Fostering Employees’ Organizational Identification and Organizational Citizenship Behavior Through Diversity Communication

Communication can enhance employees’ identification with the organization and encourage positive organizational behaviors. As workplace diversity grows, it has become more essential to inform employees about organizational diversity initiatives while ensuring that they perceive the organization’s diversity climate and integrity positively. We conducted an online survey (N = 1,043) showing that if employees are satisfied with diversity communication, perceive a fair diversity climate, and perceive their organization as authentic, they identify stronger with the organization. The results also imply that organizational authenticity contributes the most to organizational identification. Employees who identify with their organization contribute more to it in terms of loyalty, obedience, and participation (i.e., organizational citizenship behavior, OCB). We conclude that simply having a diverse workforce is not sufficient to foster employees’ identification; organizations also need to communicate their fair diversity measures satisfactorily and be authentic, i.e., be true to their words.