1. Managing
Identification
among
Amway
Distributors

2. Purpose of Study
To examine the practices and processes of
creating members’ organizational identity.
How success and failures of these practices
lead to various identification
types….positive, negative, or ambivalent?

3. Methods
Data Collection:
-Semi-over participant
observation
-Interviews
-Previous research

4. Findings

5. Corporate
Culture

6. Corporate Culture
necessity for strong “corporate culture” in
modern businesses to help act as a control
mechanism
A way to manage their workforce without
the usual means of daily supervision and
traditional deference cues

7. People say that we brainwash people.

8. That’s true. We are talking about brainwashing
– to help make you all more positive people!”
-Amway speaker

9. How does Amway promote its company
values and goals?

10. Dream building
Helping
Distributors
to
set personal
and sales goals

11. Positive programming
Helping distributors
surround themselves with
uplifting and supportive
people

12. Sense Breaking

13. • Disrupting or questioning an individual’s sense of
self to create a ‘meaning’ void that must be filled
• This is done with the Amway practice of dream
building

14. Dream Building
New distributors are asked to
decide what their dream is and
why they are doing this
+ Material wealth
+ Freedom
+ Family
+ Lifestyle

15. By customizing a dream scenario
for each new distributor they create a
sense of choice, familiarity, and emotion.

16. This causes distributors to
be very enthusiastic and
excited about their work,
and is known as
“HOT”.

17. Building a New Identity
Linking One’s Sense of Self to Possessions

18. Building a New Identity
– Possessions serve as extensions of one’s self-
concept
– Dreams represent the things that one wants to
achieve or have in life

19. Building a New Identity
Creating Motivational Drives for Meaning:
– Get out of your comfort zone – “what you
currently have is not good enough… you
need to change to achieve your dreams”

20. The Continuous Dream
Perpetuating the motivational drive for meaning

21. The Continuous Dream
“When a dream comes
true, always replace it
with a bigger dream”

22. The Continuous Dream
dreams represent their ideal selves
and their current dissatisfactions

23. Positive Programming
Establish relationships
that are supportive and nourishing.

24. Positive Programming
3 Interrelated Steps:
# Establishing a relationship with a mentor

25. Positive Programming
3 Interrelated Steps:
#Creating relationship barriers via revaluing

26. Positive Programming
3 Interrelated Steps:
#Enacting relationship barriers

27. Relationship with Mentor
Find a mentor
who will
help you
become
more positive

28. Relationship with Mentor
Mentors
provide
economic
and
emotional
support

29. Relationship with Mentor
“help distributors
understand
who they are and
who they should be
in organizational
terms”

30. Relationship Barriers
Mentors help
insulate
members from
the negative
opinions of
non-members

31. Relationship Barriers
Create barriers
compare ideal Amway
relationships with
other relationships

32. Relationship Barriers
Encapsulation :
process where group members
are kept separate from non-members

33. Relationship Barriers
Social: creation of strong in-group bonds
while structuring daily life to avoid meeting
outsiders

34. Relationship Barriers
Ideological: an organization’s belief system
buffers a member from external threats or
attacks – avoid contact with non-supporters

35. Perpetuating Relationship Barriers
“Distributors were often encouraged to try to sponsor
family members and friends first
before attempting to sponsor strangers.
This allowed them to learn firsthand whether family and friends really
loved them and wanted to support them economically”

36. Perpetuating Relationship Barriers
Distributors try to avoid non-members
because of encapsulation

37. Perpetuating Relationship Barriers
Family and friends (non-members) try to avoid distributors
because they see them as taking advantage
of existing relationships for economic gain

38. Managing Identification
Yes Yes
Encapsulate
Seekership
Sense Breaking Sense Giving sense-making
Dream Building Positive Programming
Positive
ID
1-Creating Motivational 1-Build Relationship with
drive Mentor No
2-Link one’s sense of No 2-Creating relationship
self to posession barrier via revaluing Sense making with
insider & outsider
3-Enacting for 3-Enacting & perpetuating
motivation drive for relationship barrier Yes
meaning Ambivalent ID
[conflicting feelings]
Sense making with
non-member
Yes
Failure to identify or Failure to identify or
De-identification De-identification

39. Positive Identification
Successful sensebreaking
(dream building) – distributors
were dissatisfied with who they were.

40. Positive Identification
Successful sensegiving
(positive programming) – distributors
worked with upline mentors to resolve
their discontent

41. Broken
Identification
sensebreaking fails
-members likely to deidentify
stop feeling uncomfortable
with their current lives and
no longer wish to
“pursue their dreams”

42. Broken Identification
Not motivated to seek out advise from upline
and they didn’t want to abandon their
current “inadequate” identities

43. Ambivalent Identification [conflict]
Both sensebreaking and sensegiving were successful

44. Ambivalent Identification
Need to achieve dreams
and maintain close ties
with upline members
creates positive identification

45. Ambivalent Identification
Do not cut themselves off from their non-member friends
Anti Amway advice from non-members creates negative identification

46. Managing Identification
If members are not seeking, then they will either
fail to identify, or will ultimately deidentify
with the organization.

47. MAKE YOUR
{ID}

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