Making Sense of Who We Are

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daan van Knippenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Role Modeling ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Change Perceptions ◽  
Core Role

Organizational identity—those aspects of the organization that its members perceive to be central, enduring, and distinctive—is not only an important influence on organizational behavior: it is also a social construction, and thus potentially subject to leadership to shape or change perceptions of organizational identity. This chapter presents an analysis of these leadership influences informed by social identity analyses of leadership and identity change. This analysis points to a core role of leader sensegiving—communicating the desired understanding of organizational identity—supported by other acts of leadership such as role modeling, symbolic changes, and building a coalition to advocate the envisioned identity. This analysis also highlights the role of leader group prototypicality in terms of perceived representativeness of the currently perceived as well as of the envisioned identity, both to give the leader’s identity claims the necessary credibility and to establish continuity between current and envisioned understandings of identity.

scholarly journals The Effect of Self-concept and Organizational Identity on Organizational Citizenship Behavior ( A Case Study in Social Security Organization of Isfahan city)

2012 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 175
Author(s):  
Sayyed Mohsen Allameh ◽  
Saeed Alinajimi ◽  
Ali Kazemi
Keyword(s):  
Social Security ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Organizational Citizenship ◽  
Organizational Citizenship Behavior ◽  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Self Concept ◽  
Citizenship Behavior ◽  
Isfahan Province ◽  
The Relationship

During the two recent decades, researchers of organizational behavior have paid special attention to extra-social behavior in organizations, and there has been specific focus on employees' affairs which are developed beyond formal job demands. Globalization era has created increased inter-individual mutual dependencies among organizations and groups. Thus, it has made more need for extra-social cooperation and interaction inside and outside the organizations. Therefore, organizational citizenship behavior plays a role in increasing the effectiveness and durability of the organization. The main purpose of this survey is to study the manner of impact of self-concept, and organizational identity on organizational citizenship behavior of employees of Social Security Corporation in Isfahan province and also to examine the existence of the balancing role of self-concept variable in the relationship between organizational identity and organizational citizenship behavior. This survey was conducted using descriptive-metrical method. Obtained results of this survey reveal that organizational citizenship behavior is affected by organizational identity, and self-concept; and each variable of organizational identity has positive correlation with organizational citizenship behavior. It means that by strengthening and improving the above variables it is possible to enhance organizational citizenship behavior. Also, results demonstrate that self-concept balances the relationship between organizational identity and organizational citizenship behavior.

Organizing, Organizations, and the Role of Social Media Conversations

2018 ◽  
pp. 62-78
Author(s):  
Veronica R. Dawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Theory Of The Firm ◽  
Organizational Participation ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Communicative Theory

This chapter traces the concept of organizational identity in organization theory and places it in the social media context. It proposes that organizational communication theories intellectually based in the “linguistic turn” (e.g., the Montreal School Approach to how communication constitutes organizations, communicative theory of the firm) are well positioned to illuminate the constitutive capabilities of identity-bound interaction on social media. It suggest that social media is more than another organizational tool for communication with stakeholders in that it affords interactants the opportunity to negotiate foundational organizational practices: organizational identity, boundaries, and membership, in public. In this negotiative process, the organizing role of the stakeholder is emphasized and legitimized by organizational participation and engagement on social media platforms. The Montreal School Approach's conversation–text dialectic and the communicative theory of the firm's conceptualization of organizations as social, are two useful concepts when making sense of organization–stakeholder interaction in the social media context.

scholarly journals Becoming through doing: How experimental spaces enable organizational identity work

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-49
Author(s):  
Neva Bojovic ◽  
Valérie Sabatier ◽  
Emmanuel Coblence
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Cognitive Tools ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Work Space ◽  
Organizational Identities ◽  
Magazine Publishing

This qualitative study of a magazine publishing incumbent shows how organizational identity work can be triggered when organizational members engage in business model experimentation within the bounded social setting of experimental space. The study adds to the understanding of the strategy-identity nexus by expanding on the view of business models as cognitive tools to business models as tools for becoming and by understanding the role of experimental spaces as holding environments for organizational identity work. We show how an experimental space engages organizational members in experimental practices (e.g. cognitive, material, and experiential). As firms experiment with “what they do,” organizational members progressively confront the existing organizational identity in the following ways: they engage in practices of organizational identity work by coping with the loss of the old identity, they play with possible organizational identities, and they allow new organizational identity aspirations to emerge. In these ways, experimental spaces act as an organizational identity work space that eventually enables organizational identity change. We identify two mechanisms (i.e. grounding and releasing) by which an organizational identity work space emerges and leads to the establishment of a renewed organizational identity.

