Competition and Organizational Identification: The moderating effect of Bu, Cheo, and Cheong Organizations

Abstract

This study is based on two psychological characteristics of Korean people: competitiveness and organizational identification (OI). Based on the idea that OI is closely related to organizational outcomes especially in the Korean organizational context, and considering the fact that Korean people highly value the organizations to which they belong, this study addresses the research question of how competition and competitiveness are related to OI. In addition, as social identity theory suggests perceived prestige as one of the most important factors of OI, another research question is how perceived prestige, which is operationalized as agency power, affects OI of central government officials.

Aligned with the research questions, the present study analyzes data from a survey on government officials of 34 central government agencies. First, the three types of government agencies, i.e., Bu, Cheo, and Cheong, showed no statistically significant difference in OI. Second, perceived intraorganizational competition (PIC) is negatively associated with OI, while personal development competitiveness (PDC) is positively associated with OI. Third, the impact of PIC and PDC on OI differs depending on the type of organization to which one belongs. Such results show that members of different types of organizations have differences in perception regarding competition and OI. I carefully suggest perceived prestige among organizations as a possible explanation for such differences.

An important finding of this study is the existence of PDC among government officials and how it affects OI. Additionally, I expect to provide managerial implications through findings of the differences in members of Bu, Cheo, and Cheong organizations. This is meaningful in that not many studies have covered behavioral comparisons in such way, despite the importance in public organization studies.

Keyword: Organizational identification, competition, competitiveness

Student Number: 2016-24319