Exploring Organizational Obstruction and the Expanded Model of Organizational Identification

Abstract

We argue that perceptions of organizational support and obstruction will have unique implications for employees' cognitive association and disassociation with their employers. As expected, the results of 2 studies support the hypothesis that perceived organizational support is positively related to an overlap in individual and organizational identities (i.e., organizational identification). Further, perceptions of organizational obstruction predict cognitive separation in individual and organizational identities (i.e., disidentification, ambivalent identification, and neutral identification). Implications for research and practice are discussed.j asp_748 1083..1109

Psychological Contracts and Organizational Identification: The Mediating Effect of Perceived Organizational Support

“…To understand the "symbolic" effects of psychological contracts, Restubog et al (2008) argued-and found support for-the proposal that organizational identification and organizational trust mediated the relationship between psychological contract breach and organizational citizenship behavior. Other correlational studies by Kreiner and Ashforth (2004) and Gibney et al (2011) demonstrate negative relationships between breach and organizational identification.…”

“…In other words, an employee could take a disinterested stance towards the organization in which he or she does not identify nor disidentify with the organization (Bhattacharya and Elsbach 2002). Second, confirmatory factor analysis by Kreiner and Ashforth (2004) demonstrate that organizational identification and organizational disidentification are related but discrete constructs and that the two constructs have different antecedents (see also Gibney et al 2011).…”

“…The Mediating Role of Perceived Organizational Support Although past research (Gibney et al 2011;Kreiner and Ashforth 2004;Restubog et al 2008) has explored the direct relationship between psychological contract breach and organizational identification, few if any studies have empirically explored why these variables are related. This is a critical oversight in the literature: if psychological contract breach is commonplace or perhaps even an inevitable aspect of life in today's organizations (e.g., Rousseau 2001), it is imperative to understand explicitly why it is related to identification and disidentification.…”

Communicating Gender-Equality Progress, Reduces Social Identity Threats for Women Considering a Research Career

“…In a study of gender minorities in higher education, Steele et al (2002) found that women in majors dominated by men experienced higher levels of social identity threats than other students and were more likely to think about changing their major as compared to others. Relatedly, Gibney et al (2011) found that when employees perceive that their organization obstructs their goal fulfilment, they tend to disidentify with the organization.…”

“…Finally, future research may also want to include an organizational identification measure, since it tends to be reduced by perceived organizational obstructions (Gibney et al 2011). Perhaps women who are reminded of the vertical gender segregation in academia identify less with their university, while a gender-equality prime increases identification.…”