Organizational Identity and Trust Nordplus Neighbour Project

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Organizational Identity and Trust Nordplus
Neighbour Project

• Lic. Sc. (BA) Anu Puusa
• M.Sc. (BA) Ulla Tolvanen
• University of Joensuu
• June 2006

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Introduction

• Focus is on the interrelation between
  organizational identity and trust
• Theoretical approach
• Exploring concepts and their interrelation is
  important and valuable scientific work with the
  purpose of increasing understanding of the
  concepts and their interrelation
• gt Basis for theorizing and theory creation

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Identity as a multilevel notion

• Identity in an individual level can be
  characterized as individuals theory of oneself
• Identity can be understood in referring to
  different meanings individuals associate to
  themselves

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Individuals and groups

• Typically humans characterize themselves based on
  structural features of a group membership or with
  the help of characteristics individual
  him/herself associate with herself.
• Interpretation as being a part of something
• gt Creates team spirit

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Identity at the organizational level

• Organizational identity refers to what is
  central, distinctive and enduring in organization
  when considering its past, present and the future
• Organizational identity is commonly seen as the
  property of a collective
• Who we are as an organization

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Organizational identity and its related concepts
self-identity

• Theory and research results have indicated the
  close relationship between self-identity and
  organization identity
• The relationship between individual and
  organizational identities is regarded as
  reciprocal
• gt Organizational members both shape and are
  shaped by their organizational membership through
  this dynamic dialectic process. Identity at both
  levels is a social construction deriving from
  repeated interactions with others

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Organizational identity and its related concepts
identification

• Identity is central to the understanding of how
  individuals relate to the groups and
  organizations in which they are participants
• Organization identity can be understood as if a
  part of an answer relating to identification To
  what is someone identifying themselves with?
• Words both words affect and emotion are terms
  that are closely linked to understanding identity
  and identification

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..

• Organizational identity, as the object of
  commitment and a sense of belonging, is seen as
  providing a cognitive and emotional foundation on
  which organizational members build meaningful
  relationships with the organization concerned.
  Identification has been defined as an
  individuals sense of oneness or belongingness
  with and organization

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Organizational identity, identification and
commitment

• Organizational identification occurs when an
  individual beliefs about his or her organization
  become self-referential or self-defining
• Organizational identity creates a sense of
  identification among organizational members. The
  degree to which members identify with their
  organizations depends on the attractiveness of
  the perceived organizational identity, the
  consistency between individual self-concepts and
  organizational identity. Thereby organization
  members identification with their organization
  enhances commitment and consistency of actions

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The concept of trust

• Based on interpersonal interaction
• Central elements
• Willingness to be vulnerably
• Risk
• Uncertainty
• Predictability

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Trust and identification

• Identification-based trust
• the highest order of trust
• Parties effectively understand and appreciate the
  others wants and goals
• Monitoring the actor is not necessary

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Commitment and trust

• Psychological strength of an individuals
  attachment to the organization
• Strong belief in and acceptance of the
  organizations goals and values
• Salient outcome of trust in organization

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Building bridges between Organizational Identity
and Trust
Organizational identity
Commitment
Trust
Identification
Identification
An individual
An individual
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Organizational identity, identification,
commitment and trust

• Empson (2004) suggests that a well defined,
  clearly differentiated, widely shared, and
  positively construed organizational identity can
  provide a focus for member identification in an
  insecure employment context, like many are
  nowadays
• How is the key question. We believe trust and
  creation of trust is the key in creating greater
  commitment to organization. Trust however, does
  not create identification. Instead we believe,
  strong organizational identity affects the level
  of identification of individuals within
  organization which in return creates trust

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Summary

• Organization identity, when realized by
  organization members has an effect on how
  strongly individuals within organization identify
  themselves with the organization. Strong
  identification then, results in stronger
  commitment to organization and its goals. How to
  create identification and commitment to
  organization? Can it be created by someone or
  does it create on its own?

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Discussion

• Implications of our proposal
• Suggestions for further study
• The link between organizational identity and
  identification is a reciprocal one. An
  interesting avenue for future empirical research
  would be to study the relationship between
  organizational identity, member identification
  and trust. Our discussion here has been framed
  around the idea that identification is an
  important element for organizational member
  commitment and creation of trust and therefore
  for the creation of strong organizational
  identity