This study reconceptualizes collective identity from a communication perspective using a constitutive model of communication as a theoretical framework. A longitudinal case study is used to explain the complications and inaction of a social services interorganizational collaboration as a lack of collective identity, also tracing the emergence of a new collective identity. Collective identity is theorized as an authoritative text that emerges through communicative practice and is drawn on for certain strategic ends. A communicative model of organizational constitution—based on the ‘Montreal School’ theory of coorientation—shows how textual representations of situated conversations can gain authority through abstraction and reification, providing a mechanism to organize and direct the voluntary actions of diverse stakeholders. Implications for theory and research are discussed.
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