To be (moral) or not to be : an analysis of the interaction between categorical identity and moral identity
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Organizations have social identities that encompass both a categorical identity, based on products sold or services provided, and a more individualized, organization-specific identity not necessarily based on products, which often consists of moral features such as corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities or actively engaging in the social well-being of local communities. Recent sociological research on organizational categories has shown that audiences prefer organizations that conform to a single, clear category. At the same time, social psychological research on morality shows that individuals reward moral actors and punish immoral actors. This dissertation examines how conformity to a categorical code differently affects audiences' reactions to organizational actors' moral and immoral actions. In Section I, I use two empirical settings to examine how the clarity of an organization's categorical identity affects the way audiences react to the organization's moral identity based on CSR in a local community. First, using a series of experiments, I show that organizations in a single category gain appeal when they perform a CSR activity while organizations that span multiple categories garner less appeal for making the same moral identity claim. I also replicate and extend these findings in an empirical analysis using corporate financial performance data, which shows that penalties also extend to organizations in ambiguous product categories, in addition to those operating in multiple categories. An important implication of these results is that organizations with unclear categorical identities can have greater difficulty cultivating moral identities that would serve to differentiate them in the marketplace. In Section II, I examine how category clarity affects audiences' response to immoral actions on the part of organizations. Using a series of experiments, I show that organizations with unclear categorical identities are punished more when suspected of immoral behavior than organizations operating in a single product category. However, when the immoral behavior is beyond suspicion and is accepted as fact, the buffering effect of a clear categorical identity disappears. In line with results from the studies in Section I, these findings suggest that organizations with unclear categorical identities can have a more difficult time rebounding from perceived immorality in the marketplace. Overall, the results from this dissertation enrich the current literature on organizational identity and expand on ideas about how the cognitive process in which rewards and penalties are meted out is affected by the categorical clarity of an organization.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2013 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Fassiotto, Magali A |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Graduate School of Business. |
| Primary advisor | Sorensen, Jesper B, 1967- |
| Thesis advisor | Sorensen, Jesper B, 1967- |
| Thesis advisor | Hannan, Michael T |
| Thesis advisor | Soule, Sarah Anne, 1967- |
| Advisor | Hannan, Michael T |
| Advisor | Soule, Sarah Anne, 1967- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Magali A. Fassiotto. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Graduate School of Business. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2013. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2013 by Magali Antonia Fassiotto
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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