Will the real social identity please stand up?
Where does the social identity approach come from? Awkwardly, before we can answer that question we need to have a conversation about what we mean by ‘the social identity approach’. […]
Author Archives: Andrew Frain
Self-categorization: I and us
We have had a couple of recent posts looking at the social identity approach in action, and our last post introduced a pathway for using social identity ideas. I therefore […]
Doing leadership: Introducing the three ‘R’s
We have started making claims that the social identity approach provides answers to common leadership questions and that these insights can be leveraged to strengthen leadership credentials. We will continue […]
Understanding power: authority and coercion
In a couple of our previous posts we have contrasted leadership with ‘authority’ and ‘coercion’. But what are these exactly? What do we mean when we say that a police […]
Social identity in policing: from football hooligans to football fans
Early this year Australia was visited by Cliffard Stott, a UK based social identity theorist. I had the privilege of listening to him present on some of his latest work […]
Categorization: Knives, forks, spoons, and us
This post is our first that is wholly dedicated to a tenet of the social identity approach. That tenet is ‘cognitive categorization’. Why cognitive categorization? We need to have some […]
Beware the presumptions of mergers and acquisitions: cultural fit isn’t similarity
Company mergers and, more commonly, acquisitions, are renowned for failure. Estimates of failure rates usually start at 50% and can be as high as 90%. That’s a lot of failure. […]
Contesting “the basics”: the necessity of social identity
This post is inspired by a conversation I recently had with a friend of mine. He is a successful professional and is now in a management position in the Australian […]
Why exactly should we be “invisible leaders”?
Our first post was always going to be about leadership. The topic of leadership pricks up the ears of the business world like nothing else. If we want to build […]
Social Identity Resources 