Transnational identification processes: An association of young business leaders

Abstract

This article raises the question of how organisational identification emerges at distance and across cultural contexts. The question is explored in an empirical study of identification processes among Moroccan members of an international association that assemble young leaders and entrepreneurs in small- and medium sized companies. On the basis of a narrative analysis of interviews, observations, and documents, the article illustrates two mutually reinforcing identification processes: One is based on face-to-face social interaction with likeminded peers locally; another is imaginary in the sense that the Moroccan members envision members in other countries to be like themselves and what they aspire to become. This contributes to crosscultural management literature in three ways: first, the study adopts a transnational lens that shows the need to go beyond a national perspective and to explore identification at the intersection between the global and local; second, the study draws on concepts of imagined community (Anderson, 1983) and community of sentiments (Appadurai, 1996) to conceptualise the imaginary part of the identification processes, which transcends locality. Third, the study contributes methodologically by showing how the distinction between translocal and local narratives allows to analyse the interplay between an imagined transnational community and a local face-to-face community.