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Two studies in the context of English‐French relations in Québec suggest that individuals who strongly identify with a group derive the individual‐level costs and benefits that drive expectancy‐value processes (rational decision‐making) from group‐level costs and benefits. In Study 1, high identifiers linked group‐ and individual‐level outcomes of conflict choices whereas low identifiers did not. Group‐level expectancy‐value processes, in Study 2, mediated the relationship between social identity and perceptions that collective action benefits the individual actor and between social identity and intentions to act. These findings suggest the rational underpinnings of identity‐driven political behavior, a relationship sometimes obscured in intergroup theory that focuses on cognitive processes of self‐stereotyping. But the results also challenge the view that individuals' cost‐benefit analyses are independent of identity processes. The findings suggest the importance of modeling the relationship of group and individual levels of expectancy‐value processes as both hierarchical and contingent on social identity processes.

Cultural, social, and psychological perspectives on mergers assume conflict to be an important mediator of post-merger outcomes. Yet, despite a growing literature on the human side of mergers, conflict in mergers remains poorly understood.

Based on the disputing perspective and negotiated order theory, a contextual and dynamic approach is presented along with propositions to guide future empirical research in the form of a process model of post-merger order negotiation.

When negotiating the post-merger order, different issues emerge that are embedded in the broader context of the merger.

Adopting this theoretical framework allows us to understand the intergroup dynamics and antagonistic behavior observed in mergers.

Based on a model of employee personal gender self-categorization, we examine the relationships between prejudicial attitudes and experiences of aggression in a male-dominated workplace. Data collected from 603 employees in a male-dominated global workplace revealed that individuals who self-categorize as either males or females experience differential powerful emotions. Additionally, we found that the more anger experienced by employees who self-categorize either as males or females, the stronger their female prejudicial attitudes. In contrast, we found that contempt was negatively associated with female prejudicial attitudes; that is, the more contempt experienced by employees who self-categorize either as males or females, the weaker their female prejudicial attitudes.

This study examined the effect of professional identification on several job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and career satisfaction), and explored the moderating roles of gender and organizational tenure on these relationships. Informed by social identity theory, gender role theory, and organizational socialization theory, several hypotheses were developed and tested with a data set consisting of 309 salaried lawyers collected in Hong Kong. Regression analysis revealed that (1) professional identification had a significant positive effect on both job satisfaction and organizational commitment, (2) gender moderated the relationship between professional identification—job satisfaction and professional identification—organizational commitment, and (3) organizational tenure moderated the relationship between professional identification and job satisfaction as well as the relationship between professional identification and career satisfaction. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Sayings like “Do what you love, and you’ll never work a day in your life” epitomize Western society’s emphasis on both the importance and assumed positive nature of passion for work. Although research has linked passion and increased well-being, growing anecdotal evidence suggests the potential for negative individual outcomes of work passion, including decreased well-being and increased stress and burnout. In the present chapter, the authors integrate the Dualistic Model of Passion (which consists of harmonious and obsessive passion), identity theory, and identity threat to describe the paradox of passion, in which individuals overidentify with the target of their passion (i.e., work), resulting in the “too much of a good thing” effect driven by excess passion of either type. The authors thus provide a novel theoretical lens through which to examine the different reactions that individuals may enact in response to threats to passion-related identities, including how these responses might differentially impact well-being, stress, and burnout. The authors conclude by offering future directions for research on the paradox of passion.

To examine the effect of negotiation training and conflict management styles on the relations between third‐party actors involved in international peacekeeping situations, we analyze data from a sample of Dutch military peacekeepers on missions between 1995 and 1999 (N = 850). We predict and find, contrary to the traditional “contact hypothesis” (Allport, 1954), that peacekeepers' contact with Non‐Governmental Organization (NGO) workers was positively associated with conflict between them, and this increased if the peacekeeper possessed an avoiding conflict management style. When sufficiently trained in negotiations, peacekeepers who had intensive contact with NGO personnel and possessed a dominating conflict management style were less likely to become personally involved in conflicts with NGO workers. Implications for conflict management and training are discussed.

Now well into the 21st century, the world’s most powerful organizations’ highest executive levels and boards of directors still fail to represent a diverse collection of people shaped by unique social identity dimensions according to age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more. Offered in this book is an investigation into why a homophily framework, or a similarity-attraction hypothesis, continues to perpetuate leadership by predominantly Caucasian/White males and reinforces barriers that keep qualified people possessing a multiplicity of social identity dimensions from achieving their full human potential.

To understand interactive processes through which discrimination is reproduced in the workplace, social identity theorists explore connections between ways that people create social identity and that organizations become socially constructed. Social identity theory explains how people seek to develop oneness with groups that help them to develop and/or to enhance positive self-esteem – and to better understand how people develop notions of high-status ingroups and low-status outgroups. Both of these frameworks are central to this book’s attention to difference in organizations. Difference is positioned as a positive advance in organizational dynamics; advocating respect and appreciation for multiple and intersecting social identities – not for profitability and other business case reasons – but because it is morally justified to eradicate inequitable and exclusionary practices in organizations. This book offers an introduction to doing difference research by introducing a number of theoretical underpinnings, addressing methodological challenges, and presenting a wide cross-section of numerous bodies of literature which have been attending to difference work. Chapter 1 is divided into subthemes of: applying social identity theory, emphasizing the “center” and the “margin,” managing organizational climate, and avoiding business case thinking and other flawed models by advocating for real diversity.

Purpose – Stryker's identity theory has impacted sociological social psychology for a half century and still inspires an active research agenda. To date, however, its terms and arguments have not been analyzed closely. Our purpose with this project was to conduct such an analysis.

Design/Methodology/Approach – We provide a detailed rationale for our analytic method that entails an objective examination of a theory's clarity, parsimony, precision, and other essential scientific qualities. It is applied using procedures that, among other functions, check terms for clarity and consistency of usage, and ensure that key arguments are logically valid.

Findings – The analysis revealed significant gaps and ambiguities in the core theory. We offered a series of recommendations designed to supply missing logical elements, clarify definitions, and streamline the terminological system. We sought to remain true to the original theory's purposes while further strengthening its coherence, transparency, and overall utility.

Practical Implications – Kurt Lewin's famous maxim applies well here: “Nothing is so practical as a good theory.” To the extent that a body of research is claimed to be theory-driven, gaps and ambiguities throw into question the results of empirical tests and applications that ostensibly are backed by the theory. Without theoretical support, findings are neither meaningful nor generalizable.

Social Implications – A logically sound and semantically transparent identity theory will have the greatest chance for making real differences in society via practical applications.

Originality/Value of the Chapter – We offer a straightforward method to ensure meaningfulness and integrity in social science theories. Such analyses are rare, but we hope that their utility for theory-driven research programs such as identity theory's is evident.