Overview of Identification and Dis-identification
Discuss about the Organization for Business, Government and Energy.
The issue of dis-identification has been addressed by Costa and Peter (2009) in a seemingly different approach, and to an extent similar, to what Marya (2014) purports of the topic. Dis-identification entails the way the employees tends to alienate or distance themselves from the dominations created by the managerial positions. Costa and Peter (2009) explains the relationship between the employee and employer and the issues that separates or creates the gap between the two of them. However, they adds the issue of self-alienation, that is directly related to the issue of dis-identification since individuals in the organization may tend to alienate themselves from the managerial domains and construct their own authentic identities. Additionally, Costa and Peter discusses the causes of self-alienation and their connotation to the aspects of identity in the contemporary organizations. However, Marya (2014) relates the ecology of identification in the contemporary organizations with the organizational practices and personal divergent values. To Marya, the identification of oneself is determined by some factors such as the values one have, among others which are a product of orientation to the organizational performances. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to expand insight into identification by building theory about how identification emerges when members differ in which organizational values they hold to be important.
Costa and Peter (2009), an organization is a social unit, which is developed and managed to attain a requirement or to pursue collective aims. According to Scot, Richard and Gerald, all firms have a management structure which defines the relationships among various undertakings, subdivides, the members, signs roles, tasks, and power to undertake different responsibilities.[1] Organization are open system-they impact and are impacted by their setting.
The issue of relational ecology in organizations is insinuated by Marya (2014) in his article, where he creates on the theory of identification development due to diversification or member’s differences on organizational values. Sorokin and Pitirim argues that individuals within an organization have different opinions which they term to be important in relation to the development of identification.[2] Therefore, due to the varying opinions among individuals within an organization, there arise dis-identification and conflict whereby, these conditions may affect an organization’s performance adversely. Interactions among individuals within an organization may result in both identification and dis-identification. Interactions amongst individuals within an organization involve different ideas and opinions whereby, a particular group of people’s views may be similar but differing from another group. Under relational ecology, identification happens when bottom-up interactive procedures between members of a firm are combined and leadership top-down interpretations and portrayals.
Costa and Peter’s Approaches to Dis-identification
On the other hand, the issue of dis-identification is reinforced by Costa and Peter (2009), where he drives it to the concerns of workers’ separation from the managerial domination within an organization. The workers create identities which they consider to be more reliable in their organizational operations. Employees within an organization may find it more unreliable to use their own true identities but may use identities such as names which are easily understood by employees. Usually, employees within an organization tend to move away from the organization’s authority[3]. Ward and John purports that workers will tend to perform better in the case where they have set their own self-goals regarding the achievement of the company’s goal rather than when the goals are being set on their behalf. [4]The employees have set their own personal aims; they will drive themselves in terms of sense of direction at what time to ensure that they perform their tasks to their capabilities to meet their goals. On the other hand, set goals by the company for its employees usually does not have better outcomes as it is against the workers will. Therefore, the employees should be given an opportunity to express themselves in terms of goal setting.
According to a research done by Saulters, Mary Margaret, Mary K. Hendrickson, and Fabio Chaddad, identification is related with helping performances and social care, information sharing, work satisfaction, creativeness and structural control.[5] Identification results to behaviors that assist organizations to meet their set goals. Existing research, however, has either focused on how multiple identities attributes manifest and management at the organizational level or has emphasized the potential for conflict and mutual dis-identification among members.
To know about the processes through which identification emerges when members hold different organizational values to be important. The researcher used an example of a socially responsible retail firm, ‘Natural foods “(a pseudonym), whose identity includes the economic value of revenues and growth, as well as societal standards of health, environmental sustainability, and public welfare. This analysis done by Mirowsky and John illustrated how identification can emerge in the presence of divergent values and behaviors among members[6].
