When talking about identification or commitment, these are, according to today’s state of knowledge, always aimed at an object or rather an objective. In the following these objects, matters or objectives are named as foci. Unfortunately, to date there is no scientific work considering the foci of Identification and Commitment in common. Therefore, the current cognitions are first of all described separately and then tried to put them together.

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Foci of identification

Leading personalities and the aims of a company are considered as the most important objects of identification in numerous management literatures. “Not rarely one can put down the fundamentals to the classical values: sense of duty, obedience and hierarchy (…) It is doubtful whether such models of inner orientation today rather impede the necessary permanent learning orientation of a company in the conflict with market challenges and environmental trends than not.

It should better start at that point, where demand and supply of identification objects have a common intersection. Thus, mainly such identification objects start to get interesting for employees, which are comparable to central interests of life” (Wunderer, 1995, p.33).

Identification objects are supposed to be derived directly from the strategical aims of a company. As it is indispensable to life for a company to orient towards the market directly, the offered identification objects should be positioned close to the market, e. g. products, tasks, working teams and customers. The enterpriser in a company is strengthened by that. (cp. Wunderer, 1995)

important. Important foci for identification and commitment thus become single and exclusive objects in the organization. (Wunderer, 1995, p.34)

and personal objects in a company and external objects. Contrary to the dimensions of identification, the foci have no finite number. Foci arise from the particular context and their empirical verifiability depends on the respective salience of the object. Wunderer tries to structure the foci in the following way: Structural foci

- Task: mainly includes objectives, matters and values of different activities in a company

- products/services: including either the final products of a company or (mainly in larger companies) the single products for “in-house costumers”

- Working place: includes all physical and mental conditions which are given at the arrangement and the surroundings of the working place

- Organizational unit: Unit, in which every single employee works in the company (group up to a company as a whole) (source: Wunderer, 1995)

the terms and measurements are different in every company (group, team, department, center et cetera). On the other hand, every organizational unit consists of human beings. In this case, we consequently have a sizable intersection to personal identification objects, mainly at very small organizational units (e.g. group).

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Personal Foci

- Supervisor: a disciplinary supervisor, who is authorized to give instructions within the hierarchy

- Colleague: the individual colleague

- Customer: first of the external customer, who receives services/products from companies. In larger companies, this position can also be taken by the “internal customer”

- Working group: unit of human beings/colleagues of the direct working field which has the same tasks and aims

As mentioned above, there is the biggest intersection to the structural foci. But for further considerations it is important that the working group or rather the team is the centre of attention in today’s Lean-Managment-approaches (e.g. Kaizen). Consequently, there will be a closer look on that foci in this scientific work.

- family

- residence

- hobbies

- sports clubs et cetera this conclusion.

Van Kippenberg (2000) derives from the Social Identity Theory that identification with smaller units should be pronounced more intensely than identification with large objects - e. g. identification with the working group should be more intensive than identification with the company. „Because identification with large-size groups implies sameness with a large number of other people, identification with relatively large groups forms a threat to individual distinctiveness. Identification with smaller groups on the other hand may provide a sufficient level of distinctiveness, whereas at the same time it fulfils a need for inclusiveness“ (VanKippenberg, 200, p.139)

He was able to verify the practical existence und importance of the different foci in a study - he found out that identification with the team or working group is pronounced a lot more than the identification with the company as a whole. Furthermore, it is easier to forecast output variables like motivation, satisfaction or the intention to quit the job with “identification with the team” than with “identification with the company”.

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Foci of Commitment

Reichert (1985) comes to the conclusion that an organization up to now „typically is viewed as a monolithic undifferentiated entity that elicits an identification and attachment on the part of the individual“(p. 469) However, she brings forward the argument that in reality, organizations include a multitude of coalitions and constituencies. Every single one has own objectives and values that either correlate with the organization as a whole or do not (Meyer&Allen, 1997).

reached the following conclusions:

1) local Commitment: employee groups, which feel connected to the line manager and the working group 2) global Commitment: employee groups, which feel connected to the top management and the organization as a whole 3) “the Committed”: employee groups, which feel connected to local foci as well as global foci 4) “the Uncommitted”: employee groups, which are neither connected to local foci nor to global foci. (source: Becker & Billings; 1993, p.177)

another indication for a differentiated consideration of the foci of commitment. He found out that commitment to the supervisor correlates much stronger with the job performance than commitment to the organization. This conclusion indicates a connection to vanKippenbergs(2000) surveys; these refer to the importance of the size of the identification objects. Reichert (1996) says that commitment to the organization in turn correlates in a significant way with commitment to management objectives.

commitment to the organization. To receive usable and practically applicable information, commitment always needs to be analyzed with differentiated foci.

„We need to identify clearly what behaviors we are interested in predicting and what constituency in the organizations is most likely to be affected by this behavior.“ (Meyer&Allen, 1997, p.22)

organization (management, colleagues, working groups, supervisor) and into domains (organization, function, occupational group).

the identification with different foci also leads to a different behaviour. (cp Wunderer, 1995,

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Meyer&Allen, 1997, vanDick, 2004, vanDick/Wagner, 2002, vanKippenberg, 2000) A doctor, for instance, whose commitment and whose identification with his employer (hospital X) is very low, can still be heavily involved in doing his job, because of the high commitment or identification with his profession (medical practitioner/doctor). Another example: Mr. X does not leave his sports club although he can not identify himself with it anymore, but he still identifies intensely with his friends in that club.

(2) The identification with and the commitment to small units is always in high gear and has a stronger influence on the behaviour. (vanKippenberg, 2000)

(3) There is no such a finite number of foci and no foci that can always be clearly differentiated.

occupational group, management, company aims, department, company, customer, union, works council. Of course, this list is not completed. As already mentioned above, there is no finite number of foci. But in the opinion of the author, these foci seem to be the most relevant ones for the objectives of this MBA-dissertation.

foci:

personal identity <-> social identity (according to the SIT, vanDick,...