Group identification: The influence of group membership on retail hardware cooperative members' perceptions

Due to the increasing popularity of retail cooperatives in hardware retailing, a new competitive dynamic has emerged, a hybrid of intratype/intergroup competition. Individual members of one cooperative group now fight for market share with one or more members of competing cooperative groups, in an effort to attain individual goals, as well as group goals. A model of competition that includes both individual and group conditions was tested. Results of the structural equation model (SEM) show that the data fit the theoretical model well (chi(2) = 12.414, 8 df, p = 0.134, NFI = 0.990, NNFI = 0.993, CFI = 0.996). Our results indicate that, for members of cooperative groups, feelings-of identification with the cooperative group resulted in increased perceptions of conflict with a rival who was a member of a competing cooperative and that feelings of group identification influenced beliefs about the importance of competitive behaviors relative to that rival.