My boss’ group is my group:experimental evidence for the

leader-follower identity transferRolf van Dick

Department of Psychology, Goethe University Frankfurt,Frankfurt, Germany, and

Sebastian C. SchuhGoethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt, Germany

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to extend work on the leader-follower identity transfer byproviding the first empirical evidence for the causal relationship between leader and followerorganizational identification.

Design/methodology/approach – The proposed causal relationship between leader and followerorganizational identification (OI) was tested in a scenario study and in a laboratory experiment.Additionally, in the laboratory experiment the impact of leader OI on follower performance was examined.

Findings – The results suggest that highly identified leaders positively influence their followers’attitudes and performance by affecting their self-concept, i.e. increasing their OI.

Practical implications – Improving leader OI provides a promising way for organizations toincrease their employees’ OI and performance.

Originality/value – The paper provides the first empirical evidence for the proposed causal relationshipbetween leader and follower OI, with implications for individual and organizational effectiveness.

Keywords Leadership, Employee behaviour

Paper type Research paper

Many industries are experiencing a growing competitive pressure due to theglobalization of markets. As a result, organizations are forced to improve productivity tosustain and increase their competitiveness. At the employee level, this includesrecruiting and retaining the best talent, increasing worker morale and ultimately theirperformance. As has consistently been shown in previous studies, organizationalidentification (OI) plays a key role in supporting these favorable outcomes (van Dick,2004). Strongly identified employees report higher job satisfaction, are less likely to leavethe organization, and are motivated to exert themselves on behalf of the organization

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-7739.htm

Parts of this paper were presented at the 15th General Meeting of the European Association ofExperimental Social Psychology, Opatija, Croatia, June 10-14, 2008 and at the Small GroupMeeting of the European Association of Work and Organizational Psychology on distributedleadership and participation in Dresden, Germany, February 12-14, 2009.

The authors are grateful to Anna Brod and Heiko Dehnert for their wonderful assistance overthe past years and to Anja Frank, Hannes Graser, Gesa Harms, Christiane Knauthe-Iri,Hannah Nagler, and Victoria Schneider for their help with data collection. They thankThomas E. Becker for his help with language and style. Finally, the authors are grateful to anAssociate Editor Paul Humphreys and an anonymous reviewer for detailed suggestions.

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Received August 2009Revised March 2010

Accepted March 2010

Leadership & OrganizationDevelopment Journal

Vol. 31 No. 6, 2010pp. 551-563

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited0143-7739

DOI 10.1108/01437731011070032

(Riketta, 2005). These results indicate that policies and practices aimed at improvingemployee OI will prove beneficial and that companies should strive to increase the OI oftheir workforce (van Dick et al., 2007).

One important factor for employee identification is leadership behavior as has beendemonstrated by a number of empirical studies (de Cremer and van Knippenberg, 2002;Ellemers et al., 2004; Kark et al., 2003; Lord and Brown, 2004; van Knippenberg et al.,2004). In a cross-sectional field study, for instance, Kark et al. (2003) found that leadershipbehavior significantly influences bank clerks’ identification with their branch. Althoughthere is considerable evidence for the impact of leaders on their followers’ OI, researchinto the factors which cause leaders to foster their followers’ OI is scarce. Drawing on asocial identity perspective, two recent studies have addressed this research gap (van Dicket al., 2007; Wieseke et al., 2009). The authors argue that leader behavior is significantlyinfluenced by leader OI. Highly identified leaders will show more group-orientedbehavior which then will have a positive impact on their followers’ OI.

This prediction has been supported by field studies, which will be described in moredetail later (van Dick et al., 2007; Wieseke et al., 2009). These studies were conducted indifferent organizational settings and comprised large sample sizes; thus, the findingsappear to possess a high degree of generalizability. Whereas these studies makeimportant contributions to the literature, both of them are cross-sectional in nature.They therefore do not allow making conclusions about a core assumption of the transferof OI, i.e. the causal direction from leaders to followers. The present research seeks toclose this gap and extends previous research by examining the issue of causality in twoexperimental studies. From an academic point of view, this study contributes to thelimited amount of research on leader OI, an important concept for predicting attitudesand behaviors at the follower level. For practitioners, the proposed transfer of OI hasimportant implications as it might constitute a promising way to increase productivityand ultimately competitiveness in a global business environment.

