Explaining Organizational Pride Among Public Utility Employees

Organizational pride—the emotional and attitudinal attachment employees feel toward their organization—is an important yet understudied driver of job satisfaction, retention, and performance. In public utilities, where employees deliver essential services vital to community health, safety, and economic stability, organizational pride may be particularly valuable amid widespread workforce challenges, including large-scale Baby Boomer retirements and skilled-labor shortages. Drawing on social identity theory, social exchange theory, and ethical climate perspectives, this study develops and tests a model of six hypothesized antecedents of organizational pride. Using survey data from 406 employees (43% response rate) at one of the largest publicly owned utilities in the United States, the analysis uses OLS regression while controlling for supervisory status, tenure, and union membership. All six antecedents—perceived service quality, trust in top leadership, adequacy of resources and equipment, feeling valued at work, compensation satisfaction, and ethical climate—emerged as statistically significant predictors in the expected direction. The model explained 57% of the variance in organizational pride (R 2 = .573). Compensation satisfaction exerted the strongest influence, followed closely by perceived service quality. These findings provide strong support for the integrated theoretical framework and yield actionable implications for public utility leaders seeking to strengthen employee attachment, improve retention, and enhance organizational performance.