Correlates of organizational identification as a function of career pattern and organizational type.

This study examines personal and organizational correlates of organizational identification in two types of organization-the Roman Catholic Church and research and development laboratories.' The results are compared with those obtained in the United States Forest Service (Hall, Schneider, and Nygren, 1970). Priests and foresters typically spend their entire careers in one organization (the single-organization career pattern), while research professionals are more mobile (the multiorganization career pattern). Because of differences in organizational socialization and mobility, tenure is a stronger correlate of organizational identification in the single-organization career. The effects of tenure are independent of other correlates-job challenge, job involvement, self-image, need importance, and satisfaction. Job challenge, through the intervening effects of job satisfaction, is a strong correlate of identification for both career types. The researcher's self-image is more strongly tied to his work involvement and the forester's to his organizational involvement. This is consistent with the differential mobility patterns. Higher-order need satisfaction is correlated with high organizational involvement for both career patterns, although the importance of needs correlates differentially; for the single-organization career, organizational identification is related to security and affiliation, while identification is linked to low concern for self-fulfillment for the multiorganization career. The single-organization career thus combines security and localism with growth and cosmopolitanism, whereas in the multiorganization career the professional must choose between these alternatives.