Identity Contests and the Negotiation of Organizational Change

Abstract

Purpose

We examine collective responses to identity threats in organizations, conceptualizing these responses as identity contests in which members of opposing groups share an identity and strive to protect the social psychological rewards derived from that identity.

Methodology/approach

We present an argument for the importance of identity as a basis for motivation, suggesting that the desires to obtain and protect identity rewards underlie much behavior in organizations. We also present two case studies from which we derive further theoretical implications about identity contests as drivers of organizational change.

Findings

Our case studies show how organizational subgroups perceived identity threats arising from actual or proposed changes in policies and practices, mobilized to resist these threats, and negotiated further changes in organizational structure, policies, and practices.

Practical implications

Applying this analysis, social psychologists who study identity threats can see how responses to such threats are not solely individual and cognitive but sometimes collective and behavioral, leading to changes in organizations and in the surrounding culture.

Social implications

Our analysis of how identity contests arise and unfold can enrich understandings of how self-definition and mental well-being are shaped by organizational life.

Originality/value

By focusing on collective responses to identity threats, we offer a new way of seeing how intra-organizational identity struggles are implicated in social change.

Citation

Schwalbe, M., McTague, T. and Parrotta, K. (2016), "Identity Contests and the Negotiation of Organizational Change", Advances in Group Processes (Advances in Group Processes, Vol. 33), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 57-92. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0882-614520160000033003