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

In the present research, I investigate members' responses to experiences in a context outside of their organization's task domain: experiences in community outreach programs. Community outreach programs encourage members to give their time and skills to assist particular at-risk groups at designated service agencies, usually in small groups comprising members from different departments and hierarchical levels. These groups work together on a shared task with clients or recipients from various racial, social class, or regional backgrounds (e.g., deliver meals to the homeless and elderly, refurbish inner-city housing, mentor children). Activities range in duration and intensity from short-term projects involving minimal levels of commitment to more extensive projects involving close client contact for extended periods.

Community outreach programs link and coordinate an organization with key constituents (e.g., schools, health care centers, government agencies, current and potential customers) in its external environment and thus meet boundary-spanning objectives. Organizations often initiate such programs to acquire information about critical issues and problems in their local communities and take action on such issues through active, participative, organized involvement (Tichy, McGill, and St. Clair, 1997). For instance, Fannie Mae, which provides financial products and services that make it possible for low-, moderate- and middle-income families to buy homes, depends on the economic viability of the communities in which it operates. It is thus an essential part of the company's business to use community outreach programs to acquire information that will allow it to foster community economic development. Organizations also use community outreach programs to send information into the environment that presents them in a favo rable light. For example, Elsbach and Glynn (1996) discussed how such programs promote strategic reputation-building objectives by signaling an image of high quality to consumers and competitors.

Organization members who participate in community outreach programs are boundary spanners who are expected to deliver high-quality service through personal interaction, care, and concern for service agency clients. As support providers, members need to involve themselves intimately with clients but, at the same time, create boundaries to maintain objectivity and protect themselves from becoming too emotionally invested (Bacharach, Bamberger, and McKinney, 2000). This observation is descriptive of many service-oriented relationships, such as those forged by consultants, lawyers, accountants, and financial investment counselors. It is the combination of intimacy and separateness that makes these experiences fertile ground for social comparisons. Intimacy brings detailed knowledge of clients, whereas separateness prompts members to differentiate themselves psychologically from clients, perhaps by using their knowledge of clients to do so.

Social comparisons with groups outside the organization and its immediate task domain can change members' beliefs about their work organization's distinctive or defining qualities (i.e., perceived organizational identity). Yet relatively little attention has been paid to how social comparisons that arise when there are changes in contexts and interaction partners subsequently affect the content of members' perceived organizational identity and the strength of their identification. To date, organizational theory and research has not considered changes in members' identification as critical byproducts of boundary-spanning work. Zabusky and Barley (1997) offered a perspective on boundary spanners that outlined different forms of identification that scientists can possess as information brokers for their work organization and the larger scientific community, but it was not their intent to explain how specific boundary-spanning experiences affect any one form of identification. I explore this idea here in boundary -spanning contexts that present no immediate identity threats to members (i.e., community outreach), as well as how these boundary-spanning experiences subsequently influence members' behavior within the organization.