Identity and Identification During and After the Pandemic: How Might COVID‐19 Change the Research Questions we Ask?

In any work context, individuals need a sense of who they are – what identity or identities are most salient, that is, relevant and valued – in order to navigate that context. COVID-19 cannot erase this fundamental need. However, COVID-19 is challenging how individuals are meeting this need and thereby the wisdom of scholars’ conventional focus on the organization as the prime locus of individual’s work-based identity. More specifically, I argue below that COVID-19 is encouraging individuals to define themselves less in terms of an ‘organizational we’ and more as other forms of ‘we’ along with a personalized ‘me’. Further, I argue that scholars would profit from examining how event-specific organizational responses to the pandemic (and major events in general) affect identification with the organization, and how the pandemic and similar events affect identification with relevant occupations. COVID-19 appears to be accelerating at least two pre-pandemic trends that were already eroding organizational identification. First, the dependence on the do-it-yourself gig economy has increased in the face of rampant unemployment (with economists predicting that many jobs will not return) and many organizations hastening the replacement of workers with robots and artificial intelligence (e.g., Semuels, 2020). Second, the virtualization of work has increased – and may well become permanent for many organizations – as legions of employees are encouraged to work from home. While employees are generally appreciative of the opportunity to telework, the loss of organizational trappings and spontaneous, face-to-face interaction with other organizational members makes it more difficult for employees’ connection to the organization to remain salient (e.g., Wiesenfeld et al., 2001). As the conventional moorings with organizations loosen, and given the need for some baseline work identity, what other identities might pick up the slack? I encourage scholars to explore the following alternative social or ‘we’ identities: (1) occupations/roles; (2) projects/gigs (although temporary, the immersive experience and cumulative accomplishments over time may foster identification); (3) networks (although social, they tend to be self-constructed and thus, idiosyncratic, providing a malleable and portable identity); and (4) ‘third places’ (i.e., places that are neither a conventional work site nor home, such as coworking spaces and online platforms) (Ashford et al., 2018; Ashforth et al., 2020). Additionally, and perhaps even more pronounced in these turbulent times, are the following personal or ‘me’ identities: (1) personal brands (i.e., the public image one fosters of one’s distinctive and positive qualities); and (2) protean selves (i.e., a chameleon-like self-conception of adaptability and personal growth) (Ashforth et al., 2020; Briscoe et al., 2012). In short, while COVID-19 may raise doubts about scholars’ conventional focus on organizational identification, scholars should remain bullish about the important research questions associated with other, ascendant foci of identification. For example, to what extent and under what conditions are alternative identities complementary, substitutable, or conflicting (see Caza et al., 2018)? Can an organization have an engaged workforce even if organizational identification is low? My strong suspicion is that merely transactional relationships with a workforce are not sufficient for any organization’s long-term welfare. Thus, scholars should investigate: how organizations might harness the other foci of identification to their goals and values; when short-term organizational commitment and behavioural loyalty – identification-lite, so to speak – might instead be sufficient; and whether a strongly identified inner core of workers can compensate for a weakly identified outer mass of workers. Whereas scholars emphasize relatively stable predictors of organizational identification, such as an organization’s perceived positive distinctiveness, COVID-19 is likely to reveal how much event-specific organizational responses matter – especially during times of crises (see Morgeson et al., 2015). Major crises are moral inflection points because they implicitly call upon organizations to rise to the occasion by doing the right things for the greater good. Moreover, major crises force organizations to react, making painful choices that reveal their actual (versus espoused) core values. For example, a company may characterize itself as a ‘happy family’, but if the pandemic induces it to quickly lay off employees rather than seek other means of meeting the moment, the hypocrisy becomes readily apparent. Conversely, organizations that willingly help employees through desperate times trigger a powerful and universal norm: that of reciprocity (Gouldner, 1960), fostering stronger identification. Helping includes physical actions to reduce the risk of COVID-19 (e.g., working from home, mandating masks and social distancing when co-located), financial actions to mitigate economic harm (e.g., keeping workers on the payroll even if demand is down, providing paid sick leave), and social support to mitigate stress (e.g., communicating empathy and compassion, hosting virtual lunches; Gibson, 