Finally, it should be noted that the pursuit of the preferential and supportive treatment
and giving of scarce resources to the company through share investment – due to the
affection-driven yet cognitive identification (Aspara et al., 2008; Bhattacharya and Sen,
2003; Scott and Lane, 2000) – might be unconscious and/or conscious. Accordingly, we
view that the hypothesised effects of company identification may be direct as well as
indirect, i.e. manifest directly and/or through the mediating variable of one’s increased
(and conscious) “willingness to support the company”, by investing in its shares.
Indeed, including this mediating variable in the analysis enables verification of the
very premise – stemming from the identification theory – that the influence of
organisational identification on one’s behaviour occurs partly through one’s desire to
give supportive treatment to the organisation.
mediating