An Identity-Based View of Political Ideology in Modern Organizations

Ph.D. Candidate Thomas Fewer of the Management Department will be defending his Dissertation titled, “An Identity-Based View of Political Ideology in Modern Organizations” on 12/10/2021.

The time and location of his dissertation defense is 9:30–11:00, GHALL 409.

Many thanks to the dissertation committee: • Committee Chair: Dali Ma – Associate Professor – Drexel University • Committee Member: VK Narayanan – Professor – Drexel University • Committee Member: Daan van Knippenberg – Professor – Drexel University • Committee Member: Murat Tarakci – Associate Professor – Erasmus University • Committee Member: Forrest Briscoe – Professor – Pennsylvania State University

Abstract: Academics and private research companies alike have identified an alarming trend of increasing political partisanship among the American public. As ideological beliefs strengthen, individuals have demonstrated strong preferences for those who hold congruent political ideologies and biases, stereotypes, and hostility towards those with competing ideologies. This strong in-group preference has led individuals to limit their exposure to those holding opposing political beliefs in their daily lives. As one of the few remaining social settings in which a diverse assemblage of individuals from different social groups interact, organizations have become a central setting in which inter-partisan interactions occur. In this dissertation, I build from the relational motives of political ideology and social identity theory to suggest that political ideologies will motivate social categorization within organizations, influencing important organizational outcomes. In doing so, I demonstrate (1) how intergroup biases originating from political partisanship influences CEO decision making, (2) how intergroup biases originating from political affiliation are reduced in collective action, and (3) how changes in intergroup attitudes shapes an individual’s ideological beliefs. In addition to being among the first comprehensive inquiries into political differences in organizations, the findings of these studies have profound implications to political science, political psychology, and political sociology. This dissertation lays the foundation for future studies on the organizational implications of intergroup attitudes and biases originating from political ideology. Amid an increasingly polarized and divisive world, there is growing importance of this perspective.