Social comparisons in boundary-spanning work: Effects of community outreach on members' organizational identity and identification - Statistical Data Included

Administrative Science Quarterly, Sept, 2001 by Caroline A. Bartel

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This research investigated how experiences in a particular boundary-spanning context (community outreach) affected members' organizational identity and identification. Multimethod panel data from 219 participants showed that intergroup comparisons with clients (emphasizing differences) and intragroup comparisons with other organization members (emphasizing similarities) changed how members construed their organization's defining qualities. Intergroup comparisons also enhanced the esteem members derived from organizational membership, which, in turn, strengthened organizational identification. Supervisors reported higher interpersonal cooperation and work effort for members whose organizational identification became stronger. The results reveal potential outcomes of boundary-spanning work as well as how organizational identification processes operate in everyday work contexts.

Social comparisons are an important means through which people come to understand their identities as organization members. Contemporary organizational designs and strategies are blurring internal and external organizational boundaries, creating an unprecedented array of opportunities for individuals to engage in social comparisons with others outside of their work organization. Supplier and customer collaborations, strategic alliances and cooperative networks, outsourcing, and community outreach increasingly bring organization members into close contact with individuals and groups with whom they may have not interacted before. Social comparisons are a principal way that members make sense of such interactions and, in the process, evaluate their organizational identities. Yet little is known about the potential impact of these social comparisons on members' organizational identification.

Organizational identification reflects a perception of oneness with or belonging to an organization (Ashforth and Mael, 1989), such that a member's perceptions about its defining qualities become self-referential or self-defining (Pratt, 1998). Identification is not static but can increase or decrease in strength as a result of new experiences. Similar to researchers who study social identifications (Turner, 1982; Hogg and Abrams, 1988; Brewer, 1993), organizational identity theorists argue that individuals aim to accentuate their own distinctiveness and, thus, identify strongly with organizations that have unique characteristics relative to other groups (Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail, 1994). Individuals also tend to identify with organizations with high social status or socially desirable features relative to other groups to elevate their own sense of self-esteem (Hall and Schneider, 1972; Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail, 1994; Pratt, 1998). Thus, the perception and maintenance of group differences through i ntergroup social comparisons, motivated by a need for high self-esteem, constitute the psychological fuel that drives organizational identification. Accordingly, members may recalibrate the strength of their organizational identification when work contexts and comparison groups change (Hogg and Terry, 2000). This has important implications for organization members who, more and more, span organizational boundaries and interact with diverse groups in the course of their daily lives.

Even though social comparisons are a central process in organizational identification, the few studies that have examined comparisons directly have focused on those occurring within an organization's immediate task domain, such as when individuals compare their work organization to a competing organization (Mael and Ashforth, 1992; Elsbach and Kramer, 1996). Competitors are highly diagnostic of the relative distinctiveness and status of an individual's work organization because they are somewhat similar on important dimensions surrounding the comparison (e.g., operate in the same industry, deliver similar products or services). Elsbach and Kramer (1996), for example, found that following the publication of Business Week magazine's school rankings, members selectively invoked comparisons with other schools based on attributes that reaffirmed their own organization's unique and desirable qualities. Moreover, competitive dynamics force organizations to invoke comparisons to differentiate themselves from their ri vals. This often leads organizations to manipulate the social comparative context deliberately to include other organizations that accentuate their own distinctive qualities or enhance their relative competitiveness (Hogg and Terry, 2000).

The domain of relevant intergroup comparisons for organization members can stretch beyond the competitive landscape to include a broad array of contexts in which other groups are present and members' organizational identity is salient, that is, contexts in which a person uses his or her identity as a member of a particular work organization to define him- or herself and to define relationships with others. Tajfel (1982) argued that potential arenas for intergroup comparison include any situation in which ingroups and outgroups are contextually salient. Individuals who perform boundary-spanning work interact with an array of different groups that are not necessarily competitors (customers, suppliers, unions, government and community agencies). The objective of boundary spanning is to link and coordinate an organization with key constituents in its external environment. Individuals who participate in such activities are thus exposed to numerous work contexts and interaction partners that provide potential oppor tunities for members to evoke social comparisons. Moreover, these comparisons typically occur in social contexts involving fewer threats to members' organizational identities than situations involving competitors. Identity threats result when a person's ingroup is criticized, downgraded, or attacked, or when a person otherwise perceives that the ingroup's relative distinctiveness or status is somehow compromised. When threat is present, social comparisons with outgroups function as a self-defensive strategy by redirecting attention toward positive group features to affirm the general integrity of the group and self (Steele, 1988). Without an explicit threat and an immediate need for self-protection, people manage their social comparisons less actively (Hornsey and Hogg, 2000). Rather, organization members may engage in social comparisons whenever information about an outgroup is available and salient, which could have various implications for their organizational identification. Relatively little attention, h owever, has been devoted to how naturally occurring comparisons in boundary-spanning contexts affect members.