On page 112, the authors discuss how organizations seek to extend the corporate community beyond the workplace to increase identification with their employees. In my organization, for example, we have a fully stocked kitchen, catered meals daily, a gym, and basically anything else you can think of. It's like home and it's actually easier for most of us to stay at work all day, eat dinner and then go home. Since our organization provides us with all these luxuries it's difficult for any of us to complain, when in reality we are doing more work and staying longer hours because it's so convenient. I think that this is a good example of how organizations try to build strong bonds with their employees and increase identification. In some ways we feel loyal to our organization because they take care of us and provide everything we need to work comfortably.
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My first question is: are they hiring?...Companies that provide for their employees really do inspire more loyalty and perhaps a sense of obligation on the part of employees. My concern about building strong loyalties among employees is that these type of social contracts are contingent purely on the financial interests of the company, which does not have the same level of commitment that employees feel. An instructive comparison may be Japan, which was famous for providing a cradle to grave environment. Following the economic downturn of the 1990's a lot of those ties were loosened and the environment become somewhat more like the US. The current economic downturn in the US may may similarly test some of those social contracts.
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