In the following sections, we will elaborate on the proposed identity-transfer model andsummarize the field research by van Dick et al. (2007) and Wieseke et al. (2009), which hasbrought first evidence for the identity transfer and its effects on follower job satisfaction,follower organizational citizenship behavior (OCB; Organ, 1988) and followerperformance. We will then describe the current experimental studies, which examinethe causal effect of leader OI on follower OI and on follower performance.

Leader and follower OIFollowing the social-identity approach, social identification can be defined as the extentto which a person perceives oneness between the self and the group and the value of thisgroup membership to the person (Ashforth and Mael, 1989; Tajfel, 1981). Individualswho identify with a group will internalize the norms, values and goals of this group(e.g. of an organization). Additionally, they will strive for a high status of the group asthis group membership has become a vital part of their self-definition. As a result, highlyidentified individuals will show attitudes and behaviors which are beneficial to thegroup, as has consistently been shown in empirical studies (van Dick, 2004), confirmedby meta-analyses (Riketta, 2005; Riketta and van Dick, 2005).

The effects of social identification apply to leaders and followers alike – both aremembers of the group (Hogg and van Knippenberg, 2003; van Knippenberg and Hogg,2003). To enhance their groups’ status, highly identified leaders are motivated to

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emphasize successes of the organization and to talk positively about its future(e.g. by communicating a compelling vision and by showing confidence that targets canbe achieved; de Cremer and van Knippenberg, 2002; Shamir et al., 1993). Additionally,leaders are likely to align their behavior with the goals of the organization even if thismeans neglecting their personal interests (e.g. they are motivated to showself-sacrificing behavior such as taking on bigger workloads; van Knippenberg andHogg, 2003). With these actions, the leader communicates that he or she considers theorganization and its welfare to be important and demonstrates commitment to the group(van Knippenberg and van Knippenberg, 2005). This constitutes a first route for theidentity transfer, as the leader’s group-oriented behavior will shift the followers’ focus tothe collective and, as a result, will bolster their identification with the group (Conger,1999; Shamir et al., 1993; van Knippenberg and Hogg, 2003). In line with theseassumptions, experiments as well as field studies have shown a positive effect of leaders’self-sacrificing behavior on followers’ perception of the leaders’ group orientedness,charisma, and effectiveness (van Knippenberg and van Knippenberg, 2005).Additionally, de Cremer and van Knippenberg (2005) found a significant relationshipbetween leader self-sacrifice and follower OI.

Emotional contagion, which can be defined as catching the emotions beingexperienced by another person (Hatfield et al., 1994), constitutes a second avenue for theidentity transfer. At a conscious level, emotional contagion is the result of a socialcomparison process through which an individual adjusts his or her mood to the oneexpressed by another person (Barsade, 2002). At a subconscious level, the spontaneousimitation of another person’s non-verbal cues (e.g. facial expression) causes anindividual to experience the mood of the sender (Hatfield et al., 1994). As outlined above,leaders with strong OI tend to highlight the successes of the organization and talkpositively about its future. They are likely to experience and express positive emotionstoward their group. This will be perceived by their followers who will adopt thesepositive emotions and, as a result, more strongly identify with their organization.

Finally, the need for cognitive consistency (Festinger, 1957) is the foundation for athird mechanism to enhance follower identification. People tend to automatically adoptother people’s attitudes if they perceive that the other person shares a distinct andpersonally important group membership with them (Mussweiler and Bodenhausen,2002). Leaders and followers are members of the same organization and this groupmembership is of central importance for most people (Bergami and Bagozzi, 2000).Moreover, because one of a leader’s key functions is that of a sense-maker, followersactively turn to their leaders when they feel uncertain about their attitudes (Cohen andMarch, 1974; Hogg, 2001). Taken together, this will also cause followers to adopttheir leader’s OI. Drawing on these three mechanisms for the identity transfer, wepropose:

P1. Leader OI is causally related to follower OI. The stronger leaders identify withtheir organization the more their followers identify with the organization.

We want to emphasize here that we do not completely rule out the possibility of followersinfluencing their leaders’ identities. This is, of course, possible and does happen.However, we follow upper echelon theories’ (Hambrick and Mason, 1984) generalframework of top-down influence from CEO to managers to shop floor employees incritical organizational areas such as its identity.

