Professional status, employee attitudes and multiple identifications at work

We conducted two studies exploring the influence of professional status on three targets of organisational identification. In the first study, 180 employees from a large metropolitan hospital completed an organisation-wide survey. As predicted, employees belonging to high-status professional groups reported higher levels of identification with their profession, followed by their work unit and the organisation. In contrast, employees belonging to low-status professional groups reported higher levels of identification with their work unit and the organisation, compared to their profession. Identification with the various targets was also associated with higher levels of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, and lower levels of uncertainty and emotional exhaustion. In the second study, 60 employees from the same hospital took part in semi-structured interviews to further explore issues relating to professional identification. In line with the results of the first study, the professional group was viewed as a central target of identification at work, particularly for those employees belonging to high status professional groups. Professional identification was also identified as a conduit for social meaning and a signifier of intergroup boundaries. Implications for the management of multiple identifications and heterogeneous teams are discussed.

Intergroup processes in intragroup contexts: The roles of group status, group identification and communication in diverse work teams

The present research examines employee identification and communication in organisations. In Study 1, 2229 soldiers from a military organisation completed measures of perceived status and strength of identification with their unit, employment category and their brigade. As predicted, the status of a key organisational group influenced reactions to different organisational groups: full-time soldiers evaluated their work unit and the organisation as being lower in status and identified less strongly with both of these groups than part-time soldiers. The second study extended these findings to a different research context: a large psychiatric hospital undergoing downsizing and restructuring. Surprisingly, there were no differences in survivors' and victims' levels of identification with organisational groups. Instead, and consistent with Study 1, there was evidence to suggest that employees adjusted their patterns of identification and perceptions of group status through a compensatory mechanism that maximised opportunities for selfenhancement and positive distinctiveness. In the third study, employees from a public hospital (N = 142) rated communication from double ingroup members (same work unit/same occupational group) more favourably than communication from partial group members (same work unit/different occupational group). These results are considered in terms of their practical implications for identity management in organisations.

Gender, computing and the organisation of working time: public/private comparisons in the Australian context

Professional computing employment in Australia, as in most advanced economies, is highly sex segregated, reflecting well-rehearsed ideas about the masculinity of technology and computing culture. In this paper we are concerned with the processes of work organisation that sustain and reproduce this gendered occupational distribution, focusing in particular on differences and similarities in working-time arrangements between public and private sectors in the Australian context. While information technology companies are often highly competitive workplaces with individualised working arrangements, computing professionals work in a wide range of organisations with different regulatory histories and practices. Our goal is to investigate the implications of these variations for gender equity outcomes, using the public/private divide as indicative of different regulatory frameworks. We draw on Australian census data and a series of organisational case studies to compare working-time arrangements in professional computing employment across sectors, and to examine the various ways employees adapt and respond. Our analysis identifies a stronger ‘long hours culture’ in the private sector, but also underlines the rarity of part-time work in both sectors, and suggests that men and women tend to respond in different ways to these constraints. Although the findings highlight the importance of regulatory frameworks, the organisation of working time across sectors appears to be sustaining rather than challenging gender inequalities in computing employment.