Organizational Identity Change Research Articles

Navigating Multiple Identities for Positive Change Through Organizational Listening

Organizational listening is critical in times of change, especially for organizations that must meet diverse stakeholder interests. Organizations’ views on who they are—whether they are altruistic or self-oriented entities—may shape organizational listening practices in meaningful ways. To explore the undertheorized topic of organizational listening, we conducted a mixed-method sequential explanatory study. Drawing on survey and interview data from 122 U.S. nonprofits, we found an organization’s utilitarian identity for economic value creation is only related to practical motivation to engage in listening, whereas a normative identity for social mission is related to listening motivation, information analysis, and information integration. In addition, we found that organizational listening fully mediates the relationship between organizational identity and organizational change potential and implementation, indicating positive change would most likely occur through soliciting and incorporating stakeholder inputs. These results contribute to theorizing organizational listening and suggest implications for navigating multiple identities in organizational change processes.

The dynamics of new sharing economy ventures strategies and ecosystem legitimacy: the case of Airbnb

While new ventures strive to align with prevailing demand and expectations to gain and maintain legitimacy and successfully overcome the liability of newness, sharing economy ventures face additional legitimacy pressure before and after they achieve scale. Based on an inductive single case study approach, using the example of Airbnb Inc., this study investigates how digital platform‐based ventures navigate the tension between remaining legitimate yet distinctive throughout the organizational lifecycle. Adopting a processual perspective, our findings reveal the strategies used by Airbnb to navigate the temporal dynamics of entering established industries. With a particular focus on the digital platform's efforts to achieve and maintain cognitive and sociopolitical legitimacy, this study aims to enhance knowledge regarding the formation and adjustment of organizational strategy and identity over time. Our proposed model of digital platform development reveals three distinct stages of strategy shifts, including demonstrating a sense of novelty, establishing dominant positioning in a broader market, and competitive differentiation to create value for customers. Furthermore, we show the primary triggers for change and the organizational identity change process in different stages of the organizational lifecycle.

Language Use to Foster the Acceptance of Organizational Identity Change

Language Use to Foster the Acceptance of Organizational Identity Change

Gravity's pull: The identity-related motives and outcomes of hiring stars

Strategic human capital scholarship, alongside a wealth of evidence from the popular press, suggests that star employees can influence an organization's socially constructed identity. However, an overarching conceptual framework that explains these shifts has yet to emerge. In this paper, we draw upon Hatch and Schultz's (2002) theory of identity change to discuss how organizational identity-change related motives – defined as decision makers' interest in spurring changes to socially constructed, internal perceptions of their organization's central and distinctive features – act in concert with considerations of value creation and capture to influence the hiring of different identity-aspirant stars (i.e., stars that embody a desired future organizational identity). Given that stars represent catalysts for identity change that have agency and become part of the social fabric of an organization, we then explain how the mechanisms by which stars' attempts to gain or retain status – coupled with organization members' willingness to emulate their behaviors – can affect internal-oriented organizational identity change. This paper advances consideration of social-psychological factors alongside economic views of stars and offers implications for the literatures on strategic human capital and organizational identity.

Perceived organizational support and work engagement: the role of psychosocial variables

PurposeThis study aims to test the role that organizational sociopsychological variables may play in influencing job stress and work engagement in an organizational identity change scenario.Design/methodology/approachOn a sample of 118 employees of an Italian company in the personnel training services sector, multivariate statistical analysis tests a pattern where organizational variables such as work support (by supervisors and coworkers, independent variables) – moderated by corporate identification (moderating variable) – and mediated by organizational trust (mediating variable) – boosts employee work engagement and lowers psychosocial risks (dependent variables).FindingsThe mediating effect of “organizational trust” is significant in the relationships of “supervisor social support” and “coworker social support” with the “absence of psychosocial risks.” Moreover, an increase in supervisor social support can lead to a statistically significant increase in work engagement. This occurs only for employees with low or medium identification and not in highly identified individuals.Originality/valueThe findings from the analysis on moderation are of primary importance because they show us a new perspective that can play the role of a guiding and practical principle on how to act on an organization’s human resources, specifically targeting those with lower or medium corporate identification.

