Organizational identification is conventionally defined as a sense of oneness. Yet this is static and inhibits a process view of identification, in which organizational identity is continuously adjusted. Most studies of organizational identification are of members and not stakeholders, despite evidence that suggests that stakeholders have a significant role and that organizational identity and image are reciprocally connected. We ask the question: how is organizational identification discursively constructed? We suggest that stakeholders play a key role in organizational identification processes. The forward movement of the process, from Performative to Instrumental to Interactional to Reciprocal, is one of reinforcement in which soft power enrols a virtuous circle of willing support. The backward movement of the process, from Reciprocal to Interactional to Instrumental to Performative, is one of functional justification involving hard power as coercion by communicating the organization’s expectations to the individual.
AinsworthSHardyC (2004) Discourse and identities. In: GrantDHardyCOswickCPutnamL (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Organizational Discourse. London: SAGE, 153–174.
2.
AlbertSWhettenDA (1985) Organizational identity. Research in Organizational Behavior7: 263–295.
3.
AlbertSAshforthBEBarkerJRet al. (1998) Identification with organizations. In: WhettenDAGodfreyPC (eds) Identity in Organizations: Building Theory through Conversations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 209–272.
4.
AlvessonMWillmottH (2002) Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies39(5): 619–644.
5.
AntebyM (2008) Identity incentives as an engaging form of control: Revisiting leniencies in an aeronautic plant. Organization Science19(2): 202–220.
6.
AshforthBEMaelF (1989) Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review14(1): 20–39.
7.
AshforthBEHarrisonSHCorleyKG (2008) Identification in organizations: An examination of four fundamental questions. Journal of Management34(3): 325–374.
AshforthBESchinoffBSRogersKM (2016) ‘I identify with her’, ‘I identify with him’: Unpacking the dynamics of personal identification in organizations. Academy of Management Review41(1): 28–60.
10.
BarbulescuRIbarraH (2007) Identity as narrative: Overcoming identity gaps during work role transitions. Working paper, INSEAD, France.
11.
BardonTJosserandEVillesècheF (2015) Beyond nostalgia: Identity work in corporate alumni networks. Human Relations68(4): 583–606.
12.
BeningtonJHartleyJ (2004) Co-research: Insider/outsider teams for organizational research. In: CassellCSymonG (eds) Essential Guide to Qualitative Methods in Organizational Research. London: SAGE, 361–371.
13.
BesharovML (2014) The relational ecology of identification: How organizational identification emerges when individuals hold divergent values. Academy of Management Review57(5): 1485–1512.
14.
BhattacharyaCBSenS (2003) Consumer-company identification: A framework for understanding consumers’ relationships with companies. Journal of Marketing67(2): 76–88.
15.
BojeDM (1991) The Storytelling Organization: A study of story performance in an office-supply firm. Administrative Science Quarterly36: 106–126.
16.
BojeDM (2001) Narrative methods for organizational and communication research. London: SAGE.
17.
BrownAD (2006) A narrative approach to collective identities. Journal of Management Studies43(4): 731–753.
18.
BrownADHumphreysM (2002) Nostalgia and the narrativization of identity: A Turkish case study. British Journal of Management13(2): 141–159.
19.
BrunerJ (1990) Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
20.
BurkeK (1969) A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
21.
CardadorMTPrattMG (2006) Identification management and its bases: Bridging management and marketing perspectives through a focus on affiliation dimensions. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science34(2): 174–184.
22.
CarlsenA (2006) Organizational becoming as dialogic imagination of practice: The case of the indomitable Gauls. Organization Science17: 132–149.
23.
ChaputMBrummansBHJMCoorenF (2011) The role of organizational identification in the communicative constitution of an organization: A study of consubstantialization in a young political party. Management Communication Quarterly25(2): 252–282.
24.
CheneyGTompkinsPK (1987) Coming to terms with organizational identification and commitment. Central States Speech Journal 38(Spring): 1–15.
25.
ChreimS (2002) Influencing organizational identification during major change: A communication-based perspective. Human Relations55(9): 1117–1138.
26.
CornelissenJP (2008) Metonymy in language about organizations: A corpus-based study of company names. Journal of Management Studies45(1): 79–97.
27.
CzarniawskaB (1997) A Narrative Approach to Organization Studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
28.
Du GayP (1996) Consumption and Identity at Work. London: SAGE.
29.
DuttonJEDukerichJM (1991) Keeping an eye on the mirror: Image and identity in organizational adaptation. Academy of Management Journal34(3): 517–554.
30.
DuttonJEDukerichJMHarquailCV (1994) Organizational images and member identification. Administrative Science Quarterly39(2): 239–263.
31.
