What makes organizations so similar? We contend that the engine of rationalization and bureaucratization has moved from the competitive marketplace to the state and the professions. Once a set of organizations emerges as a field, a paradox arises: rational actors make their organizations increasingly similar as they try to change them. We describe three isomorphic processes-coercive, mimetic, and normative—leading to this outcome. We then specify hypotheses about the impact of resource centralization and dependency, goal ambiguity and technical uncertainty, and professionalization and structuration on isomorphic change. Finally, we suggest implications for theories of organizations and social change.

The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields (Chinese Translation)

https://leeds-faculty.colorado.edu/dahe7472/Journal%20of%20Management-2008-Ashforth-325-74.pdf

Identification in Organizations: An Examination of Four Fundamental Questions

Corporate reputation and customer behavioral intentions: The roles of trust, identification and commitment ☆

본 연구는 21세기 기업경영의 가장 중요한 트렌드인 진정성의 효과를 조직-공중 관계성, 기업명성, 공중의 구매행동 차원에서 고찰하였다 특히, 이들 간의 관계에 대한 실증적 검증을 통해 PR학의 중심을 차지하고 있는 관계관리와 명성관리 논의를 확장시키고, 진정성의 결과로 조직효과 차원의 공중의 구매행동을 살펴봄으로써 기업경영에서 진정성의 실질적 중요성을 입증해내고자 하였다 연구결과, 공중은 진정성이 있다고 인식하는 기업과의 관계에 더 만족하는 것으로 나타났으며, 조직-공중관계의 질은 진정성이 구매행동의도에 미치는 영향에 있어 매개적 역할을 하는 것으로 검증되었다 또한 기업의 진정성은 공중의 기업명성에도 유의미한 영향을 미치고 이것이 구매행동이나 추천의도와 같은 행동적 결과로 이어져 조직효과성을 높이는 것으로 나타났다 반면 구매행동의도에 대한 진정성의 효과는 유의미하지 않아 기업의 진정성 그 자체가 바로 구매행동으로 이어지지 않는 것으로 입증되었다 즉, 진정성이 구매행동의도에 미치는 영향에 있어 조직-공중관계성, 기업브랜드의 명성이 완전 매개의 역할을 하는 것으로 나타나 기업의 재무적 경영성과와 효과창출에 있어 진정성의 실천을 통한 공중관계 관리와 기업명성의 구축이 무엇보다 중요함이 입증되었다 또한 본 연구는 제시한 모델의 설명력이 710%로 나타나 조직-공중관계성의 질, 기업명성을 매개로 하는 진정성의 효과 모델이 재무적 성과 측면에서의 조직효과 창출에 적용할 수 있는 모델임을 보여주고, 진정성의 상업화에 대한 주의와 함께 실무적 시사점을 제시하였다

진정성 (authenticity) 효과

The conventional service–profit chain (SPC) proposes that a firm's financial performance can be improved through a path that connects employee satisfaction, customer orientation, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. In this article, a complementary SPC that is built on both a conventional path and a social identity–based path is introduced. The latter SPC path centrally builds on customer– and employee–company identification as a core construct. Using a large-scale triadic data set that includes data from employees, customers, and firms, the authors find strong support for the extended SPC, which accounts for important customer (loyalty and willingness to pay) and firm (financial performance) outcomes. In addition, the effects of company identification exist incrementally beyond the effects of the conventional SPC path.

/pdf/social-identity-and-the-service-profit-chain-14cwwz99h5.pdf

Social Identity and the Service-Profit Chain

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

There is a growing body of literature presenting the argument that processes of organizational identification (OI) are extremely important in helping to ensure that staff work towards the interests of the organization. There are, however, a number of problems with the way that the notion of OI has been conceptualized and operationalized in the extant literature. This paper examines how OI has been defined and measured over a number of decades. A number of problems are identified with how OI has been conceptualized by researchers, including, for example, issues about whether there is an affective element to identification and how the construct relates to organizational commitment. The paper also includes a review of previous approaches to measuring the concept of OI and raises some key problems with existing research tools. The paper concludes by arguing for a particular conceptualization of OI which helps to clarify the complex relationship between identification and organizational commitment, while at the same time accommodating previous definitions of the construct.

Organizational identification: A conceptual and operational review.

This study involves a multifoci analysis of antecedents and outcomes of organizational identification (OID), within a dual-organizational identity context. We investigate links between perceived organizational support (POS), OID, organizational involvement, and turnover intention with 736 employees from a UK National Health Service (NHS) Trust. Using Structural Equation Models (SEM), we analyzed models using the Trust and the NHS as organizational foci. With both Trust and NHS foci, POS had a positive effect on identification which, in turn, predicted both outcomes. Organizational support showed a direct and an indirect effect on outcomes through OID. Generally the effects were foci specific, though limited downward crossfoci effects were found.

Perceived organizational support, organizational identification, and employee outcomes testing a simultaneous multifoci model

There is continuing debate in the literature as to how organizational identification (OID) should be conceptualized and operationalized. We present a new six-item measure of OID that includes both cognitive and affective components and that integrates the main dimensions of OID found in the literature. The new measure comprises three main subcomponents: self-categorization and labelling, sharing of organizational goals and values, and a sense of organizational belonging and membership. The measure was tested on two separate samples of over 600 employees working in the UK National Health Service (NHS) using Confirmatory Factor Analysis. The results provided support for the proposed three-component conceptualization of OID. However, the three subcomponents were highly intercorrelated and showed low discriminant validity. We therefore propose a single overall measure of OID. This six-item aggregate scale has acceptable psychometric properties and provides a theoretically meaningful, but parsimonious, measure...

Organizational identification: Development and testing of a conceptually grounded measure

Academic research has rarely investigated the role that people management plays in encouraging employees to identify with their employing organisation. This article reports on a study investigating the role that employee perceptions of the HR environment plays in encouraging organisational identification and the importance of perceived organisational support in this relationship. Two research surveys are discussed, one carried out shortly after the formation of the new organisation within the UK National Health Service, and one is a replication study undertaken 13 months later. The results show that key HR-related factors predict organisational identification; this effect is both direct and indirect through perceptions of organisational support. The findings also demonstrate that, as the organisation matures, there are some interesting changes in which aspects of the HR environment predict identification and perceptions of organisational support.

Martin R. Edwards

Papers

An integrative review of employer branding and OB theory

Organizational identification: A conceptual and operational review.

Perceived organizational support, organizational identification, and employee outcomes testing a simultaneous multifoci model

Organizational identification: Development and testing of a conceptually grounded measure

HR, perceived organisational support and organisational identification: an analysis after organisational formation