Tuesday, March 10th - Organizational Identification

The readings from this week made me think that we had already read about organizational identification before. However, I think it was simply referenced a few times in the concepts of past weeks, such as with values advocacy or general organization rhetoric techniques. That being said, it is a relevant and recurring concept in regards to organizational issue management. I appreciated how Cheney (1983) detailed the concept of organizational identification. After studying this reading, I understand organizational identification as the process or action by which someone identifies with a target (e.g. organization, group, person) whose characteristics, values, goals, and so on they agree with or support. Because of how there are hierarchies and divisions in society, there are many choices of targets with which to identify. Identifying with an organization can give individuals a sense of belonging. Additionally, it will influence how they respond to messages from that organization, particularly persuasive ones.

One example I recall is my boyfriend's identification with the company Dyson, which is a tech company that makes household items, most notably vacuum cleaners. Their products come at a higher price point (around $300-$400) than the average vacuum (about $100). The reason my boyfriend is a self-proclaimed "Dyson fanboy" is because he agrees with their values and how they make their products. As an electrical engineering grad student and as a consumer, he appreciates the fact that their products are built to last a long time. This contrasts the priorities of Dyson's market competitors, who tend to make products that will inevitably fail and force customers to repurchase. Further, Dyson and its competitors are part of a hierarchy in society. If they agree with the characteristics, values, and goals, individuals can choose to identify with this organization and limit their discomfort with the multitude of product options available to them.

Cheney, G. (1983). The rhetoric of identification and the study of organizational communication. Quarterly journal of speech, 69(2), 143-158.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday, April 28th - Internal Issue Mgmt

For our final week of readings, I chose to examine the study by Ewing et al. (2019) regarding internal communication and employee engagement. I found it to be fascinating since I have limited experience studying communication between members of the same organization; most studies I read are focused on how an organization communicates to outside publics. However, the important concept I took away from this article is that employee engagement is a desired state of organizations for their employees, and it can be increased by utilizing social media platforms for the purpose of facilitating internal communication. The study defines employee engagement as "employees who are connected to the values and mission of the company, feel empowered, bring energy, passion, and discretionary effort to their jobs, and serve as advocates." (p. 113). It makes sense that an employee who is not engaged would feel and possess less of these positive characteristics, and that is why it is crucial fo...
Read more

Tuesday, February 11th - Values Advocacy

This week's focus was on the concept of values advocacy: when an organization strategically emphasizes certain shared cultural values in order to persuade publics to align with them and support their organization. Support can be exercised whether that is through purchasing their product/service or supporting their policy influences. The first reading by Botsdorff & Vibbert (1994) helped me to understand the full scope of this concept and the three reasons that organizations employ it, namely enhancing their image, dodging criticism, and establishing a foundation of value premises that in the future can be used to benefit themselves or their policies. Values advocacy is important to recognize out in "the real world" in order to identify which of these three functions an organization is using. One example I thought of from the past week was from the Oscars, when Korean director Bong Joon-ho's film Parasite won 4 Oscars. The victory came to my attention through soc...
Read more