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Leader identification and follower job satisfaction, OCB, and performanceAs outlined above, leaders with high-OI strive for a high status of the organization asthis group membership has become a vital aspect of their self-concept (Ashforth andMael, 1989). They are therefore motivated to show superior performance on behalf ofthe group (Riketta, 2005; Riketta and van Dick, 2005) and to demonstrate high levels ofOCB (i.e. extra-role behaviors that promote the effective functioning of an organization;Organ, 1988). These behaviors are expected to elicit OCB and higher performanceamong followers. Social learning theory (Bandura, 1986) and social exchange theory(Blau, 1964) provide a theoretical basis to understand the underlying processes.

First, according to social learning theory, observing the behavior of others is animportant way of learning about new and/or appropriate behaviors (Bandura, 1986).In organizations, high-status and powerful individuals (i.e. leaders) are the mostimportant source of information by virtue of their position. As outlined above, they serveas sense-makers and cues for appropriate behavior (Cohen and March, 1974; Hogg,2001). Thus, followers who perceive that their leaders show high levels of in-role andextra-role behavior are likely to replicate these behaviors because they perceive thesesbehaviors as expected of them and rewarded by the organization.

Second, drawing on the reciprocity norm (Gouldner, 1960), which is central to socialexchange theory (Blau, 1964), individuals feel obliged to respond positively to favorabletreatment and to do as is done to them. A leader who shows high levels of OCB is likely tocause a perceived pressure on his or her followers to behave similarly. Followers of highlyidentified leaders will therefore show higher levels of OCB and performance than followersof leaders low on OI. Consistent with this reasoning, studies have shown that self-sacrificingleaders (i.e. leaders showing extra-role behavior) elicit group-oriented behavior such asmore cooperation in a public-good dilemma (de Cremer and van Knippenberg, 2002) andstronger intentions to donate money to a charity fund (Yorges et al., 1999).

To champion organizational needs, high-OI leaders will not only show higherperformance and OCB, they will also be more sensitive and responsive to their followers’needs. In other words, they are likely to display higher levels of consideration (Stogdill,1950). Consideration is defined as the extent to which a leader shows concern for hisor her followers (Bass, 1990) and is significantly related to follower job satisfaction(for a recent meta-analysis, see Judge et al., 2004): the higher a leader’s consideration themore job satisfaction is reported by his or her team. Additionally, Rowden (1999) hasshown that leaders’ sensitivities to followers’ needs are significantly related to followerorganizational commitment, which, even though distinct from OI, can be regarded as agood proxy for identification with the organization (Gautam et al., 2004;van Knippenberg and Sleebos, 2006). To summarize, we propose:

P2. Leader OI is causally related to follower job satisfaction, OCB, and performance.The stronger leaders identify with their organization, the higher will be followerjob satisfaction, OCB, and performance.

Follower OI and job satisfaction, OCB, and performanceHighly identified group members share the values and beliefs of the organization asoutlined above (Pratt, 1998). According to the attraction-selection-attrition framework(Schneider, 1987), this perceived fit of the individual’s and organization’s values willcause individuals to view their organization as a desirable place to work and, as aconsequence, job satisfaction will be high. Additionally, highly identified followers are

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likely to show group-oriented behaviors because, as stated earlier, they perceive thesuccesses and failures of the organization as their own (van Dick et al., 2006;van Knippenberg, 2000). They are likely to “go the extra-mile” and to demonstratemore OCB as well as higher performance than employees with low OI.

In line with this argumentation, research has consistently shown that identification isassociated with positive work-related attitudes and behaviors (Riketta and van Dick,2005). In a recent meta-analysis, for instance, an average correlation between identificationand satisfaction of r ¼ 0.54, and between identification and extra-role behavior ofr ¼ 0.35, has been found (Riketta, 2005). We therefore propose:

P3. Follower OI is causally related to job satisfaction, OCB, and performance.Followers who strongly identify with their organization will show higher degreesof job satisfaction, OCB, and performance than followers who are low in OI.