No longer second-class citizens: Redefining organizational identity as a response to digitalization in accounting shared services

AbstractNew technologies can become an identity-challenging threat for organizations. While there is a growing literature on how new technologies challenge fundamental questions of organizational existence such as ‘who are we?’, ‘what do we do?’, and ‘what do we want to be?’, this literature has largely overlooked how new technologies can become drivers of organizational identity change. In this article, we investigate the impact of digitalization, especially Robotic Process Automation, on organizational identity. Drawing on the analysis of shared service centers in Asia and Eastern Europe, we explored how these organizations respond to identity-challenging technologies. While traditionally, work in shared services has been characterized by a combination of standardization, controlling the labor process, and deskilling, we found in this study that shared service organizations are responding to the digital challenges by moving up the value chain to more complex, knowledge-intensive work. As a result, shared service organizations in our study began to redefine their organizational identity by, among others, professionalizing their workforce.

Becoming a racially just Hispanic-serving institution (HSI): Leveraging HSI grants for organizational identity change.

Becoming a racially just Hispanic-serving institution (HSI): Leveraging HSI grants for organizational identity change.

Responding to organizational identity change: ethnographic insights from multinational hotel subsidiaries

组织身份改革的响应：从跨国酒店集团的下属公司获得的民族志学的见解研究目的本研究运用了组织民族志的视角来探索跨国公司旗下酒店如何经历由总部主导的计划性组织身份改变。研究设计/方法/途径本研究通过多点民族志方法收集了美国加州六个附属酒店关于组织变化的数据。在三年中本研究收集了多种渠道的数据, 包括：1） 31份关于酒店领导层的访谈资料; 2）100多个小时对职业见习和会议等的观察数据; 3）图片和内部沟通资料。研究发现跨国公司面临来自集团总部标准化和附属子公司本土化的挑战。本研究发现当总部计划对附属公司的员工进行改革的时候, 员工初始的接受或者反对会显著受到组织记忆和附属公司领导层历史的影响。然而, 随时间变化, 财务业绩较强的附属公司会继续奉行新的组织身份计划, 然而财务业绩较差的公司会采取平衡的策略来调节总部期待的愿景身份以及附属公司本身的收益预期。此外, 新冠疫情导致的所有产业停滞的局面也增大了运用组织民族志在酒店管理研究的实践和情绪方面的挑战。研究原创性/价值本文通过引入新的概念——组织身份变革, 以及通过推进关于管理跨国公司组织变化挑战的理解对酒店研究领域做出了贡献。更加重要的是, 本研究为今后的酒店管理研究领域的组织民族志学的研究创造了跳板。

Prosocial Certification and Organizational Identity Change

Pursuing pro-social certifications has become an increasingly popular strategy for organizations to obtain social support from their audiences and build a positive reputation. However, although the literature has mostly focused on the impact of certification on perceptions of external audiences, little is known on how such an event brings about changes within an organization. This paper first reviews the recent literature on prosocial certification and organizational identity. The review reveals that the recent studies on identity change by organizations are limited to top managers’ views of their firms, neglecting the collective nature of identity. The paper then develops the conceptual model of how prosocial certification may induce collective identity change, conditioned by the organization’s motivation, fit, managerial response, and employee reception.

