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1 – 10 of over 27000Organizations face various situations that require to give decisions. There are many factors that influence their decisions. Organizational identity is one of the factors that can…
Abstract
Purpose
Organizations face various situations that require to give decisions. There are many factors that influence their decisions. Organizational identity is one of the factors that can be used as an interpretive schema for decisions. Not only for decisions but also for recognition, legitimacy, allocating the organization among the others organizational identity is viewed as a construct that organizations want to protect. This study aims to contribute to measurement of organizational identity.
Design/methodology/approach
National, daily newspapers were chosen as sample for the study. Influence of organizational identity on decisions is highly reflective for newspapers. When they face conflicting demands, they tend not to make any concession from their identities. They want to behave in compliance with their identities. To reveal organizational identity orientation of newspapers, data were collected based on the 18 interviews with executive editors of newspapers.
Findings
Content analysis was concluded with ten categories that help in understanding organizational identity orientation. These ten categories were grouped within two broad orientations as business oriented and journalism oriented organizational identity. These categories reveal not only average organizational identity orientation of newspapers industry but also the variations in organizational identity orientation between newspapers.
Research limitations/implications
Limitation of the study is the way to reveal organizational identity orientations studied on only newspapers. Undoubtedly, using this method for other organizations that operate in different industries, contributes to the generalizability of findings.
Originality/value
Significance of the study is to reveal a method to measure organizational identity orientation based on content analysis approach.
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Jorge A. Gonzalez and Subhajit Chakraborty
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of perceived external image and similarity in values, beliefs and interests with an organization's leaders and other members on…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of perceived external image and similarity in values, beliefs and interests with an organization's leaders and other members on organizational identification.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents results of a field survey research in two non‐work organizational contexts, a professional association, and a college business fraternity. Hypotheses were tested with ordinary least squares regression and mediation analyses.
Findings
Perceived external image and perceived similarity with the organization's leaders and other members influence organizational identification. Perceived similarity partially mediates the relationship between external image and identification.
Research limitations/implications
The study implements a cross‐sectional design and relies on self‐reports. The results have important implications for organizational identification and related behaviors both in work and non‐work contexts.
Practical implications
The study presents implications for enhancing member identification with an organization, which is related to increased involvement and continued membership. A positive external image may increase the likelihood that organizational members internalize values, beliefs and interests held by the organization's leaders and other members.
Originality/value
The study is based on a model of identity orientation that differentiates across personal, relational, and collective orientations. It measures perceived similarity with social referents in values, beliefs and interests, and study traditionally overlooked non‐work contexts.
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The purpose of this paper is to add to our understanding of how external factors such as funding and external accountabilities affect the organisational inner workings, especially…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to add to our understanding of how external factors such as funding and external accountabilities affect the organisational inner workings, especially identity issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a comparative case study of two professional chamber orchestras, one in Sweden and one in the UK. The two orchestras had significantly different funding conditions and had different relations with funders and were thus exposed to different kinds of accountability dilemmas. The two organisations were studied using and ethnographically inspired approach. The developments of various parts of the organisations were studied, such as funding, management, strategy, management control and identity issues.
Findings
The paper illustrates how the solution to accountability dilemmas in an organisation can, over time, result in the protection or the dilution of a perceived organisational core and thus in an identity struggle. Especially, management has to deal with the balance between financial and operational accountability, where organisational members could perceive the decisions to be confirming or rejecting what they perceived as being the higher purpose of their work.
Practical implications
This paper may help managers become more aware of the long ranging consequences of managerial decisions and how such decisions may affect the identity orientation of organisational members.
Originality/value
The paper combines the concept of identity with the concept of accountability, something that has not been done to a large extent in previous research.
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Diya Das, Eileen Kwesiga, Shruti Sardesmukh and Norma Juma
Immigrant groups often pursue entrepreneurial endeavors in their new home country. Even though both immigrant entrepreneurship and organizational identity have received scholarly…
Abstract
Immigrant groups often pursue entrepreneurial endeavors in their new home country. Even though both immigrant entrepreneurship and organizational identity have received scholarly attention, there has been little systematic exploration of identity strategies pursued by immigrant-owned organizations. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework that draws on the concepts of liability of foreignness and social identity theory in the context of immigrant entrepreneurship. Our framework explores how immigrant entrepreneurs may negotiate identities for their firms through the development of specific identity strategies that confirm or underplay their national/ethnic identities in order to survive in their immediate environment. We develop a model that shows how these confirmations or underplaying strategies work both for firms that have an individualistic entrepreneurial orientation, as well as those with a collective/associative entrepreneurial orientation. We also suggest two contextual moderators to this relationship: (1) the image of the founder's country of origin, and (2) the presence of immigrant networks in the host country, which may alter the effectiveness of identity strategies in terms of organizational mortality outcomes.
