Identity Work Support Perceptions (IWSP): Development of a Construct and Measure

Every day, people perform internal (e.g., thoughts) and external (e.g., behaviors) activities to repair, strengthen, or revise their identities at work. Despite organizations being the main stage on which this identity work (IW) occurs and a major contextual element invoking identity work, scholars still lack an understanding of employees' beliefs about their organizations' support for identity work. In this research, we conceptualize and operationalize identity work support perceptions (IWSP)-defined as the degree to which employees perceive that their organization encourages, allows, or provides opportunities to think about, talk about, or display aspects of work and nonwork identities, or engage in activities that foster understanding and sharing of identities. We develop a scale to measure four dimensions (i.e., cognitive, discursive, behavioral, and physical) of IWSP using seven empirical samples (two samples of subject matter experts and five samples of employed adults). We provide evidence of reliability, as well as content, convergent, and discriminant validity with constructs in IWSP's nomological network and IWSP's incremental predictive ability of attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Implications of our findings for research and practice are discussed.