Article summary with Motivating individuals and groups at work: a social identity perspective on leadership and group performance by Ellemers, de Gilder and Haslam - 2004

Introduction

Theoretical accounts of work motivation are about factors that energize (encourage you to invest energy in your work), direct (focus your efforts on important tasks), and sustain work-related behaviour (to persist effort over time). They have been used to explain the behaviour of individual workers as separate agents. But developments in the workplace have made these models less applicable: individual work performance is hard to measure these days, due to an increased focus on common goods and group goals. So, what are the implications of this shift from individual to collective, and what happens when individual goals are incompatible with collective goals? This article focuses on answering new questions based on the old theoretical accounts: 1. How are people energized to engage in behaviours for the collective? 2. How do people direct their activities toward individual and collective goals? 3. How do people sustain their efforts for the collective (for example when job prospects are insecure)? The answer to these questions comes from the social identity approach.

Individuals and groups at work

Little is known about motivation in workgroups because the focus has been on individuals instead of groups, and so the traditional approach is to create situations in which the achievement of individual goals is dependent on the achievement of group goals. So, there still is a focus on individuals as separate entities, and the fact that individual preferences could be aligned with collective goals is not considered. We should be considering the ways in which groups represent internalized values. Because group-based goals are not always an extrinsic source of motivation, it can become intrinsic. The self can be seen in individual terms (”I”) and in collective terms (“we”). A self-conception in collective terms would energize people to act in behalf of the group, direct efforts towards collective outcomes, and sustain team loyalty even if it’s not individually rewarding. So, now it’s important to know when people tend to define themselves in individual versus collective terms.

Self-categorization and social identity

Social identity theory states that there are three processes that underlie group-based social interactions: 1. Social categorization: people organize social information by categorizing people into groups, especially when group membership is invariable over time, 2. Social comparison: this process gives meaning to a categorization: features that distinguish one group from another help to define the group in a particular situation. Depending on the context, some categorizations are more salient than others (based on comparative context and normative fit), and 3. Social identification:  this is the process by which information about social groups is related to the self. When we perceive ourselves as members of a group, we perceive group features as self-descriptive and adopt group norms. So, based on these three processes, we can predict when we see ourselves as “I” and when as “we” and when which group memberships become more salient. In the article, 12 propositions are discussed that follow logically from social identity theory.

• Proposition 1: People will identify more with a collective to the extent that it distinguishes them from other collectives.

• Proposition 2: In a given comparative context, people are more likely to identify with smaller, more distinctive collectives than with more inclusive ones.

• Proposition 3: When the group isn’t successful, individuals’ identification will be stronger to the extent that it’s likely that the collective will be successful in the future.

• Proposition 4: When the group is successful, identification will be enhanced when external circumstances threaten this success.

Social identification and work motivation

• Proposition 5: When the situation induces workers to identify with the collective, they will be energized when their inclusion in the group isn’t completely acknowledged, they will behave in line with what is distinctive for the group and sustain group goals across situations and time.

• Proposition 6: When the situation leads workers to disidentify with the collective, they will be energized to show this lack of identification when treated as part of the collective, they will direct their behaviour to show they are different and sustain group goals only when they are individually rewarding or when they overlap with the goals of another group.

Identification vs. Commitment in organizations

Emotional involvement of the self with the group can motivate individuals to direct their efforts toward group goals. Social identity theory adds knowledge about conditions that foster a concern with collective rather than individual conceptions of the self. We should see identification as a dynamic outcome of situational features (e.g. identification differs when you are dealing with representatives from another firm vs. coworkers).

Leadership

Who is most accepted as a motivating source? And under which conditions will they be most successful in mobilizing their followers? To be a successful leader, it’s important to communicate and create a sense of shared identity.

• Proposition 7: To the extent that followers perceive their leader to share a common identity, positive leadership behaviour is seen as indicative of the true self of the leader, while negative leadership behaviour is not. The reverse pattern is true for leaders who are perceived as out-group members.

Whose guidelines are most likely to be accepted as a motivating force? This also depends on the situation: the leader should represent the characteristics that help to positively distinguish the in-group from the out-group in a given situation.

• Proposition 8: When group members perceive the situation in intergroup terms, they accept leaders who most clearly represent ways in which the group can be positively distinguished from the relevant comparison group.

• Proposition 9: Circumstances that enhance a sense of shared identity facilitate a leader’s attempts to motivate followers, whereas factors that set the leader apart from the followers (e.g. unequal reward system or exceptional skills) can undermine leadership effectiveness. 

Group performance

Measures that enhance the salience of a collective identity can also contribute to the motivation to achieve collective goals and avoid motivation loss in groups (social loafing).

• Proposition 10: Collectives that are not bound together by interpersonal ties can be energized to work on joint tasks when the circumstances enhance the salience of a common identity and prevent focus on interpersonal distinctions.

• Proposition 11: Collective identification directs efforts to joint performance when this helps to achieve a distinct collective identity. However, focusing on collective identification and group norms can be counter effective, e.g. when the group sets norms for underperformance (soldiering) or individualistic behaviour.

• Proposition 12: Individuals will sustain their efforts on behalf of a group either when they see group performance improvement as a realistic prospect or when they fear collective position loss.