The Relationships Among Manager-, Employee-, and Customer-Company Identification: Implications For Retail Store Financial Performance

Based on the premise of an interpersonal “chain of influence” with respect to organizational identification, we posit a relationship between company managers, employees, and customers with respect to organizational identification with the retailer. Specifically, we hypothesize that the level of a store manager's identification with the retailer is positively related to the level of their store employees’ identification with the retailer, which in turn is positively related to the level of customers’ identification with the retailer, which results in increased levels of store financial performance. We investigate these relationships using data from 306 retail stores within a single retail chain.