Identity change in organizations: a philosophical exposition

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to describe how organization’s identity changes in the course of time. Focus is on project-based companies.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper first highlights the concept of process thinking. Then follow descriptions of notions of identity and identity change as change processes. After that, three different identity change processes – negotiation of meaning, lauguaging and interaction – are illustrated. And after that follows the main content of the paper, namely, descriptions of identity changes in organizations. These descriptions focus on two approaches: “Unintentional identity change” and “Intentional identity change”.

Findings

Identity provides organizations with powerful understanding of theories of who they are. These understandings guide subsequent resource allocation decisions. Identity change in an organization can be categorized into unintentional and intentional identity changes. Unintentional identity changes takes place through the previously mentioned three processes. Instead, intentional identity change takes place through strategy planning.

Practical implications

Finding a viable view through which organizations can understand how their identities chance in the course of time is a very important issue. Therefore, in this paper, the authors have sought to offer a brief illustration of this area.

Originality/value

In the literature, rather, a lot of attention has been focused on how identities are constructed, and what is their role, for example, in the companies’ strategic management and marketing. However, less attention has been paid to how identities are involved in organizations’ change processes. That is why the goal of this paper is to address that lack by studying identity change in organizations.

Citation

Koskinen, K.U. (2015), "Identity change in organizations: a philosophical exposition", International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Vol. 23 No. 4, pp. 621-636. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOA-03-2012-0564