Beyond Text: Constructing Organizational Identity Multimodally

Abstract

Organizational scholars have proposed a broad range of theoretical approaches to the study of organizational identity. However, empirical studies on the construct have relied on text‐based organizational identity descriptions, with little exploration of multiple intelligences, emotions and individual/collective identity representations. In this paper, we briefly review the empirical literature on organizational identity, and propose a novel method for empirical study involving structured interventions in which management teams develop representations of the identities of their organizations using three‐dimensional construction toy materials. Our study has five main implications. By engaging in a method that draws on multiple intelligences, participants in this study generated multifaceted and innovative representations of the identities of their organizations. The object‐mediated, playful nature of the method provided a safe context for emotional expression. Because it involved the collection of both individual and collective‐level data, the technique led to collective constructions of highly varying degrees of ‘sharedness’. Finally, the organizational identity representations integrated unconscious or ‘tacit’ understandings, which led to the enactment of organizational change.