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Examining professionals’ identification in the workplace: The roles of organizational prestige, work-unit prestige, and professional status

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Abstract

Drawing on social identity theory, we hypothesize that professionals develop their organizational and work-unit identifications through organizational prestige and work-unit prestige respectively. We further hypothesize that professional status negatively interacts with organizational prestige and work-unit prestige to affect the development of their organizational and work-unit identifications from the perspectives of self-enhancement and uncertainty reduction. A two-phase survey on 386 hospital nurses in central China provides general support for the hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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Notes

  1. We thank one of the anonymous reviewers for this suggestion.

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Acknowledgement

We would like to give our sincere thanks to Professor Alfred Wong (Editor) and two anonymous reviewers, who have provided us with a particularly useful guidance for the improvement of our manuscript. This study is part of a social science research project at Wuhan University, partly supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities. Grant number: 105-274181.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, School of Economics and Management, Wuhan University, Luojiashan, Wuchang, Wuhan, China

    Yan Liu

  2. Department of Management and Marketing, University of Macau, Av. Padre Tomás Pereira S.J., Taipa Macao, China

    Long Wai Lam & Raymond Loi

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  1. Yan Liu
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Correspondence to Yan Liu.

Appendices

Appendix 1

ᅟ Results of exploratory factor analysis of subjective professional status
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Appendix 2

ᅟ Proposed relationships between subjective professional status and correlates
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Liu, Y., Lam, L.W. & Loi, R. Examining professionals’ identification in the workplace: The roles of organizational prestige, work-unit prestige, and professional status. Asia Pac J Manag 31, 789–810 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10490-013-9364-6

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