Congregational Identities in the Presbyterian Church

Recent work on organizations has "rediscovered" the importance of culture for understanding organizational dynamics and diversity. One aspect of an organization's culture is its identity, its basic sense of who and why it is. In this paper we apply the identity concept to congregation...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Carroll, Jackson Walker 1932- (Author) ; Roozen, David A. 1946- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer 1990
In: Review of religious research
Year: 1990, Volume: 31, Issue: 4, Pages: 351-369
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Summary:Recent work on organizations has "rediscovered" the importance of culture for understanding organizational dynamics and diversity. One aspect of an organization's culture is its identity, its basic sense of who and why it is. In this paper we apply the identity concept to congregations. We use data from a questionnaire survey of a national sample of United Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to (1) develop, through cluster analysis, a typology of congregational identities; (2) examine the relation of the identity types to other congregational characteristics, especially core tasks of the churches; and, (3) compare the utility of the identity types for understanding congregational dynamics to that of congregational typologies based on size and location. We describe six identity types that emerged in the analysis and examine a number of their correlates. Then, using multiple classification analysis, we show that the identity types, independently of congregational size or location, help to explain differences in how congregations define core tasks and the presence or absence of specific programs.
ISSN:2211-4866
Contains:Enthalten in: Review of religious research
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.2307/3511561