What is Organizational Identity

The last 2 decades witnessed a surge in empirical studies on the variables associated with achievement in higher education. A number of meta-analyses synthesized these findings. In our systematic literature review, we included 38 meta-analyses investigating 105 correlates of achievement, based on 3,330 effect sizes from almost 2 million students. We provide a list of the 105 variables, ordered by the effect size, and summary statistics for central research topics. The results highlight the close relation between social interaction in courses and achievement. Achievement is also strongly associated with the stimulation of meaningful learning by presenting information in a clear way, relating it to the students, and using conceptually demanding learning tasks. Instruction and communication technology has comparably weak effect sizes, which did not increase over time. Strong moderator effects are found for almost all instructional methods, indicating that how a method is implemented in detail strongly affects achievement. Teachers with high-achieving students invest time and effort in designing the microstructure of their courses, establish clear learning goals, and employ feedback practices. This emphasizes the importance of teacher training in higher education. Students with high achievement are characterized by high self-efficacy, high prior achievement and intelligence, conscientiousness, and the goal-directed use of learning strategies. Barring the paucity of controlled experiments and the lack of meta-analyses on recent educational innovations, the variables associated with achievement in higher education are generally well investigated and well understood. By using these findings, teachers, university administrators, and policymakers can increase the effectivity of higher education. (PsycINFO Database Record

Variables associated with achievement in higher education: A systematic review of meta-analyses.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the existing literature linked to the emerging field of employer branding, with a view to adding insight from the perspective of the management of human resources.Design/methodology/approach – The approach taken entails reviewing books and academic journals from the area of marketing, organisational behaviour (OB) and business management. The review shows that research and theory from a range of fields can help add to one's knowledge of employer branding; these include areas of research that investigate organisational attractiveness to potential new recruits, research and writing linked to the psychological contract literature as well as work that examines organisational identity, organisational identification and organisational personality characteristics.Research limitations/implications – The main limitation of the review is that, while different areas and fields of research are being drawn on to help identify useful knowledge that can improve one's unde...

An integrative review of employer branding and OB theory

This article presents a model of social identity development and integration in the self. Classic intergroup theories (e.g., social identity theory, self-categorization theory) address the situational, short-term changes in social identities. Although these theories identify the contextual and environmental factors that explain situational changes in social identification, the intraindividual processes underlying developmental changes in social identities and their integration within the self remain to be identified. Relying on recent intergroup models as well as on developmental (i.e., neo-Piagetian) and social cognitive frameworks, this article proposes a four-stage model that explains the specific processes by which multiple social identities develop intraindividually and become integrated within the self over time. The factors that facilitate versus impede these identity change processes and the consequences associated with social identity integration are also presented.

http://www.mapageweb.umontreal.ca/delasabr/publications/Amiot%20et%20al.,%202007.pdf

Integration of Social Identities in the Self: Toward a Cognitive-Developmental Model

This paper evaluates the state of contact hypothesis research from a policy perspective. Building on Pettigrew and Tropp's (2006) influential meta-analysis, we assemble all intergroup contact studies that feature random assignment and delayed outcome measures, of which there are 27 in total, nearly two-thirds of which were published following the original review. We find the evidence from this updated dataset to be consistent with Pettigrew and Tropp's (2006) conclusion that contact “typically reduces prejudice.” At the same time, our meta-analysis suggests that contact's effects vary, with interventions directed at ethnic or racial prejudice generating substantially weaker effects. Moreover, our inventory of relevant studies reveals important gaps, most notably the absence of studies addressing adults' racial or ethnic prejudices, an important limitation for both theory and policy. We also call attention to the lack of research that systematically investigates the scope conditions suggested by Allport (1954) under which contact is most influential. We conclude that these gaps in contact research must be addressed empirically before this hypothesis can reliably guide policy.