Publishing in the Academy of Management Journals

Publishing in the Academy of Management Journals

A Estrutura Intelectual da Identidade Organizacional e a Oportunidade de Estudos em Estratégia

Objetivo: Este artigo tem como objetivo central compreender a evolução intelectual da Identidade Organizacional (IO) e as oportunidades de estudos futuros em estratégia.Método: Usamos as técnicas bibliométricas de citação e cocitação para avaliar a estrutura intelectual que suporta os estudos sobre IO. A partir de uma amostra de 587 artigos disponíveis na base Web of Science, identificamos os 26 artigos referenciados que suportam os trabalhos atuais.Originalidade/Relevância: Passaram-se 35 anos desde o artigo seminal de Albert e Whetten (1985). Os estudos sobre identidade organizacional cresceram significativamente deste então. Pelo reconhecimento da importância do conceito e pela aparente maturidade do campo, é importante revisitar e compreender os trabalhos que têm influenciado os trabalhos atuais sobre identidade organizacional.Resultados: Os resultados indicaram que a partir do trabalho seminal mencionado, estudos foram influenciados sobre identidade organizacional e mudança estratégica segundo três abordagens: visão socialmente construída; visão do ator social; e visão institucionalista. Além destes estudos também foram influenciados por trabalhos relacionados às práticas e processos na identificação organizacional.Contribuições teóricas: O estudo permitiu compreender a estrutura intelectual dos estudos em identidade organizacional, proporcionando a indicação de pesquisa futura.

Why Open Innovation is Easier Said Than Done: An Organizational Identity Perspective

In this article, we explore and interpret organizational identity transformation associated with open innovation strategy of the largest telecommunication company in Italy, Telecom Italia (TIM). When TIM established eight joint laboratories within five major Italian universities to benefit from opening its business model, it transferred some of the R&D employees to the new laboratories to work with the university scientists. This organizational transformation created underexplored conditions for R&D employees engaged in the open innovation activities of the firm. Our interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) answers the question of “How do R&D employees experience organizational identity change in the process of open innovation?”. We based our analysis on interpreting lived experiences of 14 employees. Studying the phenomena of organizational identity change during the process of open innovation implementation suggests the following: (1) The process of open innovation through mobility of skilled R&D employees triggers organizational identity ambiguity and change, (2) Organizational identity ambiguity phase in the process of open innovation can be shortened by the support of parent company and managerial skills highlighting sensemaking mechanisms, (3) Constructing a shared organizational identity with university members involved in this process is an undeniable element of OI success for this strategy. We contribute to the literature by establishing linkages among organizational identity and open innovation and by building on recent works on the role of individuals within open innovation ecosystem. Our qualitative analysis draws on a conceptual framework for open innovation and organizational identity transformation.

The Dynamics of Place and Organizational Identity in a Homeless-Serving Organization

In this ethnographic study of a homeless-serving organization, located in a Western Canadian city, we ask, ‘how do place-oriented environmental disruptions influence organizational identity change?’ We capture the organization’s response to a geographical disruption that created a push for the organization to move out of its home of three decades. Findings generated through a rigorous inductive analysis reveal that place is a strong yet overlooked aspect of organizational identity. In particular, upon expericning the push ro relocate, members experienced a strong sense of affiliation with the organization’s place (a phenomenon we term, ‘organizational territoriality’), leading them to defend their place. In this process, Better World’s identiy changed such that the organization emerged as a stronger and more promiment entity. We offer two primary contributions through this study. First, we establish the very material notion of place as a fundamental aspect of organizational identity, thereby extending our existing understanding of organizational identity. Second, we develop the concept of ‘organizational territoriality,’ and theorize that place informs members’ sense of organizational identity through organizational territoriality.

Understanding Inter-Organization Travail Variance during Organizational Identity Change Process

Although we know much about organizational identity change process, few attentions are paid to unveil why some organizations experience greater travails than others during change process. Our discussion is based on TMT abnormal turnover, as one of the major organizational travail types, after lone-founder firm’s familization announcements, which is a firm life-cycle based identity change. Under institutionalist tradition, we argue top managers’ knowledge are biased to their own industries thus top managers understand comparable familization announcements in different ways. Decided by a materiality-legitimation paradox, industry-level family firm prevalence plays an inverse-U shaped moderation effect on the relation between familization announcement and TMT turnover. Such that, the main effect would be weaker in industries where family firm prevalence is low or high; while be stronger in industries with medium-level family firm prevalence. Our findings contribute to organizational identity change studies by add inter-firm comparison.