Adela Chen and Nicholas Roberts
Practitioners and academics are starting to recognize the benefits of green IT/IS practices. Despite these benefits, this study aims to know more regarding the factors that would…
Abstract
Purpose
Practitioners and academics are starting to recognize the benefits of green IT/IS practices. Despite these benefits, this study aims to know more regarding the factors that would drive organizations to use green IT/IS practices within their IT function and across the enterprise. To further understanding in this area, this study applies a strategic cognition framework of firm responsiveness and institutional theory to determine the extent to which an organization uses green IT/IS practices in response to stakeholder concerns. This study investigates the extent to which two organizational logics – expressive and instrumental – and three institutional pressures – coercive, mimetic and normative – jointly affect an organization's use of both green IT practices and green IS practices.
Design/methodology/approach
This study tested the hypotheses with survey data collected from 306 organizations. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.
Findings
Findings support four joint effects: (1) individualistic identity orientation and coercive pressure positively affect green IT practices; (2) collectivistic identity orientation and normative pressure positively influence green IS practices; (3) cost reduction orientation and mimetic pressure positively affect green IT practices; and (4) revenue expansion orientation and normative pressure positively influence green IS practices.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the literature by providing evidence for joint drivers of green IT and green IS practices. Green IT and IS practices represent organizations' different levels of commitment to environmental sustainability and responsiveness to stakeholders (i.e. green IT/IS practices). Organizations of different expressive and instrumental orientations are attuned to institutional pressures to various degrees, which leads to different green IT/IS practices.
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Andrew Ngawenja Mzembe and Uwafiokun Idemudia
Drawing on theories of organisational identity, social exchange and stakeholder engagement, this study aims to investigate the processes and practices involved in the formation…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on theories of organisational identity, social exchange and stakeholder engagement, this study aims to investigate the processes and practices involved in the formation and shaping of identities of social enterprises (SEs) that operate in the Malawian hospitality and tourism industry.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on an interpretive research paradigm, data collected from 22 semi-structured interviews with four founders of case SEs and stakeholders, and SEs’ reports and other publicly available documents were generated and analysed following a grounded theory approach.
Findings
The authors show that the trajectory SEs followed and the exchanges that occurred with the external stakeholders allowed three out of four case SEs to swiftly re-evaluate their pre-existing identities and work towards the formation of their new identities.
Practical implications
This study provides an opportunity for policymakers and other actors in developing countries to frame and place SEs in line with the wider societal realities in such contexts. This may in turn call for policymakers to increase actors’ engagement with SEs and provide the necessary support that can allow SEs to be an effective force for the public good.
Originality/value
This paper highlights the role of exchanges with external stakeholders in identity formation and shaping within SEs in the hospitality and tourism sector in the context of institutional voids. By adopting the social exchange theory, this paper introduces a dynamic lens to identity formation and shaping and helps to explain how, across different tourism ventures, stakeholder engagement and different modes of exchange unfold in the inter-organisational and community domains. It further shows how the ventures’ value orientations on the one hand, and stakeholder engagement practices and the ensuing exchanges, on the other hand, are closely interwoven.
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Michel Anteby and Amy Wrzesniewski
Multiple forces that shape the identities of adolescents and young adults also influence their subsequent career choices. Early work experiences are key among these forces…
Abstract
Purpose
Multiple forces that shape the identities of adolescents and young adults also influence their subsequent career choices. Early work experiences are key among these forces. Recognizing this, youth service programs have emerged worldwide with the hope of shaping participants’ future trajectories through boosting engagement in civically oriented activities and work. Despite these goals, past research on these programs’ impact has yielded mixed outcomes. Our goal is to understand why this might be the case.
Design/Methodology/Approach
We rely on interview, archival, and longitudinal survey data to examine young adults’ experiences of a European youth service program.
Findings
A core feature of youth service programs, namely their dual identity of helping others (i.e., service beneficiaries) and helping oneself (i.e., participants), might partly explain the program’s mixed outcomes. We find that participants focus on one of the organization’s identities largely to the exclusion of the other, creating a dynamic in which their interactions with members who focus on the other identity create challenges and dominate their program experience, to the detriment of a focus on the organization and its goals. This suggests that a previously overlooked feature of youth service programs (i.e., their dual identity) might prove both a blessing for attracting many diverse members and a curse for achieving desired outcomes.
