My Job is My Castle: Identification in Organizational Contexts

Abstract

Due to growing globalization, cross-national alliances, (international) organizational mergers, restructuring, delayering, or outsourcing, one could assume that the psychological bond between employee and employing organization has become weaker. Also, new forms of work and enterprises like telecommuting or other types of virtual organizations should psychologically distract employees even more from their organizations. One could also argue, however, that some kind of psychological attachment between organization and organizational member is more important for both the individual’s well-being and the organization’s success because of these rapid changes. The present overview of organizational identification argues in exactly this direction and holds some empirical evidence for this (e.g., Wiesenfeld, Raghuram, & Garud, 2001). The aim of this chapter is to give an overview of the antecedents, elements, and consequences of social identification in organizational contexts and thus the relevance of the concept for the analysis of organizational behavior. This will be done particularly in two domains where change processes are going on steadily and increasingly— organizational mergers and group productivity.