The Effects of Congruence in Member and Leader Organizational Identification on Work Outcomes

Abstract

Drawing on social identity theory and self-categorization theory, we integrated research on shared social identity and identity threat to examine the effects on work outcomes of congruence vs. incongruence in both members’ and leaders’ identification with their organization. A multi-level polynomial regression analysis showed that when members and leaders were congruent in their organizational identification, they enjoyed higher (member) job satisfaction, higher (leader) organizational citizenship behaviors, and member-leader agreement on the member’s performance rating. Our results demonstrated further that incongruence affected member and leader outcomes, in that a comparatively higher level of organizational identification on the part of one led to relatively higher job satisfaction and OCBO for that party in contrast to when that party’s organizational identification was comparatively lower. In addition, agreement on the member’s performance rating was higher when the member’s organizational identific...