Effects of Competition on Members' Identification with Their Subunits

Noah E. Friedkin and Michael J. Simpson This paper examines the identifications of members of subunits when they evaluate policies specifying the amount of resources to be allocated to different subunits in their organization. We studied conditions affecting members' identification with their subunit, using a sample of 185 school principals. With the coalition model of organizations as our starting point, we expected a relatively high baseline probability of identification with the subunit. It was hypothesized that identification with the subunit would be countervailed by conditions that diminished subunits' competition for resources. The three conditions proposed were members' perceptions of (1) the availability of resources, (2) the existence of organization-level planning, and (3) the frequency of controversy about resource allocations. We found that members' identification with the subunit was weakened when they perceived that (1) the amount of resources available to subunits was increasing, (2) a plan or operating procedure governed the allocation of resources to subunits, or (3) controversy over resource allocations to subunits had been frequent.e