Group Status as a Determinant of Organizational Identification After a Takeover: A Social Identity Perspective

Abstract

This study investigates the relation between the perceived status of an organization after a takeover (i.e. post-merger status) on employees’ identification with this new organization (i.e. their post-merger identification). Respondents were 234 employees of a corrugated board producing company, which had taken over a smaller company eight months before. As hypothesized, post-merger status was positively related to organizational identification among employees of the lower-status pre-merger company, but they were not related among employees of the higher-status company. Also in line with the expectations, post-merger status was positively related to organizational identification among employees who had identified weakly with their pre-merger group, but not among employees who had identified strongly with their pre-merger group.