Identity and Identification During and After the Pandemic: How Might COVID‐19 Change the Research Questions we Ask?

摘要

In any work context, individuals need a sense of who they are – what identity or identities are most salient, that is, relevant and valued – in order to navigate that context. COVID-19 cannot erase this fundamental need. However, COVID-19 is challenging how individuals are meeting this need and thereby the wisdom of scholars’ conventional focus on the organization as the prime locus of individual’s work-based identity. More specifically, I argue below that COVID-19 is encouraging individuals to define themselves less in terms of an ‘organizational we’ and more as other forms of ‘we’ along with a personalized ‘me’. Further, I argue that scholars would profit from examining how event-specific organizational responses to the pandemic (and major events in general) affect identification with the organization, and how the pandemic and similar events affect identification with relevant occupations. COVID-19 appears to be accelerating at least two pre-pandemic trends that were already eroding organizational identification. First, the dependence on the do-it-yourself gig economy has increased in the face of rampant unemployment (with economists predicting that many jobs will not return) and many organizations hastening the replacement of workers with robots and artificial intelligence (e.g., Semuels, 2020). Second, the virtualization of work has increased – and may well become permanent for many organizations – as legions of employees are encouraged to work from home. While employees are generally appreciative of the opportunity to telework, the loss of organizational trappings and spontaneous, face-to-face interaction with other organizational members makes it more difficult for employees’ connection to the organization to remain salient (e.g., Wiesenfeld et al., 2001). As the conventional moorings with organizations loosen, and given the need for some baseline work identity, what other identities might pick up the slack? I encourage scholars to explore the following alternative social or ‘we’ identities: (1) occupations/roles; (2) projects/gigs (although temporary, the immersive experience and cumulative accomplishments over time may foster identification); (3) networks (although social, they tend to be self-constructed and thus, idiosyncratic, providing a malleable and portable identity); and (4) ‘third places’ (i.e., places that are neither a conventional work site nor home, such as coworking spaces and online platforms) (Ashford et al., 2018; Ashforth et al., 2020). Additionally, and perhaps even more pronounced in these turbulent times, are the following personal or ‘me’ identities: (1) personal brands (i.e., the public image one fosters of one’s distinctive and positive qualities); and (2) protean selves (i.e., a chameleon-like self-conception of adaptability and personal growth) (Ashforth et al., 2020; Briscoe et al., 2012). In short, while COVID-19 may raise doubts about scholars’ conventional focus on organizational identification, scholars should remain bullish about the important research questions associated with other, ascendant foci of identification. For example, to what extent and under what conditions are alternative identities complementary, substitutable, or conflicting (see Caza et al., 2018)? Can an organization have an engaged workforce even if organizational identification is low? My strong suspicion is that merely transactional relationships with a workforce are not sufficient for any organization’s long-term welfare. Thus, scholars should investigate: how organizations might harness the other foci of identification to their goals and values; when short-term organizational commitment and behavioural loyalty – identification-lite, so to speak – might instead be sufficient; and whether a strongly identified inner core of workers can compensate for a weakly identified outer mass of workers. Whereas scholars emphasize relatively stable predictors of organizational identification, such as an organization’s perceived