Loyal After the End: The Organizational Identification of Former Members

This paper examines the causes and consequences of organizational identification among former employees. Using a survey of former employees of a defunct organization, I develop and test hypotheses about a set of influences on a former member’s contemporary sense of identification, including the influence of an individual’s importance to an organization, an organization’s importance to an individual, and the availability of alternative identification targets. I also develop hypotheses about the behavioral outcomes of identification among former members, including social engagement, alumni association participation, and propensity to promote an organization. Results reveal support for career share, functional breadth, and elapsed time as antecedents to former members’ organizational identification and for all of the theorized behavioral outcomes. Education level is also found to have a significant, but reverse, relationship with organizational identification.