Accepting, Justifying, and Resisting Identity Separation: Disidentification Processes During Layoffs

Abstract

While organizational identity change has for long generated interest among researchers, the process of individual-level organizational disidentification remains largely an unexamined topic. Through a longitudinal interview study, we examine how Nokia layoff victims disidentified themselves from the organization during an assisted layoff process. We conducted an in-depth longitudinal study. Analysis Based on interviews of 20 assisted layoff victims (and additional 100 single interviews to be incorporatedreveals ), we identity four distinct paths of disidentification paths (accepting, justi-fying, ambivalent, and resisting) and thatexplain how people with different pre-layoff identity pro-files respond to job loss, engage in different sensemaking and utilization of layoff assistance, and develop different post-layoff identities.