| dc.description.abstract | Battery Dance is a nonprofit dance company based in New York City conducting performance, education, and social justice programming across six continents. They quickly pivoted to a virtual environment when NYC went on lockdown at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020. This provided a unique opportunity to examine how the challenges of COVID-19 impacted the organizational resiliency of a nonprofit arts organization and its members. Organizational resiliency is largely dependent upon the product of intergroup relationships that define organizational identity as leaders and followers construct joint identities as a form of sensemaking to help envision future possibilities when faced with current threats. A mixed-method research design informed by Social Identity Theory used the Social Identity Analysis Scale and Identity Leadership Inventory as core components of a conceptual framework. Data was analyzed to examine the relationships between member roles and framework components that included Creative Effort and Creative Performance as organizationally driven efforts, Leader Prototypicality and Inspirational Motivation as leader driven efforts, and Self-Categorization and Depersonalization as a reflection of shared identity among Battery Dance members. Findings showed that Inspirational Motivation and Leader Prototypicality significantly predicted Organizational Resiliency; Creative Effort significantly predicted Creative Performance; and that Shared Identity moderated Creative Effort and Creative Performance. Leaders and Board Members identified more strongly with Battery Dance than the Dancers, who also showed a greater variance in their levels of Self-Categorization and perceptions of Leader Prototypicality. Additionally, subjects showed a high degree of perceived outgroup homogeneity, which produced a sensemaking attribution error that may cause a cognitive dissonance when relational identities emphasize false interpretive structures that define the organization’s distinctiveness. Findings confirmed the Social Identity Theory assertion that group identification is the driver behind an organization’s potential for organizational resiliency. Three recommendation plans are then offered to strengthen identity and increase levels of evidence-based learning and improvement. Recommendations include identity workshops, program evaluations, the design of a community of practice, and the utilization of a human resource plan for building the organization’s capacity to address the needs of their global constituents. These recommendations can be leveraged by Battery Dance to inform the design of future programs and organizational structures, as well as contribute to the embodiment of a shared identity that fosters the individual and collective potential of all Battery Dance members. | en_US |
