Sensemaking About the Organization–Occupation Relationship in Constructing Identification at Work: A Cross-Occupational Approach

Abstract

Departing from the prior assumption that identification with organization and identification with occupation are constructed separately, we explore how employee identifications with these multiple targets are co-constructed at work, using a grounded-theory approach. An analysis of interview data collected from members of three occupations (engineers, human resource [HR] staff, and marketers) in a large global company reveals that organizational identity’s impact on employee identification is not independent of but significantly influenced by occupational identity; specifically, occupational identity provides a lens through which individuals actively interpret the organizational identity. Using the occupational lens, individuals engage in sensemaking about the alignment between organization and occupation and, based on this sensemaking, construct their identification with both targets. We identify four types of identification configurations constructed under the nexus of these organizational and occupational identity inputs: holistic, prioritized, parallel, and conditional identification, which vary systematically across occupations.