ABSTRACT
The psychological linkage between individuals and their employing organization plays an important role in motivating organizational behavior. Recognition of this fact continues to invite academic as well as managerial attempts to understand and manage this relationship. These attempts typically revolve around the strength of the employee–organization relationship: Stronger psychological linkage is seen as yielding more positive outcomes in terms of employee performance, extra-role behavior, retention, and the like (Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2002; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002; Riketta, 2005). Yet, there is more to the psychology of the employee–organization relationship than its strength. Comparison of the two major theoretical perspectives on the psychology of the employment relationship, the social exchange perspective (Blau, 1964; Shore et al., 2004) and the social identity perspective (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Hogg & Terry, 2000), suggests that a comprehensive understanding of the psychology of the employee–organization relationship should include a consideration of not only its strength but also of its basis in social exchange or in social identification. In addition, a social identity analysis also points to the importance of considering employees’ understanding of organizational identity—an understudied issue to say the least, but one that may have great importance for the way the psychological linkage between employee and organization expresses itself in behavior.
