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Identity integration and Identity differentiation.
Step 1. Item Generation
I and two colleagues jointly completed this scale development process. We are familiar with organizational identity literature and specialize in international business or strategy field. One of us has a paper about identity published in A-Journal. We adopted both inductive and deductive approaches to identify main dimensions of identity integration and identity differentiation. The inductive approach helps researchers to capture constructs, which lack of strong theoretical foundation to guide item generation, by interviewing a number of respondents to gather descriptions of behavioral incidents (Hinkin, 1998). I gathered information about two constructs, identity integration and identity differentiation, from all
group-affiliated firms in item generation stage. Twenty-six executives from different group affiliates in the home country were formally interviewed; 23 interviews were recorded and transcribed and notes were taken for three interviews. All interviews lasted nearly one hour. I also asked executives in 9 foreign subsidiaries to describe some aspects of constructs through e-mail. I began the interview by explaining the definition of organizational identity, integration, and differentiation. Then, I asked following questions: (1)“Please describe your company in terms of central, distinctive, and enduring characteristics and give some examples to support above statements.
In addition, when you answered this question, please think about your company as a whole and tell us what your company stands for, rather than, ideally, what your company should be”(Brickson, 2005), (2)“Please describe your company in terms of qualities which can fuse your company into the group and facilitate cooperation between your company and sister affiliates to achieve unity of effort,” and (3)“Please describe your company in terms of qualities which show differences between your
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company and other group members in ways of thinking and behaving.” I didn’t restrict the range of answers and let the key construct dimensions emerged from my interviews. On the other hand, I also referred to existing organizational identity literature, such as Pratt and Foreman(2000), to find out possible dimensions and develop items based on theoretical definitions of dimensions. Through inductive and deductive approaches, 73 items for identity integration and 61 items for identity differentiation were generated.
Step 2. Item Reduction and Content Validity
I and two colleagues adopted two criteria to screen all items: (1) whether the item conforms to theoretical definition of organizational identity; and (2) whether the item reflects the concept of identity integration or identity differentiation. The question of whether the item should be discarded would be decided by consensus. If more than two of us decided to discard an item, the item would be discarded (66.67%).
After initial discussion, I and two colleagues decided to discard 44 items which did not refer to organizational identity, identity integration, or identity differentiation.
38 items of identity integration and 52 items of identity differentiation remained. I and two colleagues classified remaining items into mutually exclusive categories based on similarity of item content. There were 4 dimensions of identity integration and 6 dimensions of identity differentiation. Then, I randomly arranged these items and invited three doctoral students to act as test judges. Two test judges major in strategy and the other one major in international business. They all took a course on organizational theory and knew some main ideas of organizational identity. I offered a list of theoretical definition of each dimension and an additional option, “it is
difficult to classify this item into a specific category”, to let three judges choose an appropriate answer for each item. Three judges completed this task independently
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and categorized all measures based on theoretical definition of dimensions. The result laid the foundation for subsequent questionnaire development because I knew whether an item clearly reflected the meaning of the dimension. I and two
colleagues eliminated items which were not correctly classified into designated category by at least one judge. I and two colleagues also eliminated dimensions which have few items. Before questionnaires were distributed, I asked three managers (two human resources managers and one production manager) to go through all items to ensure that all items had clear meaning and were easy to be understood. Table 5.2 lists all dimensions and the items of two constructs, identity integration and identity differentiation.
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TABLE 5.2 (to be continued) Summary of Dimensions and Measures
(7 point scale, 1=strongly disagree and, 7=strongly agree)
Constructs Dimensions and Definitions Measures
Identity Differentiation
1. Better than them: A firm does better work in some common
characteristics.
D1 I have some characteristics on which other group members also emphasize, but I implement them more thoroughly.
D2 I have some characteristics on which other group members also emphasize, but I pay more attention on them.
D3 I have some characteristics on which other group members also emphasize, but people would praise us for our performance.
D4 I have some characteristics on which other group members also emphasize, but people would think about us when they talk about these attributes.
D5 I have some characteristics on which other group members also emphasize, but sister affiliates prefer to learn from us.
2. Specialty: A firm has positive distinctiveness which does not belong to other group members.
D6 In the group, our company possesses some values which are difficult to be replaced by others.
D7 In the group, our company possesses some values which distinguish us from others.
D8 In the group, our company possesses some values which can help the entire group to have stable growth.
3. Independence: A firm does not rely on other group members.
D9 I rarely need help from the group, compared with other group members.
D10 I rarely rely on the group, compared with other group members.
D11 I rarely need the group to give us resources to keep our firm running properly, compared with other group members.