DuttonJERobertsLMBednarJ (2010) Pathways for positive identity construction at work: Four types of positive identity and the building of social resources. Academy of Management Review35(2): 265–293.
32.
ElsbachKDKramerRM (1996) Members’ responses to organizational identity threats: Encountering and countering the Business Week rankings. Administrative Science Quarterly41(3): 442–476.
33.
ElsbachKD (1999) An expanded model of organizational identification. Research in Organizational Behavior21: 163–200.
FassinY (2012) Stakeholder management, reciprocity and stakeholder responsibility. Journal of Business Ethics109(1): 83–96.
36.
FiolCM (2002) Capitalizing on paradox: The role of language in transforming organizational identities. Organization Science13(6): 653–666.
37.
FordJDFordLW (1995) The role of conversations in producing intentional change in organizations. Academy of Management Review20: 541–570.
38.
GalvinBMLangeDAshforthBE (2015) Narcissistic organizational identification: Seeing oneself as central to the organization’s identity. Academy of Management Review40(2): 163–181.
39.
GiddensA (1984) The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.
40.
GioiaDASchultzMCorleyKG (2000) Organizational identity, image and adaptive instability. Academy of Management Review25(1): 63–81.
41.
GlaeserA (2000) Divided in Unity: Identity, Germany and the Berlin Police. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
42.
GossettLM (2006) Falling between the cracks: Control and communication challenges of a temporary workforce. Management Communication Quarterly19(3): 376–415.
43.
GummersonE (1991) Qualitative Methods in Management Research. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
44.
HarquailCVKingWA (2010) Construing organizational identity: The role of embodied cognition. Organization Studies31(12): 1619–1648.
45.
HekmanDRBigleyGASteensmaHKHerefordJ (2009) Combined effects of organizational and professional identification on the reciprocity dynamic for professional employees. Academy of Management Journal52(3): 506–526.
46.
HumberdBKRouseED (2016) Seeing you in me and me in you: Personal identification in the phases of mentoring relationships. Academy of Management Review41(3): 435–455.
47.
HumphreysMBrownAD (2002) Narratives of organizational identity and identification: A case study of hegemony and resistance. Organization Studies23(3): 421–447.
48.
IbarraH (1999) Provisional selves: Eexperimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation. Administrative Science Quarterly44(4): 764–791.
49.
IbarraHBarbalescuR (2010) Identity as narrative: prevalence, effectiveness, and consequences of narrative identity work in macro work role transitions. Academy of Management Review35(1): 135–154.
50.
IbarraHPetriglieriJL (2010) Identity work and play. Journal of Organizational Change Management23(1): 10–25.
51.
KorschunD (2015) Boundary-spanning employees and relationships with external stakeholders: A social identity approach. Academy of Management Review40(4): 611–629.
52.
KuhnT (2008) A communicative theory of the firm: Developing an alternative perspective on intra-organizational power and stakeholder relationships. Organization Studies29(8–9): 1227–1254.
53.
LammersJCAtoubaYLCarlsonEJ (2013) Which identities matter? A mixed-method study of group, organizational, and professional identities and their relationship to burnout. Management Communication Quarterly27(4): 503–536.
54.
LangleyASmallmanCTsoukasHVan de VenA (2013) Process studies of change in organization and management: Unveiling temporality, activity, and flow. Academy of Management Journal56(1): 1–13.
55.
LarsonGSPepperGL (2003) Strategies for managing multiple organizational identifications: A case of competing identities. Management Communication Quarterly16(4): 528–557.
56.
LawrenceTBMaitlisS (2012) Care and possibility: Enacting an ethic of care through narrative practice. Academy of Management Review37(4): 641–663.
57.
LeavittKReynoldsSBarnesCet al. (2012) Different hats, different obligations: Plural occupational identities and situated moral judgments. Academy of Management Journal55(6): 1316–1333.
58.
LeavittKSlussDM (2015) Lying for who we are: An identity-based model of workplace dishonesty. Academy of Management Review40(4): 587–610.
59.
LindeC (1993) Life Stories: The Creation of Coherence. New York: Oxford University Press.
60.
LounsburyMGlynnMA (2001) Cultural entrepreneurship: Stories, legitimacy and the acquisition of resources. Strategic Management Journal22: 545–564.
61.
McAdamsDPJosselsonRLieblichA (eds) (2001) Turns in the Road: Narrative Studies of Lives in Transition. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
62.
McAdamsDPJosselsonRLieblichA (eds) (2006) Identity and Story: Creating Self in Narrative. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
63.
MaelFAshforthBE (1992) Alumni and their alma mater: A partial test of the reformulated model of organizational identification. Journal of Organizational Behavior133: 103–123.
