Implementation of organisational identification Essay

Implementation of organisational identification - Essay Example Organizational identification is, according to Gemmiti (2008, 6), â€Å"an individual’s knowledge of belonging or membership to a group of members of the organization.† This knowledge of belonging to a particular organization is heavily based on emotions and has a great influence on an individual’s behavior. The identification comes with an employee’s understanding and realizing of how their personal goals and values are aligned with the goals and values of the organization. Finally, as such goals, norms and values are aligned, the employee adds that group membership to their overall self-concept (Meyer, Becker, and Van Dick 2006). Therefore, it can be said that organizational identification refers to whether an employee associates themselves with the organization in which they work and whether an employee views themselves as a part of the organization. According to Van Dick, Grojean, Christ, and Wieseke (2006), the concept of social identity can help to determine how organizational identification is related to organizational citizenship (Van Dick, Grojean, Christ, and Wieseke 2006). The two concepts, according to the researchers (Van Dick, Grojean, Christ, and Wieseke 2006), are positively related because individuals’ self-concepts are formed on the basis of belonging to certain organization. The stronger the feeling of belonging is, the more effort a person is willing to devote to the development of that organization. Therefore, in an organization, the more organizational goals and norms are in line with those of the individual, the more devoted that individual is to the organization. So, organizationa l commitment is also related to organizational identification. Organizational commitment is very important for employers because it determines the level of employee performance, job satisfaction, absenteeism and other productivity-related factors. This paper critically examines the concept of organizational identification, and analyzes how it is related to organizational performance, individual performance, job satisfaction and productivity. Literature review Organizational identification and organizational commitment An empirical study conducted by He and Mukherjee (2008) examined how organizational identification was related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment. The research was conducted with Chinese salespeople and showed that organizational identification represents a link between job satisfaction and job commitment. Job satisfaction was divided by the researchers into intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic job satisfaction referred to how employees viewed their partic ular jobs. Extrinsic job satisfaction included employee’s satisfaction by their working conditions, such as pay, environment, and management. The two different types of job satisfaction related differently to both organizational identification and organizational commitment. In particular, as He and Mukherjee (2008, 2) outline, †extrinsically motivated job satisfaction has a stronger relationship with organisational identification than intrinsically motivated job satisfaction.† The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire was used by the researchers to measure job satisfaction. An Organisational Commitment Questionnaire was used for measuring organizational commitment. Finally, an Organizational identification measure designed by Ashforth and Mael (1992) was used to measure organizational identification of 438 Chinese salespeople representing real estate industry. The results showed that extrinsic job satisfaction had a positive influence on organizational id