Social Identity Change During an Intergroup Merger: The Role of Status, Similarity, and Identity Threat

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 443-455 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine E. Amiot ◽  
Deborah J. Terry ◽  
Blake M. McKimmie
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Identity Threat

Bereavement: An Incomplete Rite of Passage

2008 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Hunter
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Rite Of Passage ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Emotional Needs ◽  
Funeral Ritual ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Funerary Rituals ◽  
Anthropological Fieldwork

A bereavement ritual observed during anthropological fieldwork in Peru gives basis to this article which asserts that bereavement has become an incomplete rite of passage. The article reviews the role of ritual and rites of passage, examines other anthropologic examples of death and bereavement rituals, and identifies the lack of post-funeral ritual for many bereaved individuals in the United States. While funerary rituals which end with the funeral and burial of the dead are helpful in providing immediate structure for the bereaved, they are not congruent with the long-term emotional needs and reconstruction of meaning within grief. The author acknowledges value of both private ritual and reunions of the community of mourners, and recommends that bereavement counselors and/or the funeral industry offer to help bereaved construct a “ritual of remembrance and new meaning” after time has allowed them to move along in meaning reconstruction processes of making sense, finding benefits, and identity change.

scholarly journals Sensemaking in and around Organizations

Management ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lee Watkiss ◽  
Jungsoo Ahn
Keyword(s):  
Social Construction ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Organizational Theory ◽  
Strategic Change ◽  
The Political ◽  
Organizational Life ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Social

Sensemaking is one of the main theoretical perspectives that is used to understand both social cognition within organizational theory and the social construction of organizational behavior. Initial scholarship focused on the cognitive processes of sensemaking; discursive approaches followed in order to understand how actors come together to coordinate action. In recent years, the scope of the sensemaking perspective has expanded to account for the role of affect as well as to consider the political nature of sensemaking. Although sensemaking is most closely informed by ideas in social psychology and management, it also draws from cognitive psychology, symbolic interactionism, and ethnomethodology. The first section provides an introduction to sensemaking, including introductory works, overviews, and reviews. Next, the journals where sensemaking research is published are highlighted. This is followed by a review of the primary and emerging approaches to sensemaking. We conclude with a discussion about sensegiving, a related construct, and how a sensemaking perspective informs other areas of organizational theory, including strategic change, organizing, and symbolic approaches to organizational life.

scholarly journals Organizational identification, work engagement, and job satisfaction

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (8) ◽  
pp. 1019-1033 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Karanika-Murray ◽  
Nikita Duncan ◽  
Halley M. Pontes ◽  
Mark D. Griffiths
Keyword(s):  
Job Satisfaction ◽  
Social Identity ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Employee Engagement ◽  
Work Engagement ◽  
Organizational Identification ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Practical Implications

Purpose – Organizational identification refers to a person’s sense of belonging within the organization in which they work. Despite the importance of organizational identification for work-related attitudes and organizational behavior, little research has directly examined the mechanisms that may link these. The purpose of this paper is to provide an understanding of how organizational identification relates to job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting a social identity perspective, the authors present and test two models that describe work engagement and its constituent dimensions (vigor, dedication, absorption) as mediating the relationship between organizational identification and job satisfaction. Findings – Bootstrapped mediation analyses provided support for full mediation whereby there is an indirect (via work engagement) and positive effect of organizational identification on job satisfaction. Analyses also provided support for the mediating effects of the three dimensions of work engagement, vigor, dedication, and absorption, in this relationship. Practical implications – Although cross-sectional, this study provides a needed first step toward an understanding of the important role of organizational identification for job satisfaction and the mediating role of work engagement in this relationship. Originality/value – The results provide valuable insights into the effects of organizational identification and address some of the gaps in understanding social identity as the context for work behaviors. Theoretical and practical implications for strengthening employee engagement and enhancing organizational identification are discussed.

Categories We Live By

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ásta
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Single Mothers ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Social Meaning ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
Life Options

We are women, we are men. We are refugees, single mothers, people with disabilities, and queers. We belong to social categories that frame their action, self-understanding, and life options. But what are social categories? How are they created and sustained? How does one come to belong to them? To answer these questions is to offer a metaphysics of social categories, and that is the project of Categories We Live By. The key component in the story offered is a theory of what it is for a feature of an individual to be socially meaningful in a context. People have a myriad of features, but only some of them make a difference socially in the contexts people travel. The author gives an account of what it is for a feature of an individual to matter socially in a given context. This the author does by introducing a conferralist framework to carve out a theory of social meaning, and then uses the framework to offer a theory of social construction, and of the construction of sex, gender, race, disability, and other social categories. Accompanying is also a theory of social identity that brings out the role of individual agency in the formation and maintenance of social categories.

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