Social purpose organisations (SPOs) – including social enterprises (SEs) and nonprofits – face constant tension between social missions and financial imperatives. This dual pursuit exposes them to mission drift (MD), where priorities deviate from founding values, undermining impact and legitimacy. Despite significant attention, MD remains conceptually fragmented and poorly measured, limiting theory and practice. This study explores how MD can be conceptualised and measured to reflect the balance between social and commercial goals. It introduces and validates an 18-item, five-dimensional MD scale for hybrid organisations. Drawing on Resource Dependence and Organisational Identity theories, and informed by Institutional Logics and Paradox Theory, the research combines a systematic literature review, a three-round Delphi study and a survey of 187 SPOs in Saudi Arabia. The scale captures five dimensions – mission stability, inclusive governance, social impact assessment (SIA), personnel management and social entrepreneurial orientation (SEO) – addressing both adaptive and erosive forms of MD. By operationalising an abstract concept, this study advances hybridity theory and provides a diagnostic tool for leaders, funders and policymakers to monitor and mitigate MD.

Abstract: Objective: The innovative behavior of university teachers is crucial for enhancing the overall education and teaching level of universities. This study aims to explore the influencing factors and potential mechanisms of university teachers’ innovative behavior. Methods: The Psychological Empowerment Scale, Innovative Behavior Scale, Organizational Identity Scale, and Knowledge Sharing Scale were administered to 661 Chinese college teachers. SPSS 25.0 was used for analysis, and the Bootstrap method was used to test the significance level of the mediating effect. Results: It is stated that the relationship between psychological empowerment and innovative behavior is influenced by the mediating effects of organizational identity and knowledge sharing, as well as the bidirectional chain mediation effect between organizational identity and knowledge sharing. Conclusion: This finding provides a reference for policymakers and educators in formulating intervention measures targeting the innovative behavior of university teachers.

This empirical research used a multi-time, two-sample survey design with a one-week time lag between data collections, gathering responses from 450 participants across diverse business organizations in China and South Korea. We employed quantitative analysis to test a moderated mediation model examining how leader humor, mediated by organizational identification and moderated by abusive supervision, influences followers’ organizational commitment. The primary aim of this research was to explore the impact of leader humor expression on followers’ organizational commitment through a moderated mediation framework. In addition, we examined how organizational identification and abusive supervision jointly shape this relationship, providing insight into both the mediating and moderating processes underlying leader humor’s influence on commitment. The study’s key findings include a positive relationship between leader humor expression and organizational identification. This association strengthens a follower’s sense of belonging to an organization. Furthermore, organizational identification emerged as a pivotal mediator in the relationship between leader humor and organizational commitment, indicating that a leader’s humor style can indirectly boost a follower’s emotional attachment to the organization. Additionally, the moderated mediation analysis revealed that abusive supervision weakens the indirect effect of leader humor on commitment through organizational identification, demonstrating how negative leadership behaviors can undermine the positive pathways from humor to commitment. This research contributes to the literature by merging affect theories of humor with affective events theory, offering a novel perspective on the role of leader humor in organizational contexts. It highlights the importance of leader humor in shaping organizational identification and commitment, and the potential counteractive effects of abusive supervision.

ABSTRACT Police conflict management is shaped by multiple personal and organizational factors. This study extends prior research by examining how dichotomous thinking, organizational identification, and police socialization influence recruits’ preferences for communication-based, control-oriented, and force-related strategies. Drawing on survey data from 525 German police recruits across three years of training, we explored whether dichotomous thinking and strong identification with the police predict reduced emphasis on communication and increased prioritization of control and force. As expected, dichotomous thinking decreased communication priorities, and both dichotomous thinking and organizational identification increased positive attitudes toward force misconduct. Organizational identification increased over the years. Importantly, police socialization moderated the detrimental effect of dichotomous thinking on communication priorities. Our findings highlight the importance of the underlying norms and narratives of police and cop culture in shaping recruits’ views and underscore the need for academization and professionalization in police education that address ingroup biases and detrimental subcultural norms.