Accepting, Justifying, and Resisting Identity Separation: Disidentification Processes During Layoffs

While organizational identity change has for long generated interest among researchers, the process of individual-level organizational disidentification remains largely an unexamined topic. Through a longitudinal interview study, we examine how Nokia layoff victims disidentified themselves from the organization during an assisted layoff process. We conducted an in-depth longitudinal study. Analysis Based on interviews of 20 assisted layoff victims (and additional 100 single interviews to be incorporatedreveals ), we identity four distinct paths of disidentification paths (accepting, justi-fying, ambivalent, and resisting) and thatexplain how people with different pre-layoff identity pro-files respond to job loss, engage in different sensemaking and utilization of layoff assistance, and develop different post-layoff identities.

Staying the Same: Organizational Identity Endurance as a Subjectivation Process

Until now, organizational scholarship has mainly focused on the processes of organizational identity change, while identity endurance still remains under-explored. This paper seeks to address this gap by unravelling the organizational identity meaning struggles that go on between organizational members on a daily basis. Drawing on Foucault’s concepts of discursive practices and subjectivity, it illustrates how particular understandings of identity become naturalized as the organization’s hegemonic self. We have conducted an ethnographic study of the Cinematheque quebecoise, an organization recognized for its enduring identity. The analysis reveals that members attempt to preserve their organization’s identity by engaging in discursive practices that have power effects on their peers’ subjectivity. Through self-victimization, recontextualization, and disciplinarization, members legitimize their behaviours in a way that is consistent with the current interpretation of the organizational identity. Such discursive practices can exert control over meaning construction, and over time, are likely to contribute to the endurance of organizational identity.

Multiple organizational identities and change in ambivalence: the case of a Chinese acquisition in Europe

PurposeBuilding on social identity theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine how European managers construct their multiple identities after being acquired by a Chinese firm and to determine the key factors contributing to the changing dynamics of multiple organizational identities.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a qualitative, single case study of a Chinese acquisition of a European manufacturing firm at two points in time.FindingsWe find that multiple identities initially trigger ambivalence toward the acquisition, but over time, the ambivalence diminishes. The reduction of ambivalence results from concurrent integration and separation: a newly constructed boundary spanning the organization separates positive identities from negative ones, and integration interventions foster the development of a new, shared identity.Originality/valueThe findings reveal that organizational identity change is facilitated by the aligning of a post-merger identity with the acquired organization's historical identity and by creating an ambivalent boundary spanning identity.

Becoming through doing: How experimental spaces enable organizational identity work

This qualitative study of a magazine publishing incumbent shows how organizational identity work can be triggered when organizational members engage in business model experimentation within the bounded social setting of experimental space. The study adds to the understanding of the strategy-identity nexus by expanding on the view of business models as cognitive tools to business models as tools for becoming and by understanding the role of experimental spaces as holding environments for organizational identity work. We show how an experimental space engages organizational members in experimental practices (e.g. cognitive, material, and experiential). As firms experiment with “what they do,” organizational members progressively confront the existing organizational identity in the following ways: they engage in practices of organizational identity work by coping with the loss of the old identity, they play with possible organizational identities, and they allow new organizational identity aspirations to emerge. In these ways, experimental spaces act as an organizational identity work space that eventually enables organizational identity change. We identify two mechanisms (i.e. grounding and releasing) by which an organizational identity work space emerges and leads to the establishment of a renewed organizational identity.

