Organizational Identity Work as a Dynamic Capability: A Tale of Two Subsidiaries, 1969 - 1991

Abstract

The literature on dynamic capabilities seeks to explain how firms purposefully reconfigure their resource base in order to adapt to environmental change. Existing research in this stream has, however, neglected the purposeful reconfiguration of symbolic resources in dynamic environments. In this paper, focusing on the articulation of national identity claims by top executives, we conceptualize organizational identity work as a dynamic capability. By means of an interpretive analysis of historical data drawn from two Indian subsidiaries of multinational enterprises during India’s socialist regime from 1969 to 1991, we elaborate the orchestration over twenty three years of national identity claims at these two organizations and identify alternate, but equifinal, modes of organizational identity work that helped them adapt to a rapidly changed regulatory context.