Under this, two streams of research are relevant for understanding how identification arises when individuals differ in which company’s value they view to be significant. The first stream focuses on nature and management of organization identity. This refers to the central, enduring, and distinct features of an organization that differentiate it from other organization as discussed by Lukes, Martin and Ute.[7] The identity scholars have long recognized that organizational identities include, multiple, and sometimes incompatible, attributes
Marya’s Views on Ecological Identification
The researcher found out that this can only occur when organizations take on the characteristics of more than one organizational form, adopt multiple and inconsistent goals, or make incompatible commitments to different stakeholder groups. It can also occur when members’ shared sense of what is central, enduring, and distinct about their organization includes inconsistence attributes, or when members disagree about which attributes are enduring[8].
According to the research, a qualitative, inductive approach was appropriate because the goal was to build a theory about a phenomenon that is not well explained by the prevailing literature. In this case, are used for developing theory because the dynamics being studied are more visible than they would be in other settings.[9] The researcher found that behaviors that one member believed to be cooperative were sometimes interpreted by another member as unimportant, counterproductive, and morally wrong.
The researcher conducted a pilot study at two natural food stores in the Northeast United States, collecting interview data (n=21) to develop a preliminary understanding of the company’s identity and the attributes of this identity that members valued. Data for the main study, which was collected over a period of time, consisted of interviewers and observations from eight additional stores located in the northeast region of the United States. The stores were selected according to the criteria related to the emphasis placed on economic value.
According to the first interviews, the researcher used two purposive sampling criteria. First, because managers have more responsibility for the organization’s business operations, the researcher they might place greater importance on the foods’ economic value. In order to examine this could have for developing identification, the researcher composed the interviews sample to include roughly equal numbers of managers and non-managers as postulated by Buechler and Steven.[10] Because the study suggested members of different departments, the researcher also constructed the interview sample to include members from each of department.
According to the findings of individual values and members understood behavior, identity to include both societal an economic value, but they varied in how important each type of values was to them personally, their differences were reflected in their work behaviors, particularly between members whom only societal values or economic values were important with regard to the research of Kerzner, Harold, and Harold.[11] The researcher identified how members ‘valued and behaved diverged. Individuals reacted in a different manner, the reaction towards different occasions was diverse in nature. Each and every individual reacted differently in accordance with their priorities in consideration. Some of the different categories of the individual groups include idealist, capitalist, and pluralist. All these different groups depict different characteristics.
Research Purpose
Under this four different combinations of values were evident among members. First one was “, idealist” here members placed high importance on natural food, societal values of healthy natural food, but low to moderate importance on natural foods’ economistic value. Bryson and John found out that idealists were often aware of the company’s social mission before being hired and reported into one of the main reasons for joining the company.[12] Some idealist accepted the economic values, but they were not really of great importance. The idealist main focus remains on fostering social networks. Some example of an idealist includes Mark Zuckerberg. His main idea was on how he could connect the social networking within a school setting. He succeeded and in turn, the economic side of it was achieved which made him an entrepreneur technologist.
In contemporary organizations, there is the issue of capitalism. Capitalists becomes the members placed high importance on economic values of profit and growth but low to moderate importance on societal values (Costa and Peter 2009). The capitalists tended to accept a social mission, but the values on which it was based were not of high personal importance. If the societal values have a possibility of having a capital profit, this will draw the attention of the capitalists. The mindset of the capitalists helps an organization to formulated strategies of maximization of profit. Capitalist highlight every opportunity in business as something which can generate cash. They are generally the think tanks towards huge profit realization.
Third, “Pluralist “under this the members placed high importance on both societal and economic values. Bradley and Robert identified pluralist’s inclination to perceive societal and economic values as mutually reinforcing, rather than conflicting.[13] In this admiration, they can be understood as having a complementary identity structure, similar to individuals high on bicultural identity integration.
Finally,” indifferent” members placed a low to moderate importance on both societal and economic values. As one of the employees quoted “I have never really paid too much attention to the values”. AS this shows the indifferent members were often aware of the company’s mission and sometimes made positive statements about it.
