scholarly journals Becoming through doing: How experimental spaces enable organizational identity work

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-49
Author(s):  
Neva Bojovic ◽  
Valérie Sabatier ◽  
Emmanuel Coblence
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Cognitive Tools ◽  
Social Setting ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Work Space ◽  
Organizational Identities ◽  
Magazine Publishing

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.

What is NORML? Sedimented Meanings in Ambiguous Organizational Identities

2021 ◽  
pp. 017084062110577
Author(s):  
Matthew C.B. Lyle ◽  
Ian J. Walsh ◽  
Diego M. Coraiola
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
National Organization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Organizational Identities ◽  
Key Points ◽  
Identity Threats ◽  
History Of ◽  
Identity Labels

Organizational identity scholarship has largely focused on the mutability of meanings ascribed to ambiguous identity labels. In contrast, we analyze a case study of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) to explore how leaders maintained a meaning ascribed to an ambiguous identity label amid successive identity threats. We found that heightened dissensus surrounding meanings attributed to the organization’s “reform group” label at three key points spurred theoretically similar manifestations of two processes. The first, meaning sedimentation, involved leaders invoking history to advocate for the importance of their preferred meaning while mulling the inclusion of others. The second, reconstructing the past, occurred as leaders and members alike offered narratives that obscured the history of disavowed meanings while sharing new memories of those they prioritized. Our work complements research on identity change by drawing attention to the processes by which meaning(s) underlying ambiguous identity labels might survive.

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

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-105
Author(s):  
David Oliver ◽  
Heather C Vough
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Process Model ◽  
De Novo ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Strategic Decision ◽  
Strategic Decision Making ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Important Concern ◽  
New Firm

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.

scholarly journals Invoking Alphonse: The founder figure as a historical resource for organizational identity work

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (12) ◽  
pp. 1685-1708 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joëlle Basque ◽  
Ann Langley
Keyword(s):  
Identity Construction ◽  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Dynamic Perspective ◽  
Identity Markers ◽  
Organizational Identity Construction

There has been growing interest in the rhetorical use of history to express organizational identity claims. Yet the evolving role of the founder figure in managerial accounts has not so far received specific attention. In this study, we examine how the founder figure is used to articulate, enact, stretch, preserve or refresh expressions of organizational identity, drawing on an 80-year magazine archive of a financial cooperative. We identify five modes of founder invocation, and show how distance from founding events leads to increasing abstraction in linkages between the founder and organizational identity claims. The paper offers a dynamic perspective on the mobilization of the founder in organizational identity construction as well as an understanding of how and why founders may remain established identity markers long after their demise.

Evolving Funding Patterns of Global Programmes and Their Impacts on Governance and Operations

2019 ◽  
pp. 508-528
Author(s):  
Daniele Alesani
Keyword(s):  
Capacity Building ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Humanitarian Aid ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Humanitarian Assistance ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Programme Implementation ◽  
Performance Accountability

Macro trends in funding international aid programmes are the focus of this chapter which explains how emerging innovative financing mechanisms are contributing to shape the approach to development themes. The chapter then presents the important issue of donor-led performance accountability, in the context of a significant increase in voluntary and earmarked funding, coupled with significant competition for visibility and resources among international organizations. There are implications related to the shift in role of international organizations and the transition to an ‘indirect’ programme implementation modality, based on capacity building of developmental counterparts and cash-based humanitarian assistance. This identity change requires time and the adaptation of skills and business models. Ways forward and areas for further research are identified in relation to the drivers of collaboration and competition among international aid players. This includes increasing funding and programmatic integration between ‘development’ and ‘humanitarian’ aid and for exploiting the potential of public–private collaboration for innovative and sustainable funding for development.

