NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 theory depended for its explanatory power; see Turner & Haslam, 2001).

48 I NTERNATIONAL R EVIEW OF I NDUSTRIAL AND O RGANIZATIONAL P SYCHOLOGY 2005 theory depended for its explanatory power; see Turner & Haslam, 2001).

This complexity has led researchers in this tradition (e.g., Haslam & Reicher, 2002; Turner, 1999) to note that there is some danger in seeing the minimal group studies as providing a full (or even a representative) realization of the theory.

Nevertheless, despite social identity theory’s richness, there are certain core questions concerning the nature, operation, and purpose of social iden- tity that it does not address. What functions does social identity serve? What makes it salient? And what are its consequences? It was partly to answer such questions that self-categorization theory was developed by Turner and his colleagues in the 1980s (Turner, 1982, 1985; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994).

Self-categorization theory has a broader cognitive agenda than social identity theory and has greater explanatory scope, largely because its core hypotheses are not targeted specifically to issues of social structure and intergroup relations (Turner & Haslam, 2001; see also Haslam, 2001). So, although the terms social identity approach or social identity perspective can be used as shorthand for the full range of arguments and hypotheses that are generated by the twotheories, there is intellectual and practical value in continuing to distinguish between them (Turner, 2004).

Formative work on self-categorization theory focused on the theoretical implications of the notion of social identity itself. In particular, to explain individuals’ movement along Tajfel’s interpersonal–intergroup continuum, Turner (1982) hypothesized that an individual’s self-concept could itself be defined along a continuum ranging from a definition of the self in terms of personal identity to a definition in terms of social identity. Moreover, he proposed that the functioning of the self-concept is the cognitive mechanism that underpins the behavioral continuum described by Tajfel (1978). Turner (1982) thus argued that social identity actually allowed intergroup behavior to take place. As he put it, ‘social identity is the cognitive mechanism that makes group behavior possible’ (p. 21). Applying this idea to the organizational domain, one can argue that organizational identity (a social identity asso- ciated with membership of a given organization or organizational unit) is what makes organizational behavior possible (Haslam, Postmes et al., 2003).

A further important part of Turner’s contribution was to specify a psycho- logical process associated with the ‘switching on’ of social identity. Turner (1982) called this depersonalization. This refers to a process of self- stereotyping through which the self comes to be perceived as categorically interchangeable with other ingroup members . Elaborating upon Tajfel’s (1978) hypothesis that in intergroup contexts individuals will tend to perceive outgroups as homogeneous (see Figure 2.2), Turner predicted that social identity salience should lead to the ingroup being seen as similarly homogeneous. Employees who are involved in conflict between their com- pany and another should therefore tend to emphasize similarities among

49 members of both companies—not just the rival one (see also Doosje, Ellemers,

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

& Spears, 1995). Similar processes may also emerge at a higher level of cate- gorization. For instance, Peteraf and Shanley (1997) observe that, for strategic reasons, rival firms sometimes emphasize the similarities among them as they position themselves as belonging to the same group within the broader industry (see also Hodgkinson, 2001a, b; Hodgkinson & Sparrow, 2002).

For the purposes of the analysis of organizational behavior, this argument is crucial. In essence, it suggests that group behavior is associated with qualitative changes in the structure of the self. As an individual, ‘who one is’ (and therefore what one does and seeks to do) is defined in terms of one’s idiosyncratic personal attributes, but as a group member the self (and the actions and aspirations this dictates) is defined in terms of stereotypical attributes (e.g., values and goals) that are shared with others who are perceived to be representative of the same social category.

The main contribution of early work on self-categorization theory was to elaborate upon the workings and implications of this depersonalization pro- cess. This elaboration was formalized in a number of core assumptions and related hypotheses of which five are most important (Turner, 1985; Turner et al., 1987; see alsoOakes, 1996; Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994, 1998).

First, cognitive representations of the self take the form of self- categorizations . That is, the self is seen as a member of a particular class or category of stimuli. As such it is perceived to be (a) more or less equivalent to the other stimuli in that category, and (b) more or less distinct from stimuli in other categories. So, for example, when a woman categorizes herself as a doctor she acknowledges her equivalence to other doctors and her difference from, say, nurses or patients.