ABSTRACT

Organizations usually consist of multiple groups, raising questions about where members identify, and their allegiances lie. Students are members of colleges and universities. Soldiers are members of brigades and battalions. Corporate employees are members of teams, divisions, and companies. Each group is an opportunity for forming a social identity and a source of needs and requests. Which groups attract members to identify and contribute? The studies from the research program I present integrate ideas from the literature streams of multiple identities, status, and multiple team membership, to address important questions in each one of these literature streams and offer reciprocal theoretical contributions. One set of studies, in nested organizational groups’ hierarchical structure, examines whether subgroup status shapes identity configurations, or the pattern of members’ identifications across multiple organizational groups, and its impact on citizenship behavior choices. Another study, in a cross-cutting groups matrix organizational structure, where employees work in a multiple team membership (MTM), examines how sources of status in focal teams (project, team members, leader) interact with functional team status to shape employees’ identifications and proactivity (helping and voice) within teams. The findings delineate the relationship between the relative status of organizational groups to employees’ identification patterns and organizational citizenship behaviors, offering theoretical contribution and practical implications.