A Typology of Organizational Membership: Understanding Different Membership Relationships Through the Lens of Social Exchange

Using a social exchange perspective and responding to prior calls to separate resources exchanged from the relationship between parties, we develop a relationship typology based on rights and responsibilities arguments. We begin with the idea that various levels and types of rights and responsibilities are the exchange currency utilized by the employer and employee, respectively. Further, the degree to which an organization grants rights to an individual and the degree to which the individual voluntarily accepts responsibilities results in four distinct organizational membership profiles (i.e., peripheral, associate, detached, and full). We believe this membership typology is an important theoretical mechanism that may be used to link the exchange between the employee and employer (as represented by psychological contracts) to psychological attachment (as represented by perceived membership) between these two parties. Specifically, members in each profile will tend to have certain kinds of psychological attachments to the organization, causing them to (i) perceive membership in certain ways and (ii) behave in a manner consistent with that perception. The article concludes by discussing the implications of the propositions for both researchers and practitioners, as well as making suggestions for future research efforts.