Mediation effects of follower identificationA key characteristic of leadership is the influence on followers’ actions (Yukl, 2001).Leadership researchers have recently argued that the reason for their influence is theleaders’ impact on their followers’ identification (Kark and Shamir, 2002; Kark et al.,2003). As outlined above, leaders can increase follower OI (e.g. by engaging ingroup-oriented behavior or communicating a compelling vision) which, in turn, will havea positive impact on followers satisfaction, OCB, and performance. A number ofempirical studies have provided evidence for this mediating role of social identification(for an overview, see van Knippenberg et al., 2004). For instance, de Cremer andvan Knippenberg (2002) found that group identification mediates the relationshipbetween leader self-sacrifice and follower cooperation. Kark et al. (2003) showed thatsocial identification mediates the relationship between transformational leadership andempowerment. Summarizing these results, van Knippenberg et al. (2004, p. 831)conclude, “the available evidence [. . .] supports the proposition that leadership mayaffect follower identification [. . .] and that this effect on identification mediates effectson follower attitudes and behavior”. Combining our earlier propositions, we thereforepropose:

P4. The relationship between leader OI and followers job satisfaction, OCB, andperformance will be mediated by follower OI.

Empirical evidence for the leader-follower identity transferThe transfer model of OI has been supported by field studies in organizational settingsapplying multi-sample and multi-level approaches. van Dick et al. (2007) distributed aquestionnaire to 367 schoolteachers and 60 head teachers in Germany. Schoolteacherswere asked to report their identification with their school, their job satisfactionand OCB. Head teachers were asked to report their identification with their school.Hierarchical linear modeling was used to analyze the data. The results fully supportedP1 and P3 in that head teachers’ school identification was significantly related toteachers’ school identification, and teachers’ school identification was significantlyrelated to their job satisfaction as well as to self-reported OCB. Additionally, there waspartial support for P2: head teachers’ identification was significantly related to teachersatisfaction but unrelated to teacher OCB. However, and most importantly, the resultsshowed the proposed indirect effect of head teacher identification on followers’ jobsatisfaction and OCB. Thus, the study brought first evidence for the predicted

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mediation of leader identification on OCB and job satisfaction (P4). The results werereplicated by van Dick et al. (2007) in a second study also employing a sample of headteachers and teachers, and in a third study conducted in a group of travel agencies.

A second research program on the OI transfers was carried out by Wieseke et al. (2009).These authors conducted a first study in cooperation with German travel agencies andincluded employees from three hierarchical levels, i.e. 1,005 travel sales agents, 394 salesmanagers and 22 directors. In addition to the OI of leaders and followers, the researchersalso measured business units’ financial performance and travel agents’ self-reportedsales performance. The study extended the previous research by showing that leader OIdoes not only have an effect on self-reported data of followers (i.e. job satisfaction andOCB), but also on their objective performance, i.e. the business units’ financialperformance. The effect of sales managers’ OI on their followers’ sales performance waspartly mediated by follower OI. It was also found that the transfer process of OI does notonly occur between leaders (i.e. sales managers) and non-leaders (i.e. travel agents), butalso on a higher level between directors and sales managers. These results were replicatedin a second study with employees and their managers in a pharmaceutical sales context.Furthermore, Wieseke et al. provided the first evidence for contingency effects. Theidentification transfer was significantly more pronounced for charismatic leaders whohad a relatively long working relationship with their followers than for non-charismaticleaders who had a comparably short working relationship with their followers.

To summarize, there is correlational support for the proposed identity transfer model.Even though data were gathered in different organizational settings, the findings areremarkably consistent and provide evidence that leader identification is related tofollowers’ job satisfaction, OCB, and performance. However, all studies testing the modelhave been cross-sectional in nature and provide no evidence of causality. It could thus beargued that the observed relationship between leader and follower identification couldalso be due to a transfer from strongly identified employees to their leader rather thanvice versa. Again, we do not rule out such possibilities but generally assume that the wayof influence follows the organizational chain of command from leaders to followers. Toprovide empirical support for this assumption, we conducted two experiments. The firststudy tested the causal relationship between leader and follower identification using ascenario experiment. Study 2 used a laboratory experiment and extended Study 1 byincorporating a measure of follower performance.

Study 1The purpose of the first experiment was to show that a manipulation of leaderidentification causally affects follower identification. We used a scenario study with anon-student adult population with work experience.