2020). Additionally, organizations that proactively help other stakeholders, such as their surrounding community, also garner identification not only from these stakeholders, but also from the increased pride of their own employees. Indeed, the media often publicizes feel-good stories such as restaurants feeding healthcare workers for free, or local stores donating supplies (e.g., disinfectant, masks) to strapped communities. It seems likely that the greater the perceived hardship borne by an organization to voluntarily protect its employees and other stakeholders, the greater the boost in identification. In sum, the challenges of COVID-19 suggest that scholars round out theories of identity development and identification by considering how critical events and an organization’s responses to them signal the organization’s lived values and worth as an identification object. Nothing, after all, reveals identity more than how an actor chooses to respond to a painful crisis. Scholars might also investigate how the pandemic and similar events differentially affect individuals’ propensity to identify with relevant occupations. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US in 2001, the public regard for firefighters and other first responders increased immediately and nation-wide – and persists to the present day. Similarly, front-line workers in essential industries during the pandemic – particularly those in healthcare and those interacting face-to-face with the public – are experiencing higher regard in many nations. In the early months of the pandemic, it was common to see homemade signs thanking ‘our heroes’ and hearing reports of city-dwellers clapping at hospital shift changes. It is not hard to imagine how the resulting sense of social validation would increase the workers’ collective pride, fostering greater identification with their occupation – and with their appreciative patients, customers, and students. Will the enhanced identification last? Put differently, how might the current public regard translate into abiding respect, much as it did in the US for firefighters and first responders post-9/11? One argument to investigate is that the more salient and severe the health risks borne by members of an occupation while serving the public, the greater and more persistent the increase in public respect. Thus, while healthcare workers are likely to enjoy the biggest boost, teachers, public transit workers, home-delivery workers, homecare workers and so on may also enjoy small boosts. The increased social validation may foster not only increased pride, but also a certain resilience in the face of future crises and threats to their occupation. What about workers in proven ‘hot spots’ for contracting COVID-19, such as nursing homes, correctional facilities, and food processing plants (New York Times, 2020)? Although they, too, brave serious health risks, public regard is likely to be mitigated significantly by two factors. First, such workers have less face-to-face contact with the public, thus, reducing the public awareness of the risks they are bearing. Second, their occupations involve ‘dirty work’ in the sense that they deal with physically off-putting tasks and/or stigmatized populations (i.e., residents, inmates; Ashforth and Kreiner, 1999). The disgust that is often associated with such occupational taint can severely undermine public respect. By that logic, though, wouldn’t the respect shown healthcare workers similarly be mitigated since their work also qualifies as ‘dirty’ – dealing with off-putting tasks and desperately sick and contagious patients? Possibly not. Like the firefighters and first responders before them – who also perform work that is arguably ‘dirty’ – they are seen as fighting for the public on matters of literal life and death. The dirt they face is thereby framed as a noble and heroic sacrifice on behalf of others; it’s precisely because they are doing the ‘ultimate dirt’ that they are lionized. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, we see only heroes on the healthcare frontlines. To be sure, members of the public remain glad that others are doing the dirt (a hallmark of well-regarded dirty work), but the disgust that normally attends thoughts of dirty work may be muted if not transformed by raw admiration for the perceived heroism. Questions for future research abound. For example, what factors affect whether the public image elicited by the actions of occupational members during prominent events spread beyond an event’s locale and become permanent? What other occupational archetypes beyond ‘hero’ might be elicited by such actions (e.g., tenacious underdog, ruthless profiteer) and how might they ultimately affect members’ identification? Are certain dirty work occupations beyond redemption in the eyes of much of the public, no matter how occupational members respond to a major crisis? In closing, the turbulence and existential threat associated with the pandemic raises important research questions regarding how workers and the public they serve are co-constructing workers’ very sense of self. Of particular note is a possible acceleration of the shift from an ‘organizational we’ to other foci of identification, and the potential for major events and actors’ responses to strongly affect identification with organizations and relevant occupations.