In this article, we examine the role of person brands in shaping emergent markets, markets in which the norms, values, and practices of exchange have yet to be firmly established. Using ethnographic and archival data in the context of the early online news market, we find that person brands use their social, cultural, and symbolic capital to create a unique organizational identity, establish a founding myth, and mobilize resonance with early followers. These organizational assets are carried forward in the emergent market to build cultural-cognitive, normative, and pragmatic legitimacy in a context where these factors are initially low. While prior research in marketing has investigated the market-driving effects of firms, consumers, and intermediaries, our findings yield insight into the role of specific people—person brands as institutional entrepreneurs—in shaping emergent markets. These findings inform managers and other stakeholders in emergent markets as to how to strategically manage the organizational identity, founding myths, and audience resonance built by person brands in order to carry these assets forward as the market further develops.

ABSTRACT This study investigates how employees in Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) companies perceive stewardship governance using survey data from 211 employee and owners across six U.S. ESOP firms and interviews with 10 employees. We examine how demographic factors and managerial status shape perceptions of stewardship climate. Stewardship was measured through psychological and situational mechanisms, including organizational identification, intrinsic motivation, personal power, involvement orientation, collectivist orientation, and power distance. Results show that managers report significantly higher stewardship perceptions than nonmanagers. Age and tenure were negatively associated with stewardship, while ESOP value was positively associated. A two-step cluster analysis revealed three distinct groups: nonmanagers with low stewardship perception, nonmanagers with high stewardship perception, and high stewardship managers. Qualitative findings supported these patterns. Overall, the study demonstrates meaningful within organization variation in stewardship perceptions and offers insights for strengthening employee ownership cultures.

Organizations increasingly adopt green organizational practices, yet previous studies offer limited explanations for when and how these practices translate into sustainable performance, particularly in the Chinese context. Addressing this gap, this study conducts a PRISMA-guided systematic literature review of 336 peer-reviewed empirical studies drawn from Web of Science, Scopus, and CNKI. Through thematic synthesis, the review consolidates fragmented evidence into an integrated framework. The findings reveal that existing studies are primarily grounded in four theoretical perspectives: resource-based, institutional, leadership, and relational. Meanwhile, the green practices influence sustainable performance through two interdependent pathways: a capability pathway centered on green innovation and organizational capabilities, and a cultural-psychological pathway centered on organizational culture, identity, and employee states. Evidence further indicates that sustainable leadership functions as a critical boundary condition by shaping strategic attention, resource allocation, and implementation consistency, thereby explaining performance variation across firms. The study concludes that green practices create performance potential but require leadership activation and employee enactment to generate sustained outcomes. Practically, the findings suggest that organizations should prioritize leadership-driven, culturally embedded sustainability strategies rather than relying solely on technical or compliance-based initiatives.

The histone chaperone FACT is essential for chromatin organization and stem cell identity, yet the sequence of events through which FACT maintains chromatin integrity remains unclear. We generate a high-resolution temporal map of events leading to chromatin destabilization and cell identity loss in murine embryonic stem cells following dTAG-mediated depletion of FACT. Loss of FACT initiates a rapid cascade, with nucleosome phasing disruption and reduced H3K4me3 beginning within 10 minutes in a transcription-dependent manner. This architectural destabilization enables pluripotency transcription factors to ectopically occupy gene bodies. FACT loss results in RNA Polymerase II accumulation within 30 minutes and altered H3K36me3 deposition preceding a global transcriptional collapse at 2 hours of FACT depletion. FACT restoration fails to rescue these defects, demonstrating they are largely irreversible. Our findings define a temporal hierarchy in which FACT loss drives progressive deterioration of chromatin architecture, leading to transcriptional collapse in stem cells.

