Abstract
This article proposes a model of identity-related social processes that, when applied during organizational decline, is hypothesized to support turnaround and avoid organizational death. The social processes are retiring, reclaiming, reaffirming, regenerating, and reimagining identity attributes. Although this model is rooted in past studies and literature on organizational decline and organizational identity, empirical research is needed to validate or adjust the model. Future work could involve examination of identity negotiations within past cases of organizational decline and turnaround as well as devising and testing specific retiring, reclaiming, reaffirming, regenerating, and reimagining interventions.
Highlights
Organizational decline is a natural part of an organization's lifecycle, despite biases in literature and practice that unfettered, constant growth is the natural state of organizations (Bedeian, 1980; Penrose, 1959; Torres, Serra, Ferreira, & Menezes, 2011)
The present article examines the social processes organization members engage in related to organizational identity in the midst of decline and how these relate to organizational turnaround or mortality
Hatch and Schultz (2008) further argued that organizational identity is dynamic, in that stakeholders constantly reassess and reconstruct the characteristics of an organization. This begs the question of what happens when an organization is in decline and, specific to this article, how identity might be harnessed to avoid accelerating decline and instead support turnaround
Summary
Organizational decline is a natural part of an organization's lifecycle, despite biases in literature and practice that unfettered, constant growth is the natural state of organizations (Bedeian, 1980; Penrose, 1959; Torres, Serra, Ferreira, & Menezes, 2011). What happens during decline is that insiders and outsiders tend to enact self-fulfilling prophecies about the organization that act to accelerate and assure organizational decline and death (Edwards, McKinley, & Moon, 2002). Few recommendations have been made for organizations to avoid this fate. This article examines the social processes organization members engage in related to organizational identity during times of organizational decline and offers a model of the social processes that may spark organizational turnaround. Those processes are reclaiming, reaffirming, regenerating, and reimagining
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