Unpacking Nested Identity Theory: The Case of Global Social Identity

Authors:

Abstract: We are more likely to cooperate with individuals we see as similar to ourselves, yet it is now common for employees to work with stakeholders who come from outside their nation’s borders. Some research suggests that holding a global social identity – or identification with the world as a whole – leads to cooperation even with global strangers. However, various widely-studied identification theories suggest that global social identity should be rare due to a lack of commonality or proximity among ingroup members and a lack of comparison outgroup for distinctiveness and esteem-building. Thus, we sought to create consensus around both the existence and meaning of global social identity. Interviews with 107 employees working in either Mexico, South Africa, or the United States revealed that global social identity does exist – yet it does so outside the boundaries of existing theory. More specifically, we found that local, national, and global identities exist as distinct, unrelated identities, rather than in nested layers (as previously theorized). Further, we found that the foundational bases of identification change as the level of the identity’s abstraction increased. Our findings have various implications for theory and practice, particularly regarding the encouragement of cooperation among globally dispersed organizational stakeholders.

Track: TEAM

Keywords: Social identity, cooperation, qualitative methods, international organizational behavior