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The contact hypothesis re-evaluated

The present meta-analysis tested the effectiveness of contact-based interventions for the reduction of ethnic prejudice. Up to now, a meta-analysis summarizing the results of real-world interventions that rest on the intergroup contact theory has been missing. We included evaluations of programs realizing direct (i.e., face-to-face) and/or indirect (i.e., extended or virtual) contact in real-world settings outside the lab. The interventions' effectiveness was tested shortly after their end (k = 123 comparisons, N = 11 371 participants) and with a delay of at least 1 month (k = 25, N = 1650). Our data show that contact interventions improve ethnic attitudes. Importantly, changes persist over time. Furthermore, not only direct but also indirect contact interventions are successful. In addition, contact programs are effective even in the context of a serious societal conflict (e.g., in the Middle East). Although changes are typically larger for ethnic majorities, there is an impact on minorities, too. Finally, contact interventions not only improve attitudes toward individuals involved in the program, their effects also generalize to outgroups as a whole. In sum, social psychology provides an intervention for prejudice reduction that can be successfully implemented in the practical field. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Can we really reduce ethnic prejudice outside the lab? A meta-analysis of direct and indirect contact interventions

Within the organizational domain, different foci of social identification can be differentiated. In the context of an organizational merger, identification with the former premerger organization, which often continues as a subunit of the larger whole after the merger, and identification with the larger organization post merger are important aspects of an employee's belief system and thus are relevant for work-related attitudes and behaviours. We conducted a cross-sectional questionnaire study among 450 employees of two recently merged hospitals. We hypothesized that both identification with the premerger subunit that still exists as a separate entity after the fusion and identification with the postmerger larger organization will be positively associated with job satisfaction and self-reported citizenship behaviour and negatively correlated with turnover intentions and negative emotions. Furthermore, particularly those employees who are highly identified with both entities should hold more positive attitu...

Research note: The winds of change: Multiple identifications in the case of organizational mergers

Self-handicapping represents a frequently used strategy for regulating the threat to self-esteem elicited by the fear of failing in academic achievement settings. Several studies have documented negative associations between self-handicapping and different educational outcomes, inter alia academic achievement. However, studies on the relation between self-handicapping and academic achievement have yielded heterogeneous results, indicating the need to conduct meta-analytic investigations and to examine the relevance of several potential moderator variables. This meta-analysis integrates the results of 36 field studies with 49 independent effect sizes (N = 25,550). A random effects model revealed a mean effect size between self-handicapping and academic achievement of r = −.23 (p < .001, range: r = −.46 to r = .02). Moreover, moderator analyses showed that the type of self-handicapping scale, the school type (elementary, middle, high school, university), the level of mastery goals in the sample, and the reliability of the self-handicapping scale considerably influenced the mean correlation. Based on our findings, we conclude that educational interventions to enhance academic achievement should additionally focus on preventing self-handicapping.

Academic Self-Handicapping and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis.

Much social psychological research is concerned with the question whether and how behavior changes because of a “treatment” (e.g., a situation that triggers a psychological reaction). One easy way to investigate such changes would be to analyze intraindividual differences before (Time 1) and after the treatment (Time 2). Interestingly, many scholars refrain from using difference scores because they think they are inherently unreliable. However, the bad reputation of difference scores is, in many cases, unwarranted: difference scores can be sufficiently reliable when standard deviations differ between measurement occasions, and standard deviations are likely to differ between measurement occasions because of differential treatment effects (i.e., interindividual differences in responsiveness to a treatment) and/or “strong situation” treatments. In the present article, we will (1) summarize classic and current arguments regarding the reliability of difference scores, (2) discuss the use of residual change scores as an alternative to difference scores, and (3) argue that latent difference score models are a particularly useful tool that social psychologists should consider using more frequently. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Gunnar Lemmer

Papers

Can we really reduce ethnic prejudice outside the lab? A meta-analysis of direct and indirect contact interventions

Research note: The winds of change: Multiple identifications in the case of organizational mergers

Academic Self-Handicapping and Achievement: A Meta-Analysis.

Individual differences make a difference: On the use and the psychometric properties of difference scores in social psychology

The “true” indirect effect won't (always) stand up: When and why reverse mediation testing fails