Organizational identification and workplace behavior: More than meets the eye

Publication date: 2017Source: Research in Organizational Behavior, Volume 37Author(s): Steven L. Blader, Shefali Patil, Dominic J. PackerAbstractOrganizational 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. More...

Source: Research in Organizational Behavior - July 5, 2018 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Source Type: research