NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 an impact on the degree to which all members of a group are motivated to

86 I NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 an impact on the degree to which all members of a group are motivated to

work together to develop consensus in relation to a particular organizational activity or norm. In line with the arguments outlined above, the theory suggests that pressures for consensus should flow from social identity salience and that they should increase to the extent that (a) features of context (i.e., contextual fit in interaction with cognitive accessibility) make social identity salient and (b) those people whose social identity is salient engage in social interaction (Haslam, Turner, Oakes, McGarty et al., 1998).

Support for these ideas is provided by experimental studies which examine variation in stereotype consensus as a function of comparative context. These show that groups are more likely to develop consensual stereotypes under conditions where their members interact in contexts where social identity has been made salient by manipulations of fit (Haslam, Turner, Oakes, McGarty et al., 1998) or accessibility (e.g., Haslam, Oakes, Reynolds, & Turner, 1999). Work by Sani and Thompson (2001) also extends these ideas to the analysis of norms surrounding organizational dress—showing that these norms are more consensual to the extent that those who express them interact in contexts where social identity is salient (e.g., in intergroup rather than intragroup settings). Such research supports the argument that social identity processes play a key role in the development of a consensual organizational culture that provides people with a common framework for making sense of, and behaving in, their work environment (Bourassa & Ashforth, 1998; Deal & Kennedy, 1982; Pratt & Rafaeli, 1997).

One further domain to which such analysis has recently been applied is group decision-making—and, more specifically, the analysis of groupthink (after Janis, 1971). Research in this area has shown that social identity processes play a core role in the development of the core symptoms of groupthink: (a) overestimations of the power and morality of an ingroup, (b) closed-mindedness, and (c) pressures toward uniformity (Turner & Pratkanis, 1994, 1998; Turner, Pratkanis, & Samuels, 2003; see also Kramer, 1998). For example, recent research by Haslam, Ryan, Postmes, Spears, Jetten, and Webley (2005) has shown that factors which render a shared social identity more salient increase the likelihood that group mem- bers will maintain commitment to an organizational project that is central to their identity when that project runs into difficulty. Likewise, a field study of bank employees showed that work group members who deviated from work- place norms were derogated, while similar behavior was rated less negatively when performed by someone who didn’t belong to the same work group (Bown & Abrams, 2003). However, in contrast to the view that these pro- cesses are inherently pathological (in the manner suggested by Janis, 1971), this analysis suggests that they are quite rational—serving group mainten- ance functions and allowing groups to engage in collective action by which means they can ‘follow through’ on projects (whether ‘good’ or ‘bad’) that they might otherwise abandon.

87 This last point is an important one, as it is common in the social and

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

organizational literature for researchers to malign processes associated with depersonalized, de-individuated group activity at the same time that they champion those associated with personalized, individuated behavior. This means that, even if the productive potential of teams is recognized, prac- titioners generally remain wary of groups and their psychology—believing that this entails a loss of accuracy, rationality, and selfhood (for a discussion, see Postmes & Spears, 1998; Reicher, 1996; Turner & Oakes, 1997).

In contrast to this view, the social identity approach suggests that the psychological processes implicated in all the phenomena we have discussed above—from leadership and motivation to stereotyping and groupthink—are fundamentally rational and adaptive at the group level. More than this, though, it can be seen that social identity and self-categorization processes are essential in the sense that they make these various higher order organiza- tional phenomena possible. In the boldest terms, we would assert that without social identity, and the forms of social perception and social inter- action that it specifies, there could be neither organization nor organizations (see Haslam, Postmes et al., 2003).