MethodParticipants and design. Participants were 68 German adults (29 female and 39 male) withan average age of 42.0 years (SD ¼ 14; Min ¼ 19, Max ¼ 73). A total of 60 participantsworked full-time, eight participants were employed part-time. Average work experiencewas 19.7 years (SD ¼ 12; Min ¼ 1, Max ¼ 45). Participants were randomly assigned toone of the two conditions in a one-factorial (leader identification: high vs low)between-subjects design.

Procedure. Participants were invited to take part by student research assistants;participation was voluntary and anonymous. Persons who agreed to take part in the study

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received a booklet containing all material. They were fully debriefed after completion ofthe survey items.

The booklet contained a brief introduction and one of the two versions of anexperimental scenario. The scenarios were followed by items measuring participants’identifications and perceived leader identification. The cover story was that the researchwas aimed at investigating perceptions on mergers and acquisitions. A short case of amedium-sized company was described that was facing a merger with a largerorganization. Participants then read a statement of the company’s CEO in one of thetwo versions. In the “high-identified leader” condition, the CEO was introduced asowner-manager and grandson of the company’s founder. He made a positive statementabout the future of the company promising that there would be no layoffs due to themerger. He based his optimism on the company’s successful tradition and the engagedworkforce. In the “low-identified leader” condition the CEO also promised that therewould be no layoffs, but he was described as externally appointed. Further, this leaderbased his optimism on his personal track record in a similar situation with anorganization he had led before. Both scenarios were identical in layout, introduction andending, and comprised the same number of words.

Measures. All items were presented in German and answered on six-point scales(1 ¼ do not agree at all and 6 ¼ fully agree). Followers’ identification was measuredusing three items from Doosje et al.’s (1995) identification scale (e.g. “I identify with theorganization”, Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.85, M ¼ 4.53, SD ¼ 0.86). The leader identificationmanipulation was checked with two items, “Mr [Name of CEO] identifies with theorganization” and “Mr [Name of CEO] is pleased to work for this organization”,Cronbach’s a ¼ 0.89, M ¼ 4.54, SD ¼ 1.23).

ResultsWe first tested if participants interpreted the scenarios as intended by computing a t-testbetween the two groups. As expected, participants in the high leader identification grouprated the leader as more strongly identified (M ¼ 5.26, SD ¼ 0.78) than participants inthe low-identified leader condition (M ¼ 3.85, SD ¼ 1.20, t(66) ¼ 5.70, p , 0.001).

To test our main hypothesis that the manipulation would influence participants’ OI,we calculated a second t-test. As expected, participants in the high leader identificationgroup reported more OI (M ¼ 4.75, SD ¼ 0.71) than participants in the low-identifiedleader condition (M ¼ 4.31, SD ¼ 0.94, t(66) ¼ 2.20, p ¼ 0.03).

Finally, we tested whether the effect of the manipulation on participants’ OI was dueto differences in perceived leader identification. To this effect, we calculated a series ofregression analyses to test for mediation. We followed the basic procedure outlined byBaron and Kenny (1986). Most importantly, the effect of the manipulation onparticipants’ OI (b ¼ 0.26, p ¼ 0.03) was reduced to an insignificant (b ¼ 20.01,p ¼ 0.94) after the manipulation check, i.e. perceived leader identification, had beenincluded into the regression. Perceived leader identification itself reliably influencedparticipants’ OI (b ¼ 0.44, p , 0.001).

DiscussionStudy 1 aimed at closing the research gap of unproven causality. Results clearly confirmedthe proposed directional effect from leader identification on follower identification.One limitation of this study is that a scenario experiment is a virtual situation, which may

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or may not relate to the research participants’ realities. Although all participants had workexperience, we could not control whether the described scenario was related to theirpersonal situation. Some participants might have experienced mergers themselves andmight have thus directed more attention to this aspect of the cover story. Otherparticipants might have been in leadership roles and read the scenario with a differentview; others might have worked in similar environments as the one in the scenario whileothers might have had little or no experience with this situation. Furthermore, Study 1described a scenario in which participants had to imagine that they were members of anorganization. One might wonder whether similar results would be obtained if participantswere placed in groups with an actual leader and therefore more directly experienced theleader being more or less identified. To this end, a laboratory experiment was conducted inwhich participants were actually immersed in the leadership situation. Additionally,Study 2 was designed to extend the results of the first study by demonstrating that theeffect of leader on follower identification also has an impact on follower performance.

