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Career identity and organizational identification among professionals with on-demand work

Chunjiang Yang (School of Economics and Management, Northwest University, Xi'an, China)
Yashuo Chen (School of Business, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China)
Xinyuan Zhao (School of Liberal Arts, Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China)
Zhenzhen Cui (School of Social Education, Guangzhou Open University, Guangzhou, China)

Personnel Review

ISSN: 0048-3486

Article publication date: 13 October 2022

Issue publication date: 2 May 2023

533

Abstract

Purpose

Drawing upon the social identity theory, the authors argue that professionals' career identities have a positive indirect effect on identification with on-demand organizations through career networking behavior. In addition, the strength of these beneficial effects was also bound by extraversion and collectivism.

Design/methodology/approach

The hypothesized moderated mediation model was tested by multisource and time-lagged data about 242 Chinese accountants engaging in on-demand work.

Findings

The results demonstrated that professionals with a career identity tend to engage in career networking behaviors and identify themselves with a client company. In addition, extraverted professionals were more likely to engage in career networking behaviors, and collectivist professionals were more likely to identify with their on-demand organizations.

Practical implications

This research provides important guidelines on how managers in on-demand organizations leverage gig workers' career identities to establish deep relationships with them.

Originality/value

The authors expanded the traditional framework of identification in the setting of nontraditional work arrangements by establishing a link between career identity and organizational identification for on-demand professionals.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This paper forms part of a special section “A Different World of Work: The Sharing Economy and (In)equity, Identity and Rewards”, guest edited by Yuliani Suseno and Chris Rowley.

The authors are grateful for the financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos: 72172137, 71872191, 72001052 and 72172161) and The Ministry of Education of China, Humanities and Social Science Project (Grant No: 18YJA630151 and 21YJA630103) and the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (Grant Nos: 2018A030313502 and 2021A1515011978).

Citation

Yang, C., Chen, Y., Zhao, X. and Cui, Z. (2023), "Career identity and organizational identification among professionals with on-demand work", Personnel Review, Vol. 52 No. 3, pp. 470-491. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-04-2019-0193

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited

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