and how the organization frames issues and activities. Organizational identity and self-identification can determine if an employee is fit for that organization.
Organizational identification and affective organizational commitment van Knippenberg and Sleebos separate OI and affective organizational commitment by narrowing the scope of the former. Identification is a cognitive/perceptual construct reflecting self-reference. Commitment reflects an attitude toward the organization and its members. Identification is self-definitional and implies psychological oneness with the organization. Commitment implies a relationship in which both individual and organization are separate entities.
Meyer and Allen created a three-component model of organizational commitment: affective, continuance, and normative. OI and affective organizational commitment are closely related and interchangeable constructs. In his meta-analysis, Riketta examined the extent of the overlap between OI and affective organizational commitment across 96 independent samples. He found a significant and very strong positive correlation between OI and affective organizational commitment (r = .78). This suggests that the average OI study had significant construct overlaps with affective organizational commitment. Nonetheless, Riketta argued that OI and affective organizational commitment could be distinguished because they differentially relate to several organizational outcomes. Such differences were most pronounced in studies where OI was measured by the Mael and Ashforth's scale, which leaves out an emotional attachment component while focusing on employee perception of oneness with and belongingness to the organization. In such studies, OI compared to affective organizational commitment, measured by the affective commitment scale, correlated less strongly with job satisfaction (r = .47 vs. r =.65) and intent to leave (r = -.35 vs. r = -.56), but more strongly with job involvement (r = .60 vs. r = .53) and extra-role performance (r = .39 vs. r = .23).
OI is measured by the OI questionnaire, the correlation between OI and intent to leave was stronger than the correlation between affective organizational commitment and intent to leave (r = -.64 vs. r = -.56). In addition, OI had a much stronger association with age (r = .60 vs. r = .15), but there were no differences in how both OI and affective organizational commitment correlated with job satisfaction (r = .68).
Measures of organizational identification
From Riketta's meta-analytic review, we can deduce that Mael and Ashworth's OI measure is narrower and more distinct from the affective organizational commitment, while the OI questionnaire has more overlap with the affective organizational commitment. In addition, Mael and Ashworth's OI measure may be more useful than either the OI questionnaire or affective commitment scale when examining or predicting employee extra role behavior and job involvement. However, the OI questionnaire is a better indicator of employee intentions to leave the organization than either the affective commitment scale or Mael and Ashworth's OI measure.
Edwards and Peccei developed an OI measure that taps into three separate but closely related factors of OI. The three factors include: the categorization of the self as an organizational member the integration of the organization's goals and values the development of an emotional attachment, belongingness, and membership to the organization. Appropriately, these three factors incorporate the main components from OI definitions throughout OI research thus far. Because each factor was measured by two separate items, Edwards and Peccei were able to conduct confirmatory factor analysis for their three factor model fit across two independent samples.
Their results indicate the lack of discriminant validity among the three factors of OI. And although the model with three underlying dimensions of OI fits the data slightly better, the one factor model also yields satisfactory fit. In other words, while it may be useful to conceptualize OI in terms of three main components, these components are strongly correlated. Therefore, for the practical purposes of OI measurement, Edwards and Peccei suggest creating a composite or aggregate of the three dimensions and using the six-item measure as a single overall scale of OI.
Antecedents
Perceived organizational support One of the antecedents to OI is perceived organizational support (POS), or “the extent to which individuals believe that their employing organization values their contribution and cares for their well-being”. Edwards and Peccei argued that when organizations show concern for their employees’ well being, there will be a tendency for these individuals to develop an attachment and identify with the organization. The relationship between OI and perceived organizational support further develops as OI mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational involvement.
Organizational prestige Similarly to perceived organizational support, the organization's prestige is an antecedent to OI, for as the organization becomes well regarded, the employee “basks in reflected glory” and gladly identifies with its reputation and goals. The stereotypes of the organization reflect central beliefs and missions of the organization. Further, these stereotypes allow for an individual to indirectly identify with the goals of the organization. In other words, the individual identifies with the organization as the organization's ideals become his or her own. As these stereotypes become more distinct from other competing organizations, the present company becomes a more salient ideal which the employee identifies with.
Identity Identity and identification are "root constructs in organizational phenomena" and underlie many observable organizational behaviors. Identity and identification are central to the questions of 'who am I?', 'who are we?' and 'what is my role in this world?'. In order to understand identification, one must understand identity. It has emerged in scholarly literature in three different contexts: micro (social identity theory, self categorization theory)