Intergroup Relations and Strategies of Minorities

They (Don’t) Need Us: Functional Indispensability Impacts Perceptions of Representativeness and Commitment When Lower-Status Groups Go Through an Intergroup Merger

“…We speculate that indispensability may offer opportunities for identity-management strategies (Ellemers and Van Rijswijk, 1997). Research with minority groups has shown that low-status groups can increase their relative ingroup prototypicality when they perceive that they contribute to the betterment of society, for instance when minority membership is self-selected based on strong (religious) beliefs (Alexandre et al, 2016a). In the case of mergers, functional indispensability can be one of such prototypicality cues, and it provides an important theoretical contribution to understand different constellations of status-asymmetric intergroup relations.…”

“…In the case of organizations, research has shown that compatibility of pre-and post-merger organizations increases ingroup projection (Riketta and Nienaber, 2007), and relative ingroup prototypicality predicts post-merger identification (Gleibs et al, 2008). Although there is often disagreement between lower-and higher-status groups about the relative ingroup prototypicality assigned by/to each other Devos and Banaji, 2005), ingroup projection is less likely to occur in lower-status groups due to reality constraints implied in the lower-status position (Alexandre et al, 2016a), for instance, less power in negotiations. When disagreement occurs, it is expressed as lower-status groups perceiving their relative ingroup prototypicality not as low as the high-status group perceives Devos and Banaji, 2005), but rarely to the point of claiming higher relative prototypicality than the majority (Alexandre et al, 2016a).…”

“…Although there is often disagreement between lower-and higher-status groups about the relative ingroup prototypicality assigned by/to each other Devos and Banaji, 2005), ingroup projection is less likely to occur in lower-status groups due to reality constraints implied in the lower-status position (Alexandre et al, 2016a), for instance, less power in negotiations. When disagreement occurs, it is expressed as lower-status groups perceiving their relative ingroup prototypicality not as low as the high-status group perceives Devos and Banaji, 2005), but rarely to the point of claiming higher relative prototypicality than the majority (Alexandre et al, 2016a). If pre-merger status is relatively low, one can expect that pre-merger prototypicality is also low, which may raise the fear in the lower-status merger partner of being also low in prototypicality in the post-merger group.…”

“…So far, little is known about contexts allowing for that. Research has shown that minorities' relative ingroup prototypicality can be increased if the superordinate category is defined as more complex and/or inclusive (Alexandre et al, 2016b) or if the lower-status group is based on strong beliefs that provide a positive social identity regardless of status (Alexandre et al, 2016a). Moreover, mergers are dynamic processes in which the intergroup relations can potentially change.…”

“…Moreover, mergers are dynamic processes in which the intergroup relations can potentially change. In such dynamic intergroup relations, relative ingroup prototypicality can be claimed by minorities despite their pre-change lower-status position (Alexandre et al, 2016a). Similarly, in an organizational merger, one might think about undermining the heuristic that postmerger prototypicality depends on pre-merger status by introducing specific information that feeds in alternative sources for relative ingroup prototypicality in spite of lower pre-merger status.…”