Social Identity and Perceived Importance of the Profession
Jayanti Roy Ph.D.

Abstract
Social identity of professionals is enhanced at their association meetings. A strong social identity later promotes the advocacy for the importance of the profession. For e.g. nurses who have a strong professional identity would advocate for the importance of their profession (nursing) at their organizations viz. hospitals. Local chapters of professional associations provide education and networking opportunities with similar professionals. Yet, attendance at local chapter meetings tends to be a challenge. This paper examines the link of social identity, past participation, program content, delivery mode and co-production with the professional association and the perceived importance of the profession in the member’s organization. I investigate the link of the importance of the profession to advocacy initiatives that the member might undertake in her or his organization. The paper offers a model and conducts a survey of association members and finds that social identity alone is not a significant predictor of the perceived importance of the profession but social identity operates interactively with other relevant variables like past participation, program content, delivery mode of association programs.

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