“If you drew a Venn diagram, it was all one circle”: Organizational identification and enmeshment in church workers

Until recently, research on organizational identity and paradox has proceeded on largely separate tracks. The purpose of this chapter is to strengthen connections between these two streams of work and demonstrate how each one can enhance the other. Scholarship on organizational identity surfaces multiple tensions around the nature of identity—including whether it is a social reality or social construction, stable or dynamic, multiple or singular, and comprised of contradictory or compatible elements. Paradox theory recasts these tensions as both/and rather than either/or choices. Building on recent organizational identity research which adopts a both/and approach for specific identity tensions, this chapter explores how organizational identity scholarship can benefit from more consistently embracing the paradoxical nature of a broader range of identity tensions, and how a more complex depiction of identity tensions can, in turn, enrich paradox theory.

Given the ever-changing nature of contemporary workplaces, members often renegotiate how they view the identity of their organization. One way they do so is by expanding or contracting their conception of organizational identity. In studying these processes, we develop the construct of “identity elasticity”—the tensions that simultaneously stretch, while holding together, social constructions of identity. To explicate the parameters of elasticity, we problematize previous conceptions of the three foundations of organizational identity—centrality, endurance, and distinctiveness—and document the dialectic tensions experienced in their social constructions. We show how identity is experienced not only through a listing of attributes but also by negotiating a set of processual tensions. In so doing, we also bring together two competing views on organizational identity—process and characteristic. We show how experiencing and navigating the tensions of elasticity is a type of organizational identity work (process) that changes organizational members’ constructions of identity (characteristic). We develop our findings as a result of a 10-year-long multiple-method study of an organization undergoing significant growing pains in its identity—the Episcopal Church. Further, we position elasticity as a crucial construct with implications for how organizational identity is viewed.

In this paper, we develop a conceptual model that demonstrates how positive deviance can produce dysfunctional effects in organizations. Our research objective is to extend the traditional understanding and vocabulary of organizational negative deviance to include the opposite deviant side of “normality”, namely positive deviance in the form of saint organizations whose deviance is a positive over-conformity to moral norms. Saint organizations acquire their saint status as they are exposed to a high public visibility that includes an extra-ordinary virtuous valence and a dedicated emphasis on contributing to the social betterment of the planet and its peoples. Whereas prior research has focused on how such public positive admiration strengthens organizational member identification, we offer a conceptualization that shows how the public’s large-scale admiration of an organization’s moral over-conformity may instead lead to identity tensions, when members become addicted to the public admiration of the organizational moral identity. We refer to this phenomenon as saint junkies, where members over-identify with the organizational moral identity attributed by the public to their workplace. We provide a heuristic model that explains the process from positive deviance to saint junkies that results in five identity tensions for members: onstage burnout, sense of fakeness, risk of hybris, moral drift, and exaggerated ego-defenses. We conclude by suggesting venues for future empirical and theoretical studies of saint organizations and their implications for organizational members.

From inception, start-ups are torn between two opposing legitimacy pressures: the need to differentiate from competitors and the need to conform to stakeholders’ expectations. In this study, we adopt an organizational identification perspective, coupled with a legitimacy-seeking lens, to explore the start-up legitimation progress for entrepreneurs who identify with their ventures either intrinsically or instrumentally. Applying a longitudinal multi-case study design and using rich interview data, we track the decisions and actions of ten Russian high-tech start-ups over a twenty-month period. Our findings reveal that start-up legitimation is a dynamic process guided by the organizational identification of the founders and bounded by identity tensions. The study extends the literature on new venture legitimation and its constraints. Theoretical and practitioner implications are discussed.

To imitate or differentiate: Cross-level identity work in an innovation network

Purpose: This research seeks to examine identity tensions in IT project managers involved in developing Agile Information Systems Development (ISD). It looks at the transition from the hierarchical functional PM structures to the non-hierarchical decentralised decision-making forms of Agile. These tensions relate to how the organisational tensions affected the roles of project managers. The third study concerns role tensions leading to conflicts and identity work about traditional and agile paradigms. Materials and Methods: The study employs a qualitative research technique involving semi-structured interviews among the participants, the IT project managers. It gathers data on the project managers and explores the nature of their conflicts and how managers resolve these conflicts regarding tensions concerning compliance and cooperation, role definition, and leadership adaptations in the Agile context. Findings: The research identifies three primary areas of tension for IT project managers; Lack of coordination between attempts to enforce bureaucracy (laws and policies) and coordination (work incorporation). Ambiguity of the roles played in various organisational settings Failure of the organisational structures to provide clear roles that individuals play during their operations. Agile leadership challenges moving from decision-making authority to a more coordinated leadership position. Organisational officials and project managers use measures including endorsing peripheral positions, engaging peers and enrolling for organisational development to deal with such opposing forces. Importance is placed on the organisational climate, resources and training within the study to focus on organisation adaptability and identity work within Agile frameworks. Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study suggests practical measures for management organisations to improve individual and organisational outcomes in Agile ISD settings; Develop suitable training courses as a measure to help people adapt to the Agile type with effectiveness. Make networks and peer support systems for project managers. This increases role conflict, which should be minimised by establishing a clear structure of responsibilities and tasks within the company. The findings also advance theory by discussing how professional identity develops and the psychological and social changes that occur when transitioning to Agile culture.

