Diversity as a Basis for Shared Organizational Identity: The Norm Congruity Principle

Although the social identity approach is generally used to explain the negative consequences of diversity for the formation of a common identity within organizations, we propose that social identity processes can also lead employees to evaluate their differences in a positive way. We propose norm-congruency as a central principle to understand these issues. We argue that when differences among team members in organizations are congruent with norms and expectations, diversity can become a basis for organizational identification.