2015 North American Society for Sport Management Conference (NASSM 2015)
Ottawa, ON June 2 – 6, 2015 Page 341
Organizational Identity in a Volunteer-based, Dispersed Identification Process
Christine Wegner, Temple University
Jeremy Jordan (Advisor), Temple University
Organizational theory/culture Friday, June 5, 2015 20-minute oral presentation
(including questions)
Abstract 2015-117 1:20 PM (Chaudière)
Volunteers have become a critical resource in the design and implementation of community based sport programs.
The contributions of volunteers have been critical to the success of these programs especially given the increase in
the number and types of programs (Green & Chalip, 1998; Surujlal & Duhurp, 2008). In their review of sport
volunteers, Green and Chalip found that the percentage of long-term volunteers had decreased as participation levels
had become stagnated. High attrition rates for volunteers limit the ability of sport organizations to provide
consistent, high-quality member service. Organizations are therefore competing for limited volunteer resources,
heightening the importance of a positive volunteer experience. Understanding the process of organizational
identification for volunteers could prove beneficial as identification has been shown to be a significant determinant
of positive outcomes, especially in circumstances when there is no monetary remuneration for organizational
members (Bonjean, Markham, & Macken, 1994).Furthermore, in sport organizations in particular, organizational
identification has been found to be an important attitude, as the emotional and personal connection of individuals to
sports and teams produce a level of identification with the athletes playing the game or with participants engaging in
the same activity with which the volunteer has a strong personal, emotional connection (Lock, Taylor, & Funk,
2012).
The problem for sport organizations is compounded, however, by the changing nature of organizations in that they
are no longer exclusively static, hierarchical, place-based beings. In a dynamic and ever-more digitized world,
organizations are quickly becoming a network of individuals and knowledge across which place matters less, i.e.
“dispersed.” While this dispersion has opened the door for a whole world of innovation utilizing varying structures,
cultures, and thought processes, this also leaves scholars with numerous questions. Specifically, knowing that
organizational identification has been associated with numerous important outcomes, including extrarole behaviors
(Blader & Tyler, 2009), task performance (Yurchisin & Damhorst, 2011), and intention to stay (Mael & Ashforth,
1995), how does the changing structure of the organization alter the ways in which individuals identify with the
organization?
Organizational identification is the extent to which individuals define themselves in terms of membership with an
organization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). The process of identification happens largely through the formal and informal
interactions between the organization and its members that expose them to its enduring norms, values, and beliefs
(Ashforth & Mael). As the structure of organizations in general moves away from hierarchical, place-based beings to
dispersed networks across which place doesn’t matter, scholars question how exactly to facilitate identification in the
absence of physical interaction (Weisenfeld et al., 2001). Brickson (2013) proposes that an organization’s identity, a
set of referents or claims that are central, distinctive, and enduring (Albert & Whetten, 1985), can play an important
role in member identification, regardless of interaction. Organizations themselves are identity-based actors, and
therefore have potential to inform the identification process (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008). This relationship,
however, has been largely unexplored empirically (Brickson, 2013).
In a dispersed organization, the referents and cues projected and executed by the organization are left open to
interpretation by members, making the strength, centrality, and relevance of these cues even more important in the
identification process. Therefore, this study uses organizational archival data and interviews with organizational
members to understand the cues of a strong organizational identity that are most salient in the construction of
identification for volunteers in a dispersed sport organization. Theoretically, it seeks to bridge the empirical gap in
the relationship between organizational identity and the process of organizational identification. Practically, it
attempts to provide concrete cues that dispersed organizations, particularly volunteer-based organizations with
2015 North American Society for Sport Management Conference (NASSM 2015)
Ottawa, ON June 2 – 6, 2015 Page 342
limited resources, can use to provide a strong identity, which can in turn facilitate organizational identification, along
with its positive outcomes for both the individuals a