Study 2MethodParticipants and design. A total of 32 German undergraduate students participatedvoluntarily in this study in return for course credits. The sample consisted of 26 femaleand 6 male participants with a mean age of 21.0 years (SD ¼ 2.7; Min ¼ 19, Max ¼ 32).Participants were randomly assigned to one of the two conditions in a one-factorial(leader identification: high vs low) between-subjects design.

Procedure. Participants entered the laboratory in groups of three, with one personbeing a confederate of the experimenter. Upon arrival in the laboratory, participants weretold that they would be asked to work together building towers with Legoq bricks.They were further told that the aim of the experiment was to determine whether the colorof bricks would make a difference on the group performance. It was then explained that agroup leader would be randomly appointed to monitor the time, to tell the group when tobegin an end, and to perform other facilitating tasks. Each of the three participants thendrew a lot from a hat with the confederate always emerging as the leader. Then theprocedure was explained to the participants. While the leader was taking the time, one ofthe group members was told to build the tower’s base and the other was told to build thetower. Each of the two non-confederate participants was provided with a separate box ofLegoq bricks and a separate partition of the table. This was introduced to make sure thatthe two participants would not interfere with or compete against each other. It was theleader’s task to combine base and tower at the end of the trial but he was not involved inbuilding the base or the tower. Red- and white-colored bricks were used for the first trial,which lasted 3 minutes and served as the baseline. The two experimental conditions didnot differ at this stage. Participants were told that the group performance was importantand that they should use as many Legoq bricks as possible and work as fast as theycould. After the first trial, participants were asked to indicate their group identificationpublicly. Two typical identification items were presented on a flip chart with a responsescale from 1 (do not agree) to 6 (fully agree). The confederate was always the first whoindicated his identification by pasting a dot on either the “3” in the low-identifiedcondition or a “5” in the high-identified condition. The participants then pasted their dotson the chart. The purpose of this procedure was to strengthen the manipulation and theitems were not used for data analysis. Next, the experimenter explained the second trial

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to the participants. They performed the same task as before but this time blue andyellow Legoq bricks were used. The trial again lasted for 3 minutes. At two points, after1 minute and towards the end of the trial, the leader made several comments. For instance,in the high-identified condition the leader said “we will make it,” and in the low-identifiedcondition he said, “you will make it.” After completion of the second trial, participantscompleted a questionnaire and were thanked and fully debriefed.

Measures. The questionnaire contained two distraction items and two items tomeasure participants’ group identification (e.g. “I see myself as a member of this group”;a ¼ 0.83, M ¼ 4.42, SD ¼ 0.91). Finally, two items of perceived leader identification asmanipulation check were presented (e.g. “I perceived that the leader was identified withthis group”, a ¼ 0.88, M ¼ 3.81, SD ¼ 1.24). All items were answered on six-pointscales (1 ¼ do not agree at all and 6 ¼ fully agree). To assess group performance, thenumber of Legoq bricks used on each trial was counted.

ResultsWe first tested whether the experimental manipulation was successful by computing at-test on perceived leader identification between the two conditions. As expected,participants in the high leader identification group rated the leader as more stronglyidentified (M ¼ 4.84, SD ¼ 0.60) than participants in the low-identified leadercondition (M ¼ 2.78, SD ¼ 0.75, t(30) ¼ 8.59, p , 0.001).

To test the hypothesis that the manipulation would influence participants’ groupidentification, we calculated a second t-test. As expected, participants in the high leaderidentification group reported more group identification (M ¼ 4.78, SD ¼ 0.63) thanparticipants in the low-identified leader condition (M ¼ 4.06, SD ¼ 1.01, t(30) ¼ 2.41,p ¼ 0.02).

Next, we tested whether the effect of the manipulation on participants’ groupidentification was due to differences in perceived leader identification. To this effect, wecalculated a series of regression analyses to test for mediation. We followed the basicprocedure outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986). Most importantly, the effect of themanipulation on participants’ group identification (b ¼ 0.40, p , 0.02) was reduced toan insignificant (b ¼ 20.22, p ¼ 0.45) after the manipulation check, i.e. perceived leaderidentification had been included into the regression. Perceived leader identification itselfreliably influenced participants’ OI (b ¼ 0.55, p ¼ 0.001).

