Department of Psychology, Pennsylvania State University.
Department of Psychology, University of Akron.
J Occup Health Psychol. 2015 Jul;20(3):388-403. doi: 10.1037/a0038666. Epub 2015 Jan 19.
When organizational identity is threatened as a result of scandal, highly identified members who represent the threatened organization to stakeholders have a particularly challenging and overlooked experience. Addressing a theoretical paradox, we propose that organizational identification interacts with the threat cues from stakeholders to determine employee responses. We conducted a multimethod, in vivo test of these ideas with university fundraising employees after events threatened the university's moral identity. Interview and archival data demonstrated that stakeholders expressed identity threat to fundraisers, who experienced their own identity-related distress and engaged in both group-dissociative and group-affirming responses. Surveys of professional and student university fundraisers demonstrated that more identified employees were more distressed (e,g., felt anxious, grief, betrayed) regardless of stakeholder threat cues. Yet, when employees perceived weak threat cues from stakeholders, more identified members were less likely to dissociate from the group and more likely to affirm the group's positive identity with stakeholders. These benefits of identification were not present when the stakeholder threat cues were strong. We discuss future research and practical implications of front-line employee identification and stakeholder cues during scandal.
当组织身份因丑闻而受到威胁时，代表受威胁组织与利益相关者沟通的高度认同成员会面临特别具有挑战性和被忽视的经历。为了解决一个理论悖论，我们提出组织认同与来自利益相关者的威胁线索相互作用，以确定员工的反应。在事件威胁到大学的道德身份后，我们对大学筹款员工进行了多方法、现场测试，以检验这些想法。访谈和档案数据表明，利益相关者向筹款人表达了身份威胁，筹款人经历了自己与身份相关的困扰，并采取了群体分离和群体肯定的反应。对专业和学生大学筹款人的调查表明，无论利益相关者的威胁线索如何，认同度更高的员工感到更加困扰（例如感到焦虑、悲伤、被背叛）。然而，当员工感知到来自利益相关者的弱威胁线索时，他们越认同群体，就越不可能与群体分离，并越有可能与利益相关者肯定群体的积极身份。当利益相关者的威胁线索强烈时，这些认同的好处就不存在了。我们讨论了丑闻期间一线员工认同和利益相关者线索的未来研究和实际意义。