Making Sense of Who We Are

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daan van Knippenberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Identity ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Role Modeling ◽  
Identity Change ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Change Perceptions ◽  
Core Role

Organizational identity—those aspects of the organization that its members perceive to be central, enduring, and distinctive—is not only an important influence on organizational behavior: it is also a social construction, and thus potentially subject to leadership to shape or change perceptions of organizational identity. This chapter presents an analysis of these leadership influences informed by social identity analyses of leadership and identity change. This analysis points to a core role of leader sensegiving—communicating the desired understanding of organizational identity—supported by other acts of leadership such as role modeling, symbolic changes, and building a coalition to advocate the envisioned identity. This analysis also highlights the role of leader group prototypicality in terms of perceived representativeness of the currently perceived as well as of the envisioned identity, both to give the leader’s identity claims the necessary credibility and to establish continuity between current and envisioned understandings of identity.

Organizational Identity and Organizational Identity Work as Valuable Analytical Resources

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony J. Watson
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Identity ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Organizational Identities ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Apparatus

“Organizational identity” is best understood, not as a phenomenon that exists in the social and organizational world, but as a concept—a tool which social scientists use to improve human beings’ understanding of how the social and organizational world “works.” Pragmatist methodological thinking is applied to the development of a formal new conceptualization of the notion of organizational identity and a concept of organizational identity work which may help future researchers, either directly or indirectly. The new apparatus builds on existing thinking and is developed in a way which avoids the metaphor-influenced tendency of organizational identity research to treat organizations in too unitary or personified a manner—a tendency which does not do justice to the fluidity, conflict, and contestation which is inherent in organizations, and arises in managerial efforts to manipulate organizational identities.

scholarly journals Occupational identities of management accountants: Situated identity regulation and work

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 67-86
Author(s):  
Rafael Heinzelmann
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Identity ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
It Systems ◽  
Management Accountants ◽  
Situated Identity

This paper investigates occupational identities of management accountants. It casts light on the identity process consisting of identity regulation, work, and self-identity, wherein organizational identity regulation is drawn to the fore. To theorize this process, the paper draws on Alvesson and Willmott's (2002) and on Giddens (1991). The accounting literature provides evidence that the role of accountants undergoes changes as a result of "new" technologies, competition, globalization and organizational managers' demands (cf. Granlund and Lukka, 1998). This paper takes a different route by focusing on how one organization fosters the controlling of occupational identities. I argue in line with others, i.e. Morales and Lambert (2013), that accounting practices are constitutive for occupational identities. However, this relationship is not straightforward. It is characterized by the tension between the actual work and the professional ideals. In order to safeguard a consistent identity accountants engage in identity work. The results show that the combination of different means of identity regulation creates a strong repressive framework for accounting practices reducing the freedom to act and judge as a professional. It contributes to a better understanding of how accountants' identities are subjected to control while simultaneously challenging the positive role associated with IT systems.

Business Model Literature Overview

2014 ◽  
pp. 79-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ales Novak
Keyword(s):  
Business Model ◽  
Financial Reporting ◽  
Business Models ◽  
Potential Role ◽  
Financial Instruments ◽  
Business Logic ◽  
Literature Overview ◽  
Ifrs 9 ◽  
Definition Of

The term ?business model' has recently attracted increased attention in the context of financial reporting and was formally introduced into the IFRS literature when IFRS 9 Financial Instruments was published in November 2009. However, IFRS 9 did not fully define the term ‘business model'. Furthermore, the literature on business models is quite diverse. It has been conducted in largely isolated fashion; therefore, no generally accepted definition of ?business model' has emerged. Therefore, a better understanding of the notion itself should be developed before further investigating its potential role within financial reporting. The aim of this paper is to highlight some of the perceived key themes and to identify other bases for grouping/organizing the literature based on business models. The contributions this paper makes to the literature are twofold: first, it complements previous review papers on business models; second, it contains a clear position on the distinction between the notions of the business model and strategy, which many authors identify as a key element in better explaining and communicating the notion of the business model. In this author's opinion, the term ‘strategy' is a dynamic and forward-looking notion, a sort of directional roadmap for future courses of action, whereas, ‘business model' is a more static notion, reflecting the conceptualisation of the company's underlying core business logic. The conclusion contains the author's thoughts on the role of the business model in financial reporting.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document