Finally, we tested whether the manipulation had an effect on group members’performance. We calculated an ANCOVA, entering the number of bricks used in thebaseline as covariate. The groups differed significantly (F(1,31) ¼ 5.41, p ¼ 0.027) and, asexpected, participants in the high-identified condition used more Legoq bricks (M ¼ 84.3,SD ¼ 8.62) than participants in the low-identified condition (M ¼ 78.6, SD ¼ 8.46).

DiscussionConsistent with the findings of Study 1, we replicated the causal relationship betweenleader and follower OI. Additionally, the results extend Study 1 by showing that leaderidentification also has an impact on follower performance. The main limitations of thisstudy are the comparably low mundane realism of the laboratory situation and thereliance on a student sample. However, the study aimed at examining causalrelationships with high-internal validity and there is no reason why in this laboratorysituation students should behave in a different way than other populations would(Brown and Lord, 1999; Highhouse and Gillespie, 2009; Wofford, 1999).

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General discussionOI has been shown to be an important factor for work-related employee behavior(Riketta, 2005; Riketta and van Dick, 2005). Thus, it is of high relevance to understand itsdeterminants. Recent studies have suggested that leader OI significantly affects followeridentification. However, research on OI transfer has been restricted to cross-sectionalfield studies and therefore does not allow drawing conclusions about causality. Thepresent research aimed at closing this research gap by examining the causal relationshipin two experimental studies. As predicted, leader OI directly affected follower OI in bothstudies. Followers of strongly identified leaders reported higher group identificationthan followers of weakly identified leaders. Additionally, the results of Study 2 showedthat leader OI enhances follower performance. Thus, the studies provide first empiricalevidence for the causal effects of leader-follower identity transfer and its impact onfollower behavior.

These results have significant practical relevance since they demonstrate theimportance of leader OI. In line with upper echelon theory (Hambrick and Mason, 1984),the studies suggest that the transfer of OI is a cascading top-down process. As our researchhas shown, leaders pass their identification on to their followers and, in turn, influencetheir behavior. Leader identification thus has a considerable impact on organizations’performance. However, there are a number of trends in the working environment that maynegatively affect leaders’ identification, including frequent reorganizations, reduced jobsecurity and increasing demands for mobility. Policies and practices to counteract thesetrends, for instance long-term contractual appointments, would be beneficial for bothorganizations (e.g. higher performance) and their workforce (e.g. higher job satisfaction).

A major strength of the present research is that the studies applied differentmethodologies (i.e. laboratory experiment and scenario experiment) and differentsamples (i.e. students and non-students with work experience), an approach that allowedfor the strengths of one study to compensate for the weaknesses of the other.For example, a potential weakness of Study 1 was that the scenario may have had little incommon with the participants’ actual experiences with leadership situations, Study 2,though, confronted participants with a real leadership situation. As another example,the exclusive reliance on a student sample in Study 2 was balanced by Study 1 usingnon-student participants only.

Both studies applied experimental designs, yielding results with high-internal validitybut with comparably low ecological validity. However, the studies nicely complement thecross-sectional field research by van Dick et al. (2007) and Wieseke et al. (2009), which wasconducted in real organizational settings and possessing high ecological validity. Takentogether, the prior field studies and current experiments provide strong evidence for thetransfer model of organizational OI (Dipboye, 1990).

We suggest three directions for future research. First, boundary conditions for identitytransfer should be examined. Wieseke et al. (2009) presented evidence that charismaticleadership and leader-follower dyadic tenure moderate the effect of leader OI. Otherpotential moderators include leader prototypicality and relational identification (Ullrichet al., 2009; van Knippenberg et al., 2004). Second, the processes underlying leader-followeridentity transfer should be investigated. As mentioned above, group-oriented leaderbehavior, emotional contagion, and consistency-driven assimilation of attitudes may playa key role in shaping follower OI. Finally, it would be of high relevance to betterunderstand where leader identification comes from and how it can be enhanced. Even

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though leader OI is most likely fostered by the same factors that typically enhance socialidentification of employees (e.g. status of the group, perceived overlap between own andgroup values, etc.) there might also be differences between leaders and followers. We areconfident that these areas of research will bear fruitful results that will advance both, ourtheoretical understanding of leadership as well as the development of organizationstowards enhanced performance and higher employee satisfaction.

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Corresponding authorRolf van Dick can be contacted at: van.dick@psych.uni-frankfurt.de

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