THE UBIQUITY AND POTENCY OF LABELING IN ORGANIZATIONS

Drawing on categorization theory, semiotics, and labeling theory, we a rgue that categories and labels are widely utilized by individuals in organizational settings to help structure and simplify the social envi ronment, primarily for reasons of understanding, consensus, and contro l. Based largely on such situational criteria as role and rank, people are sorted into various categories and are perceived and treated as e xemplars or prototypes of the category. The labels attached to these c ategories coalesce when individuals triangulate their perceptions of c ategory members with the perceptions that credible peers and powerhold ers have of category members. Labels distill a complex and perhaps con tradictory array of data into concise and coherent packages, and thus provide a potent means of interpreting, representing, and conveying or ganizational experience and cuing action. However, labels are inherent ly arbitrary, labels cause individual category members to lose their i ndividuality and assume the affective tone of the category, and labels tend to become reified as objective and normative accounts of social reality. The ubiquity and potency of labeling processes are illustrate d with applications to individual-level (service encounters), group-le vel (intergroup conflict), and organization-level (identity, image, an d reputation) phenomena. We speculate that both the process of labelin g and the content of labels are similar across levels.