There are few empirical studies that explore how managers at senior executive levels of international nongovernmental development organizations (INGDOs) conciliate multiple identities with purposeful strategic change. This article offers rich excerpts from high-level strategy meetings in two Member Organizations of a major INGDO and explores deeply embedded tensions in its organizational identity. In the case study, there were several identities in play simultaneously—“we attend to donors,” “we attend to beneficiaries,” “we attend to the confederation,” and finally “we attend to ourselves.” Strategic planning meetings were therefore fraught with tension over the balance between generalist versus specialist activities, organizational survival, autonomy, and image. Managers reconciled these tensions by creating a meta-identity of a “strategic organization”: “We may attend to different things but we attend to all of these things in a purposeful and directed way.” As aid organizations become ever larger and more complex, there is a need for a research agenda that explores how their identities coexist, are constructed, reconstructed, and managed in practice and the implication for their strategies.
AlbertS.WhettenD. (1985). Organizational identity. In CummingsL. L.ShawB. M. (Eds.), Research in organizational behaviour (Vol. 6) Greenwich, CT: JAI.
2.
AlexanderV. D. (1998). Environmental constraints and organizational strategies: Complexity, conflict and coping in the nonprofit sector. In PowellW. W.ClemensE. S. (Eds.), Private action and the public good (pp. 272-290). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
3.
BarneyJ. (2001). Is the resource-based view a useful perspective for strategic management research? Yes. Academy of Management Review, 21, 41-56.
4.
BarneyJ. B.BundersonJ. S.ForemanP.GustafsonL. T.HuffA. S.MartinsL. L.StimpertJ. L. (1998). A strategy conversation on the topic of organizational identity. In WhettenD. A.GodfreyP. C. (Eds.), Identity in organizations: Building theory through conversations (pp. 99-170). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
5.
BoliJ. (2006). International non-governmental organizations, in the non-profit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
ChabbottC. (1999). Development INGOs. In BoliJ.ThomasG. M. (Eds.), Constructing world culture: International nongovernmental organizations since 1875 (pp. 222-248). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
FrutteroA.GauriV. (2005). The strategic choices of NGOs: Location decisions in rural Bangladesh. Journal of Development Studies, 41, 759-787.
13.
GalaskiewiczJ.BielefeldW. (2003). The behaviour of organizations. In AnheierH.Ben-nerA. (Eds.), The study of the nonprofit enterprise: Theories and approaches (pp. 205-239). New York, NY: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
14.
Golden-BiddleK.RaoH. (1997). Breaches in the boardroom: Organizational identity and conflicts of commitment in a nonprofit organization. Organization Science, 8, 593-611.
15.
HatchM. J.SchultzM. (2002). The dynamics of organizational identity. Human Relations, 55, 989-1018.
16.
HilhorstD. (2003). The real world of NGOs: Discourses, diversity and development. London, UK: Zed Books.
17.
HoldenS. (2003). AIDS on the agenda: Adapting development and humanitarian programme to meet the challenge of HIV/AIDS. Oxford, UK: Oxfam/ActionAid/Save the Children.
18.
JarzabkowskiP. (2005). Strategy as practice: An activity based approach. London, UK: SAGE.
19.
KushnerR. J.PooleP. P. (1996). Exploring structure-effectiveness relationships in nonprofit arts organisations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 7, 119-136.
20.
LangleyA. (1999). Strategies for theorizing from process data. Academy of Management Review, 24, 691-710.
21.
LeachE. (1954). Political systems of Highland Burma. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
22.
LewisD. (2007). The management of nongovernmental development organizations: An introduction (2nd ed.). London, UK: Routledge.
23.
LewisD.BebbingtonA. J.BatterburyS. P. J.ShahA.OlsonE.SiddiqiM. S.DuvallS. (2003). Practice, power and meaning: Frameworks for studying organizational culture in multi-agency rural development projects. Journal of International Development, 15, 541-557.
24.
LindenbergM. (2001). Are we at the cutting edge or the blunt edge? Improving NGO organizational performance with private and public sector strategic management frameworks. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 11, 247-270.
25.
LindenbergM.BryantC. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
26.