64.
MeisenbachRJKramerMW (2014) Exploring nested identities: Voluntary membership, social category identity, and identification in a community choir. Management Communication Quarterly28(2): 187–213.
65.
MeisterAJehnKAThatcherSMB (2014) Feeling misidentified: The consequences of internal identity asymmetries for individuals at work. Academy of Management Review39(4): 488–512.
66.
MitchellRKAgleBRWoodDW (1997) Toward a theory of stakeholder identification and salience: Defining the principle of who and what really counts. Academy of Management Review22(4): 853–886.
67.
PatvardhanSDGioiaDAHamiltonAL (2015) Weathering a meta-level identity crisis: Forging a coherent collective identity for an emerging field. Academy of Management Journal58(2): 405–435.
68.
PetriglieriJL (2011) Under threat: Responses to the consequences of threats to individuals’ identities. Academy of Management Review36(4): 641–662.
69.
PettigrewAM (1992) The character and significance of strategy process research. Strategic Management Journal13(S2): 5–16.
70.
PhillipsNHardyC (2002) Discourse Analysis: Investigating Processes of Social Construction. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
71.
PrattMG (1998) To be or not to be: Central questions in organizational identification. In: WhettenDAGodfreyP (eds) Identity in Organizations: Developing Theory through Conversations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 171–208.
72.
PrattMG (2000) The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: Managing identification among Amway distributors. Administrative Science Quarterly45(3): 456–493.
73.
PrattMGRockmannKWKaufmannJB (2006) Constructing professional identity: The role of work and identity learning cycles in the customization of identity among medical residents. Academy of Management Journal49(2): 235–262.
74.
PressMArnouldEJ (2011) How does organizational identification form? A consumer behavior perspective. Journal of Consumer Research38(4): 650–666.
75.
PriemRLButlerJELiS (2013) Toward reimagining strategy research: Retrospection and prospection on the 2011 AMR decade award article. Academy of Management Review38(4): 471–489.
76.
RandelAEJaussiKSStandifirdSS (2009) Organizational responses to negative valuation by external stakeholders: The role of organizational identity characteristics in organizational response formulation. Business & Society48(4): 438–466.
77.
RicoeurP (1991) Life in quest of narrative. In: WoodD (ed.) On Paul Ricoeur: Narrative and Interpretation. London: Routledge.
78.
ScottCR (2013) Anonymous Agencies, Backstreet Businesses, and Covert Collectives: Rethinking Organizations in the 21st Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
79.
ScottCRStephensKK (2009) It depends on who you’re talking to … : Predictors and outcomes of situated measures of organizational identification. Western Journal of Communication73(4): 370–394.
80.
ScottCRCormanSRCheneyG (1998) Development of a structurational model of identification in the organization. Communication Theory8(3): 288–336.
81.
ScottSGLaneVR (2000) A stakeholder approach to organizational identity. Academy of Management Review25(1): 43–62.
82.
ShapiroDLHomPShenWAgarwalR (2016) How do leader departures affect subordinates’ organizational attachment? A 360-degree relational perspective. Academy of Management Review41(3): 479–502.
83.
SilvermanD (2000) Analyzing talk and text. In: DenzinNKLincolnYS (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 821–835.
84.
SimpsonBCarrollB (2008) Re-viewing ‘role’ in processes of identity construction. Organization15(1): 29–50.
85.
SlussDMPloyhartRECobbMGAshforthBE (2012) Generalizing newcomers’ relational and organizational identifications: Processes and prototypicality. Academy of Management Journal55(4): 949–975.
86.
SonensheinSDuttonJEGrantAMSpreitzerGMSutcliffeKM (2013) Growing at work: Employees’ interpretations of progressive self-change in organizations. Organization Science24(2): 552–570.
87.
StadtlerLVan WassenhoveLN (2016) Coopetition as a paradox: Integrative approaches in a multi-company, cross-sector partnership. Organization Studies37(5): 655–685.
88.
StakeRE (2000) Case studies. In: DenzinNKLincolnYS (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 435–455.
89.
StraussACorbinJ (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
90.
SveningssonSAlvessonM (2003) Managing managerial identities. Human Relations56(5): 683–706.
91.
ThatcherSMBZhuX (2006) Changing identities in a changing workplace: Identification, identity enactment, self-verification, and telecommuting. Academy of Management Review31(4): 1076–1088.
92.
WeickKE (1995) Sensemaking in Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
93.
WhittleAMuellerF (2012) Bankers in the dock: Moral storytelling in action. Human Relations65(1): 111–139.
94.
YbemaSKeenoyTOswickCet al. (2009) Articulating identities. Human Relations62(3): 299–322.