The era of global green norms and business competitiveness encourages global companies to increase marketing capability, which has an impact on marketing performance. This research examines the gaps in global green norms, which often have consequences for investment in innovation and have an impact on profitability. This research proposes green dynamic marketing capability as a strategic resource for global companies to survive and continue to improve their competitiveness. Using panel data regression with intervening variables, a study was conducted on the variables of organizational learning, green organizational identity, green innovation, green marketing and marketing performance. 40 global companies in Clean200 were used as samples. Data taken from Refinitiv Eikon Thomson Reuters and Annual Report over the period of 2019–2023. The results show that: (1) organizational learning and green organizational identity have an effect on green innovation; (2) the mediating role of green marketing in values transformation of green innovation has an impact on marketing performance; and (2) green innovation has been shown to have a negative direct effect on marketing performance. The results clarify the framework of green dynamic marketing capabilities as a process of value transformation of dynamic marketing capabilities to improve marketing performance.

This study aims to examine the mediating role of innovation in the relationship between organizational policy and organizational identification on lecturer performance at Muhammadiyah and ‘Aisyiyah Universities in West Kalimantan, Indonesia. A quantitative survey approach was employed, with data collected through questionnaires distributed to permanent lecturers. The population consisted of 221 lecturers across three institutions, and 100 respondents were selected using quota sampling to ensure proportional representation. Data were analyzed using statistical regression and mediation analysis techniques. The findings reveal that organizational policy has a positive and significant effect on innovation and lecturer performance. Organizational identification positively influences lecturer performance but shows a negative effect on innovation. Innovation itself has a positive effect on lecturer performance. However, mediation analysis indicates that innovation does not mediate the relationship between organizational policy and lecturer performance, nor between organizational identification and lecturer performance. These results suggest that improving lecturer performance requires strengthening organizational policies that directly enhance performance and fostering well-managed organizational identification. Although innovation contributes positively to performance, its mediating role remains limited. This study offers a comprehensive model integrating organizational policy, organizational identification, and innovation within Islamic-based higher education institutions, providing new insights into performance enhancement strategies in religious-based universities.

The aim of this research is to examine the digital communication practices employed by museums in Greece to promote their activities to the public. It explores the role and brand identity of cultural organizations within the broader Greek cultural industries, aiming to understand how cultural institutions integrate digital marketing practices into their communication strategies. The main objective, through interviews conducted with museum communication professionals, is to investigate how augmented reality (AR) practices, as a dynamic intersection of technology and human values, are perceived by museums and how their implementation can enhance the visitor experience and create added value in cultural services. Additionally, the study examines how digital content production is influenced by employees’ digital literacy levels, the technological requirements of different communication platforms, and the core values of museums. To provide a comprehensive analysis, specific case studies from cultural institutions are examined.

Organizational Identification (OI) plays a central role in shaping employees’ attitudes, behaviors, and attachment to organizations. While prior research has extensively examined the consequences of organizational identification, considerably less attention has been devoted to understanding how identification itself is formed. Addressing this theoretical imbalance, the present study conceptualizes organizational identification as a focal outcome shaped by credibility-based organizational and supervisory cues. Drawing on social identity theory, we develop and test an integrative multilevel model that examines the joint effects of organizational-level legitimacy signals—corporate reputation and corporate social responsibility—and supervisor-level relational mechanisms—ethical leadership and perceived supervisor support—on organizational identification. Survey data were collected from employees working in privately owned organizations in Mongolia, a post-socialist and transitional economy characterized by institutional change and evolving managerial norms. Regression analyses indicate that ethical leadership, perceived supervisor support, corporate reputation, and corporate social responsibility each exert significant positive effects on organizational identification. Importantly, the findings demonstrate that organizational-level and supervisor-level antecedents operate in combination rather than isolation, underscoring the multilevel and credibility-driven nature of identification formation. By positioning organizational identification as a focal outcome rather than merely a mediating mechanism, this study advances organizational identification theory and extends social identity theory to an underexplored institutional context. The findings further highlight the strategic importance of ethical leadership, relational trust, and organizational legitimacy for fostering durable employee attachment in emerging and transitional economies.