ListerS. (2003). NGO legitimacy: Technical issue or social construct?Critique of Anthropology, 23, 175-192.
27.
LoflandJ.LoflandL. H. (1984). Analyzing social settings: A guide to qualitative observation and analysis (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
28.
MarkowitzL. (2001). Finding the field: Notes on the ethnography of NGOs. Human Organization, 60, 40-46.
29.
MarshallC.RossmanG. B. (2006). Designing qualitative research (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
30.
MilesM. B.HubermanA. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis—An expanded sourcebook (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
31.
MosseD. (2005). Cultivating development: An ethnography of aid policy and practice. London, UK: Pluto Press.
32.
MosseD.LewisD. (Eds.). (2006). Development brokers and translators: The ethnography of aid and agencies. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
PentlandB. T. (1995). Grammatical models of organisational processes. Organisation Science, 6, 541-556.
35.
PhillsJ. A. (2005). Integrating mission and strategy in nonprofit organizations. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
36.
PorterM. E. (1996). What is strategy?Harvard Business Review, 74(6), 61-78.
37.
PorterM. E.KramerM. R. (1999). Philanthropy’s new agenda: Creating value. Harvard Business Review, 77, 121-130.
38.
PowellW. W.DiMaggioP. J. (1991). The new institutionalism in organisational analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
39.
PrattM. G.ForemanP. O. (2000). Classifying managerial responses to multiple organizational identities. Academy of Management Review, 25, 18-42.
40.
Quarles van UffordP.GiriA. K.MosseD. (2003). Interventions in development: Towards a new moral understanding of our experiences and an agenda for the future. In Quarles van UffordP.GiriA. K. (Eds.), A moral critique of development: In search of global responsibilities (pp. 3-41). London, UK: Routledge.
41.
SalamonL. M. (1999). America’s nonprofit sector: A primer (2nd ed.). New York, NY: The Foundation Centre.
42.
SchwartzmanH. B. (1993). Ethnography in organizations. Qualitative research methods series (Vol. 27). Newbury Park, CA: SAGE.
43.
StimpertJ. L.GustafsonL. T.SarasonY. (1998). Organizational identity within the strategic management conversation: Contributions and assumptions. In WhettenD. A.GodfreyP. C. (Eds.), Identity in organizations: Building theory through conversations (pp. 83-99). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
44.
StoneM. M. (1989). Planning as strategy in nonprofit organizations: An exploratory study. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 18, 297-315.
45.
StoneM. M.BigelowB.CrittendenW. (1999). Research on strategic management in nonprofit organizations: Synthesis, analysis and future directions. Administration & Society, 31, 378-423.
46.
StoneM. M.BrushC. G. (1996). Planning in ambiguous contexts: The dilemma of meeting needs for commitment and demands for legitimacy. Strategic Management Journal, 17, 633-652.
47.
StoneM. M.BrysonJ. M. (2000). Strategic management in the nonprofit sector. In RabinJ.MillerG.HildrethW. B. (Eds.), Handbook of strategic manage (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Marcel Dekker. pp. 749-763.
48.
StoneM. M.CrittendenW. (1993). A guide to journal articles on strategic management in nonprofit organizations, 1977-1993. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 4, 193-213.
49.
StraussA.CorbinJ. (1998). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
50.
WallaceT.BornsteinL.ChapmanJ. (2006). The aid chain: Coercion and commitment in development NGOs. Rugby, UK: Practical Action.
51.
WallaceT.CrowtherS.ShepherdA. (1997). Standardising development: Influences on UK NGOs’ policies and procedures. Oxford, UK: Worldview.
52.
WhettenD. (2006). Albert and Whetten revisited: Strengthening the concept of organizational identity. Journal of Management Inquiry, 15, 219-234.
53.
WhittingtonR. (1993). What is strategy and does it matter?London, UK: International Thomson Business Press.
54.
YoungD. R. (2001). Organizational identity in nonprofit organizations: Strategic and structural implications. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 12, 139-157.
55.
YoungD. R. (Ed.). (2004). Effective economic decision making by nonprofit organizations. New York, NY: Foundation Centre/National Centre on Nonprofit Enterprise.
