Toward a critical assessment of social identity: the nature of organisational identification and its implicationsfor inter-organisational cooperation in the context of the Hong Kongconstruction industry

Inter-organisational cooperation is vital to construction project success. The systematically poor project performance in Hong Kong is due largely to the lack of such cooperation. Although much research is directed towards understanding the structural and organisational determinants of inter-organisational cooperation, they offer, at best, partial explanations. There is, as yet, no work undertaken to study the socio-psychological determinants of cooperative behaviour at the individual level. This study attempts to fill this research gap. In taking this novel approach, this study seeks to answer the questions whether or not the different organisational identities that project team members bring into the project organisation help explain the reason for lack of inter-organisational cooperation and consequently poor project performance, and i f it does, how and why? It does so by using, and simultaneously testing, social identity theory, which has never been fully validated or refuted, nor applied to the construction industry using its basic tenets. Central to social identity theory is the notion that individuals define their self-concepts through the organisations to which they identify and that these identity-based forces are the basis for the development of cooperative behaviour grounded in motivational and cognitive processes as part of maintaining a favourable self-concept. Underpinned by the need to maintain favourable self-concepts, individuals with salient organisational identity are psychologically predisposed to behaviourally discriminate against out-groups while showing in-group favouritism. Such inter-group differentiation is compounded in Hong Kong where individuals are，generally held to be collectivists. Drawing on germane literature, a broad counterintuitive and logically consistent thesis is presented, suggesting that to the extent salient organisational identification, moderated by collectivism positively influences intra-organisational cooperation, it leads to heightened inter-organisational differentiation and reduced inter-organisational cooperation when project team members work together. To test i f this is substantiated, and whether this scenario leads to poor project performance, a multi-method research approach is adopted. Findings using qualitative and quantitative data gathered from respectively 29 interviews and, 398 horizontal and 72 vertical questionnaire responses from top executives of local and foreign construction firms in Hong Kong, and subsequently verified by 6 follow-up interviews, show two things that cast substantial doubt on the received wisdom of social identity theory. Contrary to hypothesized prediction organisational identification has a significant and positive impact on individual intra- and inter-organisational cooperation, albeit less strongly in the latter. Moreover, individuals' cultural orientation and level of interorganisational differentiation has no effect on cooperative behaviour. Therefore, rigorous attempts by organisations to foster stronger organisational identity may prove fruitful to inter-organisational cooperation, which is positively related to project success. That organisational identification has only a modest impact on inter-organisational cooperation implies that individuals' propensity to cooperate with other organisations would not be predictable merely from socio-psychological dispositions but rather from broader structural and environmental dynamics inherent in the industry. It is argued that the contradictory findings are due more to the theoretical oversight of social identity of partialing out such dynamism in its assumptions than to the non-existence of inter-organisational differentiation.