ABSTRACTThis study examined emergent identity tensions among managers of a non-governmental organization (NGO) during a major rebranding initiative. With respect to organizational identification, NGO managers expressed pride in their organization, frustration regarding public ignorance about their organization, and broader connection with NGO identity. Resulting identity tensions of certainty/uncertainty, transparency/opacity, and participation/restriction highlight that NGO managers identify more closely with their organization when it adheres to mission objectives and encourages stakeholder inclusivity, and less closely when their organization loses identity in the renaming process, or when there is less perceived transparency and inclusion. Findings suggest that NGO managers and organizational researchers may benefit from further investigation into renaming campaigns in light of NGO mission, as well as the resulting stakeholder identity implications.

Novice English teachers at China's private universities are easily confronted with tensions when they constructed the professional identity in the early career stage. Drawing on a theoretical framework of social identity theory, self-discrepancy theory and situated learning theory, this narrative inquiry study explored the causes, manifestations, and solutions to teachers' professional identity tensions through in-depth interviews. Data were interpreted through metaphorical biographies and thematic analysis. Results show that tensions were caused by discrepancies among three self-concepts and conflicts between the English teacher identity and the private university teacher identity. In tensions, many aspects of participants' professional identities were impaired and they unfulfilled the organizational identification. Participants reconciled three selves and adopted two approaches (assimilation and dissimilation) to navigate PI tensions. Policy makers are suggested to offer a well-established identity policy and sufficient research funding to facilitate the academic development of both private universities and teachers there. Private universities are suggested to provide diverse supports to teachers for their career development. Novice teachers could take the initiative of adapting to the culture and regulations of private universities and combine their research interest with the working context.

Festivals are conceptualised in this chapter as temporary organisations embedded in more permanent structures (e.g. festival lead organisation). Festivals face a series of paradoxical tensions common to temporary organisations in creative fields. These tensions arise, in part, from the diversity of actors involved in festivals and the distinctive values and priorities they bring to their festival organisational involvement. Lucca Comics & Games (LC&G), which is one of the biggest comic-cons in the world, operates in the intersection of different institutional contexts, which include a wide range of actors involved. Thus, tensions appear within the LC&G domain as a result of these actors’ different levels of involvement in the festival organisation and their diverse identities. These tensions and their resolutions will be analysed from the perspective of extant theory on paradox. A specific focus of this chapter is on the belonging paradox, which concerns the role of competing identities among different types of festival participants and how these competing identities are manifested in the organisational identity of LC&G, its structures and processes. Our study provides evidence of identity tensions as both/and relationships that are not mutually exclusive or antagonistic. The authors also suggest that ‘place identity’ requires further examination as a distinctive feature of temporary organising in festivals, considering its role in mediating tensions arising from the belonging paradox amongst festival main actors (exhibitors, artists, public bodies and lead organisation employees).

Nonprofit organizations increasingly engage in various forms of collaboration with corporate actors. Business collaborations can aid nonprofit organizations in fulfilling their mission; however, they are also likely to bring about internal tensions, particularly, when nonprofit members feel that partnerships are not aligned with the nonprofit’s mission or core values. Indeed, previous research has indicated that “who we are” as an organization has important implications for “what we should do” and thus, who “we” should associate with, highlighting the role of organizational identity in assessments of inter-organizational relationships. To date, we still have a limited understanding of how nonprofit members perceive corporate collaborations and their implications for member perceptions of organizational identity. To address this important gap, we examine how nonprofit members make sense of nonprofit-business partnerships and how they manage identity tensions arising from them. Our study employs a qualitative research design including 40 semi-structured interviews across 15 nonprofit organizations over two phases of data collection. We show the identity tensions arising from corporate partnerships and identify four identity work tactics that nonprofit members engage in to alleviate these tensions. By offering a grounded model of identity work in cross-sector partnerships, we bring attention to relational elements of organizational identity.

Digesting Tensions and Change