Practicing identity in emergent firms: How practices shape founders’ organizational identity claims

Establishing a new firm presents a variety of challenges to organizational founders. An important concern is the development of a set of clear and coherent organizational identity claims that can inform future strategic decision-making. While practices have been identified as important resources that individuals draw on during organizational identity change and formation, their role in initiating shifts in organizational identity claims has not been examined. In this longitudinal study of seven de novo organizations, we develop a process model showing how practices engaged in by founders when establishing their firms cue sensemaking about the organization’s identity by identifying identity voids, generating identity insights through interactions with outsiders, and identifying identity discrepancies through interactions with insiders. Founders interpret these sensemaking triggers as either opportunities or threats to their identity aspirations for their firms, leading to organizational identity work that generates new identity claims. We discuss implications of our model for scholars of organizational identity emergence and practice, as well as for founders of new organizations.

A Study on the Effects of Organizational Change Characteristics on Perceived Organizational Identity Incongruence, Different Types of Identification, and Change-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior

조직의 변화는 구성원들이 기존에 형성한 조직 정체성이 변화되는 과정이다. 조직의 지속적인 변화는 기존에 정립되어 있는 조직 정체성의 의미와 내용을 변화시킴으로써 구성원 개인과 조직 사이의 관계를 다시 정의하기 때문이다. 이 점에 착안하여 본 연구에서는 조직 정체성의 변화과정을 사회심리학 분야의 사회정체성 이론의 관점에서 분석하였다. 구체적으로 본 연구에서는 조직의 변화특성이 구성원의 인지된 조직 정체성 불일치에 미치는 영향을 규명하며, 이러한 정체성의 불일치가 동일시 유형과 변화지향 조직시민행동에 미치는 영향을 살펴보고자 하였다. 이를 위해 다양한 산업에서 종사하고 있는 구성원 245명을 대상으로 수집한 자료를 분석에 활용하였다. 분석 결과는 다음과 같이 요약할 수 있다. 첫째, 구성원이 지각하는 조직변화의 특성 중 불확실 성은 인지된 조직 정체성의 불일치에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 반면에 변화의 빈도는 유의한 영향을 미치지 않았다. 둘째, 이러한 인지된 조직 정체성의 불일치는 동일시 유형 중에서 조직 동일시와 중립적 동일시에 각각 상반된 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 조직 동일 시는 변화지향 조직시민행동에 유의한 영향을 미치는 것으로 나타난 반면, 중립적 동일시는 유의한 영향을 미치지 않는 것으로 나타났다. 넷째, 조직정체성 불일치와 조직 동일시는 조직변화의 불확실성과 변화지향 조직시민행동의 관계를 이중 매개하는 것으로 나타났다. 본 연구는 조직변화와 조직시민행동의 관계를 조직과 구성원 간의 연결고리인 정체성이 변화하는 인지적 과정에서 접근했다는 점에서 의미를 가진다.On the premise that organizational change implies organizational identity change, this study aims to examine change in the relationship between organization and it’s members. Social identity theory rooted in social psychology was utilized in order to investigate this relationship. Ongoing transformation and reproduction of organizational identity lead to different behaviors of organizational member as meanings and contents of the organizational identity have to be reestablished. Moreover, due to the constant change, relationship between organization and it’s members has to be redefined. Specifically, this study investigates the impact of organizational change on perceived organizational identity incongruence which in turn affects the identification of relationship between organization and it’s members. In addition, behavioral changes will be examined. To test the research hypotheses, this study used a survey data collected from 245 employees who work in various kinds of industries. The results are as follows. First, organizational change uncertainty have positive impact on the perceived organizational identity incongruence, where as change frequency did not have significant impact on it. Second, perceived identity incongruence was negatively related to the organizational identification, while it was positively related to the neutral identification. Third, we also found that the organizational identification was positively associated with the change oriented organizational citizenship behavior, while the neutral identification was not significantly associated with that. Finally, we founded statistically significant double-mediating effects of the perceived identity incongruence and organizational identification between the characteristics of change and different types of identification. The theoretical and managerial implications of this study are also discussed.