Using an original dataset of 91 years of the Fire Brigades Union’s journal, The Firefighter , we use text mining to analyse changes in how the union discusses class. We show that where class was once a central discourse within the union, it is now rarely mentioned. We attempt to show why this has occurred, connecting these results to the broader debate in sociology concerning whether class identities are declining. We argue that while class remains a core part of the union’s organisational identity, the decline of class rhetoric results primarily from political change. In particular, we argue that the progressive marginalisation of traditional working-class political rhetoric by the Labour Party has strongly influenced how unions talk about social class. We argue that these findings have important implications for our understanding of class politics in contemporary Britain and the role of class identities in union renewal.

To explore the effects of organisational orientation in predicting employee unethical pro-organisational behaviour (UPB), this meta-analysis classified organisational orientation into organisational attraction orientation (OAO) and organisational stress orientation (OSO). The meta-analysis results of 410 studies with a total sample size of 140,808 indicate that OAO and OSO, respectively, have a significant positive effect on employee UPB. Structural equation modelling revealed that organisational identification significantly mediated the relationship between OAO and employee UPB, while moral disengagement significantly mediated the relationship between OSO and employee UPB. Organisational identification has stronger explanatory power for the relationship between OAO and UPB than moral disengagement, while moral disengagement has stronger explanatory power for the relationship between OSO and UPB than organisational identification. The moderating effects of indulgence culture and research design between OSO and UPB are significant. This paper contributes to the understanding of the complex mechanisms and boundary conditions of OAO and OSO on employee UPB.

Visual puns are frequently used in logos to enhance organisational recognition and memorability. Against this backdrop, the present study investigates how the interplay between visual puns and verbal messages promotes viewers’ reception of logos from South African sustainable organisations. Drawing on the extended relevance theory and social semiotics, the findings reveal that the resolution of incongruity in visual puns necessitates a switch between visual and verbal modes for viewers to understand the informative and affective intentions of communicators. The explicit verbal cues used in logos are more conducive to boosting contextual effects than implicit cues. Moreover, logos using iconic visual-verbal relations, as opposed to indexical or symbolic ones, require less processing effort, thereby increasing relevance. This suggests that such strategies improve semiotic cohesion, which is crucial for constructing the identity of sustainable organisations.

ABSTRACT Co-production is a crucial mechanism for implementing public policy and enhancing service delivery, heavily relying on citizen participation. However, the influence of organizational reputation—an intangible asset in the public sector—on citizens’ willingness to engage in co-production remains underexplored. This study introduces organizational identification as a mediator and self-efficacy as a moderator to examine this relationship. Using a two-experiment design, the findings reveal: (1) citizens show a higher willingness to co-produce with public organizations that possess a positive reputation; (2) organizational reputation influences co-production willingness both directly and indirectly through organizational identification; (3) self-efficacy moderates this effect, with higher self-efficacy linked to greater willingness. This study expands the theoretical understanding of co-production and offers practical insights for fostering citizen engagement in public service.

Bergmann glia (BG) are a specialized glial population essential for cerebellar development, yet their developmental timeline and molecular identity in the human cerebellum remain poorly understood. Here, we combined detailed histopathological analysis with spatial transcriptomics and single-nucleus RNA sequencing to generate a developmental atlas of human cerebellar BG. Histology revealed that BG emerge around 11 postconception weeks (PCW), initially serving as a scaffold for Purkinje cells (PCs) migrating into the PC layer of the cerebellar cortex. Following the establishment of a multilayered PC arrangement, BG form a distinct parallel layer separated from the PCs by the lamina dissecans (LD), with both layers merging in the third trimester. This developmental sequence challenges earlier studies that suggested BG appear late in the third trimester. Comparative histology in mice, ferrets, and marmosets indicates that this trilaminar organization, including the LD, is likely unique to humans. Integration of spatial and single-nucleus transcriptomic datasets identified an ASCL1+ PTF1A+ ventricular zone progenitor cluster giving rise to BG, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes. Pseudotime analyses delineated three gliogenic lineages and revealed two temporally and transcriptionally distinct BG populations, emerging at 11-12PCW and 17PCW, suggesting multiphasic BG ontogeny. Together, these multimodal data link cellular lineage, spatial organization, and molecular identity of human cerebellar glia, providing a framework for future studies on the role of BG in cerebellar function and their potential contributions to vulnerability in neurodevelopmental disorders.

