Recent studies have established a relationship between social media use and organizational identification, but scholars have yet to understand how communication through social media might foster individuals’ identification. To fill that gap, I use structuration theory to investigate the identification process by analyzing an organizational hashtag: #EXSTpride. Framed by three key elements of the structurational model of identification—duality of structure, situated activity, and regionalization of structures—this qualitative analysis of posts using #EXSTpride reveals the reciprocal relationship between identity (structure) and identification (system). I conclude by (a) theorizing organizational hashtags as house organs 2.0 and (b) proffering practical and discursive consciousness to the structurational model of identification.
AlbertS.WhettenD. (1985). Organizational identity. Research in Organizational Behavior, 7(■■■), 263–295.
2.
AlbuO. B.EtterM. (2016). Hypertextuality and social media: A study of the constitutive and paradoxical implications of organizational Twitter use. Management Communication Quarterly, 30(1), 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318915601161.
3.
BartelsJ.Van VuurenM.OuwerkerkJ. W. (2014). My colleagues are my friends: The role of Facebook contacts in employee identification. Management Communication Quarterly, 33(3), 307–328. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318919837944.
4.
ChaputM.BrummansB. H. J. M.CoorenF. (2011). The role of organizational identification in the communicative constitution of an organization: A study of consubstantialization in a young political party. Management Communication Quarterly, 25(2), 252–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318910386719.
5.
CharmazK. (2014). Constructing grounded theory (2nd ed.). Sage.
6.
CheneyG. (1983). The rhetoric of identification and the study of organizational communication. Quarterly Journal of Speech, 69(2), 143–158. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335638309383643.
7.
CheneyG.ChristensenL. T.DaileyS. L. (2013). Communicating identity and identification in and around organizations. In PutnamL. L.MumbyD. K. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organizational communication (3rd ed.). Sage.
8.
CorbinJ.StraussA. (2008). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory. Sage.
9.
DiSanzaJ. R.BullisC. (1999). Everybody identifies with Smokey the Bear”: Employee responses to newsletter identification inducements at the U.S. Forest Service. Management Communication Quarterly, 12(3), 347–399. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318999123001.
10.
FieselerC.MeckelM.RanziniG. (2014). Professional personae - How organizational identification shapes online identity in the workplace. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 20(2), 153–170. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcc4.12103.
11.
GibbsJ. L.RiceR. E.KirkwoodG. L. (2021). Digital discipline: Theorizing concertive control in online communitiesCommunication Theory. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtab017.
12.
GiddensA. (1984). The constitution of society. University of California Press.
13.
KirkwoodG. L.PayneH. J.MazerJ. P. (2019). Collective trolling as a form of organizational resistance: Analysis of the #Justiceforbradswife Twitter campaign. Communication Studies, 70(3), 332–351. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2019.1610015.
14.
MarwickA. E.boydd. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media and Society, 13(1), 114–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313.
15.
MeisenbachR. J.KramerM. W. (2014). Exploring nested identities: Voluntary membership, social category identity, and identification in a community choir. Management Communication Quarterly, 28(2), 187–213. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318914524059.
ScottC. R.CormanS. R.CheneyG. (1998). Development of a structurational model of identification in the organization. Communication Theory, 8(3), 298–336. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.1998.tb00223.x.
18.
ScottC. R.StephensK. K. (2009). It depends on who you're talking to. . .: Predictors and outcomes of situated measures of organizational identification. Western Journal of Communication, 73(4), 370–394. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570310903279075.
StephensK. K.DaileyS. L. (2012). Situated organizational identification in newcomers: Impacts of preentry organizational exposure. Management Communication Quarterly, 26(3), 404–422. https://doi.org/10.1177/0893318912440179.
21.
Thom-SantelliJ.MillenD. R.GergleD. (2011). Organizational acculturation and social networking. Proceedings of computer supported cooperative work and social computing. CSCW. https://doi.org/10.1145/1958824.1958871.
22.
TracyS. J. (2020). Qualitative research methods: Collecting evidence, crafting analysis, communicating impact. John Wiley & Sons.
23.
van ZoonenW.TreemJ. W. (2019). The role of organizational identification and the desire to succeed in employees’ use of personal twitter accounts for work. Computers in Human Behavior, 100(2), 26–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.06.008.