Under the work behavior, they emphasized on the ones that were personally important to them. Following the work of Besharov and marya, they were evident in two areas; store operation and customer interactions.[14] An in-store operation, the idealists focused on health, community, and environment, while capitalists focused on promoting profits and growth. Differences between idealist and capitalist members were also evident in customer interaction. Idealists proactively educated the customers about health and environmental benefits. Idealist taught on how the customers would live a healthy life free from all form of diseases affecting them. They shared the advantage of having health insurance and also attending hospital checkups. The mindset of the idealist is on the social wellbeing of the customers, helping them to live a better life.
Nature and Management of Organization Identity
Also, Costa and Peter (2009) talks of Idealists’ motivation is based on the well-being of the customers. In contrast, the capitalist only focused on meeting the customer’s needs. The capitalist main aim is to see that the inquiries made by customers are met and adhered to. Their interest is customer satisfaction and making sure that all that the customers talk about the good reputation of the organization involved so as to enhance the growth of the firm. The capitalist focused on promoting the capital range of the company. Conversely in regard to Lebovics and Herman, the pluralist served as the glue that held members together, justifying tensions among them and enabling identification to emerge.[15] The pluralist helps to curb the challenges facing a particular organization by checking to the possible solutions that can be effected so that to enable performance within the workplace.
Conclusion
Generally, an organization will always have diversified workforce. In many circumstances, the lower level employee will tend to alienate themselves from the rest of the top management. Dis-identification and identification therefore, becomes a contemporary organization issues that managers should seek to control. An establishment of a good line of management would be excellent to make sure that the workers have a clear way of channeling their issues to the management. Additionally, an organization operates according to an overall purpose, or duty. Magstadt and Thomas (2016) purports that it also operates according to its value, or significances in the environment of how they undertake their activities.[16] These standards are behavior, or philosophy, of the firm. An organization is made up of people who are also systems of systems-and on it goes. The organization system is also maintained or controlled by policies and procedures, budgets, information management systems, quality management system, performance review and others. All these elements should be made effective for them to solve the issues of identification and dis-identification.
Besharov, Marya L. “The relational ecology of identification: How organizational identification emerges when individuals hold divergent values.” Academy of Management Journal 57, no. 5 (2014): 1485-1512.
Bradley, Robert L. Capitalism at work: business, government, and energy. M & M Scrivener Press, 2014.
Bryson, John M. Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. John Wiley & Sons, 2018.
Buechler, Steven M. Understanding social movements: Theories from the classical era to the present. Routledge, 2016.
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Haslam, S. Alexander, and John C. Turner. “Social identity, organizations, and leadership.” In Groups at work, pp. 39-80. Psychology Press, 2014.
Kerzner, Harold, and Harold R. Kerzner. Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons, 2017.
Kurtessis, James N., Robert Eisenberger, Michael T. Ford, Louis C. Buffardi, Kathleen A. Stewart, and Cory S. Adis. “Perceived organizational support: A meta-analytic evaluation of organizational support theory.” Journal of Management 43, no. 6 (2017): 1854-1884.
Lebovics, Herman. Social Conservatism and the Middle Class in Germany, 1914-1933. Princeton University Press, 2015.
Lukes, Martin, and Ute Stephan. “Measuring employee innovation: a review of existing scales and the development of the innovative behavior and innovation support inventories across cultures.” International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research 23, no. 1 (2017): 136-158.
Magstadt, Thomas M. Understanding politics: Ideas, institutions, and issues. Cengage Learning, 2016.
Mirowsky, John. Education, social status, and health. Routledge, 2017.
Saulters, Mary Margaret, Mary K. Hendrickson, and Fabio Chaddad. “Fairness in alternative food networks: an exploration with midwestern social entrepreneurs.” Agriculture and Human Values (2018): 1-11.
Scott, W. Richard, and Gerald F. Davis. Organizations and organizing: Rational, natural and open systems perspectives. Routledge, 2015.
Sorokin, Pitirim. Social and cultural dynamics: A study of change in major systems of art, truth, ethics, law and social relationships. Routledge, 2017.
Ward, John. Keeping the family business healthy: How to plan for continuing growth, profitability, and family leadership. Springer, 2016.
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