NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 of directors, to leave a job, or to go on strike) based on the prospect of these

64 I NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 of directors, to leave a job, or to go on strike) based on the prospect of these

paths proving beneficial rather than costly for the individual self. However, in the past decade or so, scholars have started pointing out the limits of rational choice models to explain behavior in organizations (e.g., Hodgkinson & Sparrow, 2002), and a range of research programs has competitively tested these arguments against alternative social-identity- based models (e.g., Abrams, Ando, & Hinkle, 1998; Kelly, 1993; Jetten, O’Brien, & Trindall, 2002; Tyler & Blader, 2000; for related commentary see Akerlof & Kranton, 2000; Rowley & Moldoveanu, 2003; and Schrager, 1985). Each of these tests provides compelling support for two conclusions. First, they indicate that identity-based concerns can be conceptually and practically distinguished from interest-based concerns. Thus, while both may independently influence the way people behave toward each other, there is no sense in which concerns to enhance social identity are reducible to a desire to enhance personal gain. Second, studies that directly compare the twoeffects all provide evidence that identity-based concerns are a superior predictor of organizational choices and actions than interest-based analyses.

As an example of these points, research by Kelly and Kelly (1994) has shown that social identification with a union was a much better predictor of willingness to engage in industrial action than perceptions of personal or collective injustice (see also Kelly & Breinlinger, 1996; Veenstra & Haslam, 2000). Reflecting on such data, Klandermans (1997)—who had previously advocated a rational choice approach—conceded that his model’s assump- tions were incomplete and needed to incorporate social-identity-related concerns to increase its predictive power (see also Simon & Klandermans, 2001). Similarly, Kelly and Breinlinger (1996) argue that assumptions of rationality are especially strained in cases of protracted industrial disputes. In these situations, union members often bear the financial and social burden of extreme hardship and are usually all too well aware of the fact that personal benefits, if gained at all, may be slight. For an individual, the ‘rational’ action would appear to be to leave (or not join) the union, let others do the protest- ing, and then reap the benefits of any successes they achieve (e.g., in the form of a pay rise or better working conditions). Likewise, Rowley and Moldoveanu (2003) note that interest-based models of stakeholder protest would lead one to predict (a) that in many situations individuals would not protest when they in fact do (e.g., at a shareholders’ meeting, where they have

a trivial proportion of the votes) and (b) that on even more occasions indi- viduals would protest when they in fact do not (e.g., when their personal livelihood is threatened by a company’s pollution policy).

In one of the most extensive programs of research to date, Tyler and Blader (2000) explicitly compared the ability of interest-based and identity-based factors to predict a range of cooperative behaviors in organizations, such as compliance and extra-role behavior (see also Smith, Tyler, & Huo, 2003; Tyler, 1999). Their findings indicated that, when considered alone, inter-

65 est-based factors (e.g., resources obtained, possible sanctions, and incentives)

S OCIAL I DENTITY IN I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY

combined to predict a reliable but small proportion of such behavior (around 10%) but that when their predictive capacity was assessed alongside social- identity-based factors (e.g., pride, respect, trust) the contribution of interest- based factors to the explanation of extra-role behavior reduced dramatically (to around 0.6%) and was substantially lower than that of social-identity- based factors (which was around 16%). On the basis of this and other similar evidence, Tyler and Blader (2000) argue that, tothe extent that such eco- nomic concerns are important to employees, it is primarily because they serve identity-based functions—for example, by connoting pride, status, and re- spect (a conclusion also supported by analysis of the work behavior of casual workers; Veenstra, Haslam, & Reynolds, 2004).

In sum, then, it appears that while costs, benefits, prospects, exchange, and so forth are all important features of group and organizational life, these features are not necessarily the prime movers that they are commonly supposed to be. In part, this is because what ‘counts’ as a cost, a benefit, a fair exchange, a valued resource, or even self-interest, cannot be established independently of the contextualized social identities which give these constructs meaning. When making judgements of costs, benefits, and so on, people’s social identities thus determine (among other things) what the relevant entities to be compared are, which frame of reference should be used to interpret differential outcomes, and what signifies a self-relevant cost or benefit (Platow, O’Connell, Shave, & Hanning, 1995; Platow, Reid, & Andrew, 1998). More generally, though, such calculus is of secondary importance because—unlike the psycho-structural processes that give rise to social identity—an abstracted appreciation of costs and benefits is of little use in helping individuals to deal appropriately with the complex and variable exigencies of group and organizational life that they routinely confront.

Beyond Metaphor