1 GOAL INTERDEPENDENCE AND SOCIAL IDENTITY FOR EFFECTIVENESS IN THE INTERDEPARTMENTAL RELATIONSHIPS

Synergy among departments is increasingly considered vital for organizations to use their full resources to deal with threats and explore opportunities in the rapidly changing marketplace. Although valuable, developing synergy among departments is a difficult management challenge. This gives rise to the question of not whether, but under what circumstances, departments develop organizational cohesion. This study assumes that high departmental and interdepartmental effectiveness will be promoted by constructive coordination between departments within organizations. In doing so, we connect the theory of cooperation and competition and social identity theory to test what interdepartmental structures will improve the organizational effectiveness. Structural equation analysis of data from departmental managers and employees in China suggested interdepartmental structures promote cooperative but not competitive or independent goals among departments and salient organizational identity, which in turn result in departmental and interdepartmental effectiveness. This results, coupled wit