CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

13. SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION IN INTERGROUP MERGERS 405
The categorization stage takes place when group members are confronted
with the existence of a new social group. Based on the categorization
and distinctiveness principles proposed by SIT, at this stage, old and
new social identities should be highly distinct and identification with the
new social group is not yet possible. For instance, in the first stages of
the merging process, an employee’s premerger organizational identity is
likely to be the only relevant and salient identity, and identification with
the newly merged superordinate organization is not yet possible given the
lack of exposure to this new group. Moreover, the threatening aspects of
the merger (Terry et al., 2001; Terry & O’Brien, 2001), elicited both by the
instability it brings to employees’ work conditions and social benefits and
by the risk it poses to the survival of the premerger organizational identity
(van Knippenberg et al., 2002), are also likely to inhibit the integration
of the new social identity in this first phase.
As the merger progresses, and as employees have increased contacts with
members of the other premerger group and identities are simultaneously
activated, identification with the new, merged organization becomes possible.
At the second compartmentalization stage, the multiplicity of social
identities is recognized, but identities are still highly distinct, unrelated,
and context dependent (e.g., employees identifying strongly with their premerger
organization when socializing with fellow employees from their
premerger organization, but identifying with the new, merged organization
when interacting with their new boss, a former member of the other
premerger organization). It is only at the integration stage that a new social
identity becomes incorporated and integrated within a person’s sense of
self. At this stage, possible conflicts between old and new identities also
need to be resolved (Harter & Monsour, 1992). For the employee experiencing
an organizational merger, conflicts between organizational identities
could be resolved through simultaneously identifying with the premerger
organization and the newly merged superordinate organization. However,
this would occur only to the extent that the premerger identity is recognized
as being distinct and as contributing positively to the overall merged
entity (e.g., Hornsey & Hogg, 2000). Another integration strategy would
occur by establishing cognitive links (i.e., finding similarities) between
their premerger identification and the newly merged organization (i.e., van
Knippenberg et al., 2002; van Leeuwen et al., 2003).
While longitudinal research is definitively preferable to test the proponents
of this developmental model, other considerations, such as the
use of appropriate statistical techniques that allow tapping into changes
occurring within each individual over time and mapping the multiplicity
of social identities within their overall self, are also warranted. Furthermore,
both the conditions facilitating (e.g., social support) versus inhibiting
(e.g., status/power differentials, threat) the integration of multiple
social identities and the consequences of this integration (e.g., in-group
bias vs. well-being) need to be considered so as to paint a complete portrait
of the changes occurring in social identities over time.