Originality/Value
More broadly, our results suggest that dual identity organizations might attract members focused on a select identity, but fail to imbue them with a blended identity; thus, limiting the extent to which such organizations can truly “redirect” future career choices.
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Susan C. Schneider, Patricia Garcia-Prieto Chevalier and Veronique Tran
Although there is growing acknowledgment of the business case for diversity, efforts to recognize diversity as a strategic issue and to implement diversity initiatives have often…
Abstract
Although there is growing acknowledgment of the business case for diversity, efforts to recognize diversity as a strategic issue and to implement diversity initiatives have often been thwarted. We note that diversity is a “hot” issue not only because of the increasing attention being paid by both academics and practitioners, but also because of its potential to evoke strong emotions. We argue that “diversity” makes salient different identities (organizational, group, and individual) leading to different interpretations that can evoke specific emotional and behavioral reactions. This may help to explain whether top management teams identify and invest in diversity as a strategic issue, and whether diversity initiatives are supported or resisted by different groups and individuals throughout the organization. Thus it is important for global leaders to understand the role of identities in how diversity as a strategic issue may be interpreted and responded to by key decision-makers as well as those concerned with the implementation of diversity initiatives.
This paper aims to reveal how different types of events and top management teams' (TMTs’) cognitive frames affect the generation of breakthrough innovations.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to reveal how different types of events and top management teams' (TMTs’) cognitive frames affect the generation of breakthrough innovations.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on the event system theory and upper echelon theory, this study chose a Chinese manufacturing enterprise as the case firm and conducted an exploratory single-case study to unpack how breakthrough innovation generates over time.
Findings
By conducting the in-depth case analysis, the study revealed that firms do not produce breakthrough innovation in the catch-up stage and parallel-running stage but achieve it in the leading stage. It also indicated that when facing proactive events in the catch-up stage, TMTs often adopt a contracted lens, being manifested as consistency orientation, less elastic organizational identity and narrower competitive boundaries. In addition, they tend to adopt a contracted lens when facing reactive and proactive events in the parallel-running stage. In the face of reactive and proactive events in the leading stage, they are more inclined to adopt an expanded lens, being manifested as a coexistence orientation, more elastic organizational identity and wider competitive boundaries.
Originality/value
First, by untangling how TMT's cognitive frame functions in breakthrough innovations, this paper provides a micro-foundation for producing breakthrough innovations and deepens the understanding of upper echelon theory by considering the cognitive dimension of TMTs. Second, by teasing out several typical events experienced by the firm, this paper is the first attempt to reveal how events affect the generation of breakthrough innovation. Third, the work extends the application of the event system theory in technological innovation. It also provides insightful implications for promoting breakthrough innovations by considering the role of proactive and reactive events a firm experiences and TMT's perceptions.
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Massimo Battaglia, Shanshan Zhou and Marco Frey
The purpose of this paper is to deal with the link between identity and crisis deriving by natural disasters, exploring the function of the shared identity linking individuals…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to deal with the link between identity and crisis deriving by natural disasters, exploring the function of the shared identity linking individuals, groups, organizations and its external networks. The shared identity is not static. It is a dynamic self-reflexive learning process and is reciprocal. The object of the research is a medium-sized multi-utility company, which experienced the 2012 earthquakes, and how responsibly and rapidly it responded and recovered in collaboration with its stakeholders in the local territory.
Design/methodology/approach
Semi-structured interviews were directed to both managers and to selected representatives of the “vertical external networks” of the company (local authorities, a consumer association and a trade association). The primary data were supplemented by archived materials for data triangulation.
Findings
The research highlights the importance of identity and relationship with local stakeholders and communities when facing the earthquakes. Believing themselves to be socially responsible, ethical and capable, employees were highly motivated and collaborative. Resuming normal services was AIMAG’s priority. The behavior of AIMAG, its employees and its local stakeholders were guided by a shared community identity. After the earthquakes, this shared community identity was strengthened, thus improving the community’s resilience.
Originality/value
The paper highlights the role of identity in linking both inside and outside an organization, in contributing greatly to joint decision making and action, and, finally, in increasing the awareness of the company leaders and staff regarding the importance of their actions for the whole local community. This research advocates the role of identity in disaster risk reduction.
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