This qualitative study examines the professional experiences of Arab educational psychologists working in East Jerusalem within a binational municipal psychological service during the months following the events of October 7, 2023. Operating under conditions of intensified socio-political tension, these psychologists were required to navigate complex intersections of personal, national, professional, and organizational identities. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with five Arab educational psychologists, the study explores how heightened insecurity, fear of expression, and political polarization shaped their therapeutic work, relationships with clients and colleagues, and sense of organizational belonging. Thematic analysis revealed processes of internal and organizational splitting, characterized by ambivalence between loyalty to the municipal system and identification with local professional teams, alongside experiences of silencing and professional uncertainty. At the same time, participants described adaptive coping and healing processes that emerged within their home stations, including strengthened peer support, renewed professional meaning, and locally grounded practices that enhanced resilience under chronic stress. A reflexive component authored by senior organizational figures complements the empirical findings and situates them within broader psychodynamic and organizational perspectives. The findings highlight the challenges faced by minority professionals working within state institutions during periods of acute socio-political conflict and underscore the importance of organizational containment, culturally attuned support structures, and reflexive leadership in sustaining professional functioning. Beyond the specific geopolitical context, the study contributes to understanding how professional identity and organizational dynamics are reshaped under conditions of prolonged collective stress.

ABSTRACT Religious entrepreneurial organizations face a distinctive dialectical tension as they negotiate between honouring and preserving their religious traditions while responding to entrepreneurial imperatives. Yet, our understanding of how these tensions impact organizational identity negotiation in such organizations remains limited. Drawing on qualitative data collected through in-depth interviews with a religious entrepreneurial organization, wholly owned by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and supplemented with focus groups consisting of co-religionists, we examine organizational identity dynamics. We demonstrate how tradition functions as an ‘enabling constraint’ that simultaneously limits and facilitates organizational identity negotiation. Our study offers two main contributions. First, it suggests that the concept of traditions, as we use it, presents a more plausible and dynamic view of how macro-level traditions influence and are influenced by organizations. Tradition-oriented organizations are not passive recipients of inherited beliefs and values; they can actively participate in the evolution and development of traditions. Second, our study demonstrates that traditions shape organizational identity elasticity through the three pillars of endurance, centrality and distinctiveness.

Purpose This study aims to investigate how Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) reporting is used by a hybrid municipally owned enterprise (MOE) in Italy to balance public and private expectations in complex institutional settings. It analyses the selection, framing and justification of reported SDGs to show how disclosures help manage governance tensions and a dual organisational identity. Rather than assessing performance, this study focuses on how reporting practices are mobilised to construct, communicate and reconcile hybrid priorities. Design/methodology/approach This research adopts a qualitative single case study design, relying on semi-structured interviews with senior managers and document analyses of sustainability reports and financial statements from 2022 to 2023. The company was selected for its voluntary engagement in SDG reporting and exposure to hybrid tensions. Findings Results show that SDG reporting in the company has evolved from symbolic, narrative-driven disclosures to more structured practices that align with strategic planning and resource allocation. Between 2022 and 2023, the number of reported SDGs increased; references to sub-targets became more explicit; and links between reporting, financial decisions and stakeholder expectations were strengthened. Reporting supported internal co-ordination, identity construction and the negotiation of key paradoxes. Examples of such paradoxes included autonomy versus control and public value versus efficiency. Practical implications This study contributes to paradox theory by demonstrating how SDG reporting can serve as a sensemaking and governance tool in hybrid settings. It also extends the literature on public-sector sustainability reporting by showing how global frameworks can be adapted locally to manage complexity. Practically, this study highlights the value of embedding reporting in a company’s strategic and operational processes to reinforce legitimacy and coherence. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first empirical studies on SDG reporting by an Italian MOE. The findings offer novel insights into hybrid accountability and sustainability governance under voluntary disclosure regimes.