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Book part
Publication date: 13 July 2016

Michael Schwalbe, Tricia McTague and Kylie Parrotta

We examine collective responses to identity threats in organizations, conceptualizing these responses as identity contests in which members of opposing groups share an identity…

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.

Details

Advances in Group Processes
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-041-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 13 August 2018

Robert L. Dipboye

Abstract

Details

The Emerald Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-786-9

Book part
Publication date: 10 June 2014

Abstract

Details

Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-678-1

Book part
Publication date: 25 November 2019

Melinda Leigh Maconi

Despite the legacies of many talented artists with disabilities, art programs for people with disabilities are consistently framed as important because of their “therapeutic”…

Abstract

Purpose

Despite the legacies of many talented artists with disabilities, art programs for people with disabilities are consistently framed as important because of their “therapeutic” value. Such framing is a well-established way for organizations to garner support from publics drawn to images of disabled people as tragic victims and such programs as heroic in offering help. Some non-profit art programs, however, resist this narrative.

Methods/Approach

Data come from the organizational web-site of a community-based non-profit disability centered arts education organization that takes active steps to challenge traditional tragedy narratives. Data show how the organizational narrative does this by affirming the value of disabled artists and by casting as villains the stigma, discrimination, and misinformation surrounding people with disabilities.

Findings

While this organization constructs a narrative that portrays society and art spaces as victims in that they miss out on the contributions to art that people with disabilities can produce, the organization nonetheless must also offer to community stakeholders and potential donors reasons for its existence.

Implication/Value

This examination highlights the ways in which this organization navigates the competing demands of fund raising and disability advocacy by constructing organizational narratives that affirm people with disabilities while still articulating the value of the organization to the wider community. This suggests the complex work narratives do and the tensions that can arise when narratives serve multiple purposes for multiple audiences.

Details

New Narratives of Disability
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-144-5

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 July 2014

Libby Schweber

The UK government’s support for sustainable construction involves an explicit attempt to introduce a new institutional logic into the construction sector, while the use of…

Abstract

The UK government’s support for sustainable construction involves an explicit attempt to introduce a new institutional logic into the construction sector, while the use of Building Research Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) as a preferred policy mechanism exemplifies neoliberal use of voluntary self-regulation to promote policy goals. This paper uses the case of BREEAM to examine the role of science and scientific expertise in the exercise of neoliberal governance. More specifically, it combines a neo-institutional analysis of change with Foucault’s theory of governmentality to explore the effect of BREEAM on eight construction projects. The concepts of visibility, knowledge, techniques, and identity provide an analytic grid to explore the effect of BREEAM on understandings and practices of “green building.” Appeals to science and scientific authority are found to be most important in those instances where institutional logics clash and the legitimacy of BREEAM as a carrier of sustainable construction is challenged. From a theoretical perspective, the case studies highlight the role of instruments in the micro-dynamics of institutionalization. Empirically, it underlines the limited, but nonetheless significant, effect of weakly institutionalized neoliberal policy mechanisms.

Details

Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics and Publics in the Neoliberal Age
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-668-2

Book part
Publication date: 10 August 2018

Ramkrishnan (Ram) V. Tenkasi and Lu Zhang

Organizational Development and Change (ODC) has been called to aid organizational greening goals. Carbon labeling of products by organizations is a common greening strategy…

Abstract

Organizational Development and Change (ODC) has been called to aid organizational greening goals. Carbon labeling of products by organizations is a common greening strategy. However, its effectiveness is dependent on supportive consumer behavior. The Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) is used to explain actor choice in buying low carbon products (LCPs). Actual buying behavior of 873 subjects in China, a country new to carbon labeling, demonstrated that Declarative norms, Attitude, and Perceived behavioral control explained significant variance in actual buying behavior of LCPs. The TPB model may be better served by observing actual behavior versus behavioral intention. Revisions to the TPB model for diagnosis and interventions in behavioral change are indicated. ODC should revert to theoretically informed practice versus the increasing reliance on A-theoretical tools and techniques.

Book part
Publication date: 10 June 2014

Social identity as shaped by religion or spirituality is unique in comparison to some other social identity dimensions because it may be invisible unless a person wears a symbol…

Abstract

Social identity as shaped by religion or spirituality is unique in comparison to some other social identity dimensions because it may be invisible unless a person wears a symbol or dress widely regarded as synonymous with a given religious tradition. Yet, some employees choose to fuse their personal and work lives when religion or spirituality is a salient dimension of their social identity. Problems emerge, however, and can make for an awkward fit in the business world.

Perhaps the primary advantage to religion or spirituality at work is potential for high employee morale and residual benefits in enhanced performance. Scholars who research the God gap suggest that abundant and ongoing airing of political and religious difference can benefit everyone. Numerous business organizations endorse respectful pluralism and lived religion, enabling employees to participate in community service activities, retreats with nature walks, physical exercise, meditation, spiritual contemplation, physical space for individual prayer and group discussions throughout the day, faith-related reading materials, and faith leaders to provide counseling. Yet, even though religion is a federally protected class and employers in some parts of the world are mandated to accommodate employees’ religious beliefs and observances so long as no undue hardship on business operations results, this does not mean that conflicts do not arise. To explore religious identity and spirituality with a focus on workplace dynamics, Chapter 11 is divided into subthemes of: what is religious identity?, accommodating faith/spirituality at work, faith/spirituality in organizations and health, the formal religion-spirituality dichotomy, lived religion, and conflicts about faith/spirituality in the workplace.

Details

Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-678-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 10 June 2014

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…

Abstract

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.

Details

Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78350-678-1

Keywords

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