TY - JOUR
T1 - Leveraging customers' multiple identities
T2 - Identity synergy as a driver of organizational identification
AU - Fombelle, Paul W.
AU - Jarvis, Cheryl Burke
AU - Ward, James
AU - Ostrom, Lonnie
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper is a revised version of that presented at the 16th EALE Conference, Castellanza, Italy, 16–18 Sept. 1999. The authors are grateful to participants at the conference for their comments, in particular, Tom Hoehn and to two anonymous referees. Edward Shinnick would like to thank the Arts Faculty Research Fund, University College Cork for financial support. Frank Stephen would like to thank the Scottish Office for financial support. The usual disclaimer applies.
PY - 2012/7
Y1 - 2012/7
N2 - Marketers want to encourage constituents to strongly identify with their organizations, because organizational identification contributes to positive firm outcomes. However, the extant research on organizational identity largely has overlooked the fact that an individual's "self" actually is a collection of multiple social identities. This study is the first to propose and empirically demonstrate that marketers can leverage customers' multiple societal roles (e.g., parent, environmentalist, professor) to build and reinforce their relationships with the firm. Specifically, the research introduces the concept of "identity synergy." Identity synergy occurs when individuals' involvement with an organization facilitates their pursuit of other important social identities. Our study shows that customer perception of identity synergy is positively related to identification with an organization. Moreover, the study helps explain the process by which antecedents of organizational identity (identity affirmation, identity support, and value congruence) positively affect customer-firm relationships by proposing and testing identity synergy as a mediator between these antecedents and organizational identification. The study also contributes to our understanding of organizational identity theory by introducing the new concept of peer identification, or identification with other members of the organization, such as other customers or volunteers. The empirical evidence demonstrates identity synergy's role in building peer identification, as well as peer identification's role in building organizational identification.
AB - Marketers want to encourage constituents to strongly identify with their organizations, because organizational identification contributes to positive firm outcomes. However, the extant research on organizational identity largely has overlooked the fact that an individual's "self" actually is a collection of multiple social identities. This study is the first to propose and empirically demonstrate that marketers can leverage customers' multiple societal roles (e.g., parent, environmentalist, professor) to build and reinforce their relationships with the firm. Specifically, the research introduces the concept of "identity synergy." Identity synergy occurs when individuals' involvement with an organization facilitates their pursuit of other important social identities. Our study shows that customer perception of identity synergy is positively related to identification with an organization. Moreover, the study helps explain the process by which antecedents of organizational identity (identity affirmation, identity support, and value congruence) positively affect customer-firm relationships by proposing and testing identity synergy as a mediator between these antecedents and organizational identification. The study also contributes to our understanding of organizational identity theory by introducing the new concept of peer identification, or identification with other members of the organization, such as other customers or volunteers. The empirical evidence demonstrates identity synergy's role in building peer identification, as well as peer identification's role in building organizational identification.
KW - Identity synergy
KW - Multiple identities
KW - Organizational identification
KW - Peer identification
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U2 - 10.1007/s11747-011-0254-5
DO - 10.1007/s11747-011-0254-5
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84861230297
SN - 0092-0703
VL - 40
SP - 587
EP - 604
JO - Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
JF - Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science
IS - 4
ER -