Taking Yourself with you: Transfer of Achieved Identity as a Predictor of Employee Adjustment to Change

This study develops the concept of achieved identity and examines its role in employee adjustment during times of organizational change. Specifically we examined the effects of achieved identity in a sample of food service employees at a southern university in the United States whose jobs were outsourced to a new organization. In this initial study, we found that: achieved identity was predictive of employees’ attachment to the pre-change employer; expected transfer of achieved identity was predictive of the transfer of work identities to the post-change environment; the ability to reestablish a positive work identity was important to employee adjustment to change. Using results obtained in this initial study, we develop a revised model of the role of achieved identity in organizational change.