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The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test
Published on: November 19, 2015
Employees' experiences of personal and collective work-identity in the context of an organizational change
Ola Nordhall1, Julia Hörvallius1, Mathilda Nedelius1
1Department of Occupational Health, Psychology and Sports Science, University of Gävle, Gävle, Sweden.
Abstract:
In the present study we investigated employees' experiences of personal and collective work-identity in the context of an organizational change. Data consisted of semi-structured interviews with employees that will be affected by the change. We conducted a theory-driven thematic analysis based on four predetermined main themes: personal and collective emotional, and cognitive work-identity. Respondents experienced distinct and unambiguous proudness, bonding, familiarity and missing in their personal emotional work-identity, and quite distinct and unambiguous coherence, reflection, mental time travel, but ambivalent, or even lack of, correspondence in their personal cognitive work-identity. They experienced a mix of distinct and ambiguous organizational proudness, esteem and affective commitment in their collective emotional work-identity. They experienced distinct and unambiguous identification with the organization, but ambivalent assimilation and incorporation of the organization in their collective cognitive work-identity. Such a complexity in the employees' work-identity experiences also indicates complexity in their organizational change reactions.
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