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This study aims to explore how aspiring entrepreneurs navigate between their own individual self-concept and the organisational identity of the new venture during the process of new venture creation.

The study draws on three cases of aspiring entrepreneurs within a UK-based university incubator in the process of “becoming” entrepreneurs. Semi-structured interviews and secondary data were collected and analysed using a flexible pattern matching approach.

The data illustrated parallel identity and sensemaking processes occurring as the aspiring entrepreneurs navigated towards new venture formation. For the organisational identity process, three key stages were found to occur: referent identity labelling, projection and identity reification. Concurrently the sensemaking process made up of creation, interpretation and enactment were seen to enable identity transitioning mechanisms: cue identification, liminal sensegiving and recognition of formal venture boundaries, which led to the organisational identity being formed.

This study is exploratory in nature thus future research is required to clarify the relationship between identity work practices and the process of creating a new venture (Oliver and Vough, 2020). The paper is limited to successful instances of new venture formation, and though this helped to extricate the identity transitioning stages and mechanisms that have thus far remained implicit within the process of new venture creation, it could be extended to examine entrepreneurs who fail to set up new ventures. This limitation opens avenues for further research on identity formation in failed ventures (Snihur and Clarysse, 2022) and on how entrepreneurs negotiate contested identities (Varlander et al., 2020). Furthermore, entrepreneurs take different pathways to new venture formation (Shepherd et al., 2021) and while this study follows the journey of aspiring entrepreneurs who differed in terms of sector, education and prior entrepreneurial experience (Shane, 2003), future researchers could undertake a more in-depth ethnographic study including the effects of incubator setting and how these can be best supported, as this was outside the original remit of this study. Given the importance of the university incubator (Bergman and McMullen, 2022), its role in the construction of new venture identity is an interesting area for future research.

This study provides a practical contribution into entrepreneurship curricula and incubator training, emphasising the importance of understanding the relevance of the entrepreneur's self-concept in making sense of future venture identities. Through the findings of this study, the importance of cue identification and how aspiring entrepreneurs rely on these to carve out the identity of their budding venture is demonstrated. Incubator spaces may have a role to play in supporting aspiring entrepreneurs to reflect on and interpret feedback (liminal sensegiving) during the venture creation process. Furthermore, both educators and incubator managers need to be aware of the state of in-between-ness aspiring entrepreneurs will face as they carve out the identity of the budding venture. This study enables educators to advise aspiring entrepreneurs that there will come a point on the entrepreneurial journey when they need to emphasise boundary setting between self and organisation to enable organisational identity to be fostered and venture formation realised. This study advises incubator managers to consider whether support around business registrations and creation of business accounts should be provided earlier in the incubation programme to emphasise boundary setting between self and organisation. There is a fruitful avenue for future research to extend the work in this paper to fully understand how this might be taught and practiced in the classrooms.

By extricating the stages of organisational identity formation, often hidden within the new venture creation process, this study has framed new venture creation as a liminal experience and a visible site of identity work. This study presents a process model of the key identity transitioning stages and mechanisms in new ventures, by illustrating how aspiring entrepreneurs' sensemaking influences identity transitions during the process of venture creation.

In response to increasing competition for consumer attention, sport governing bodies have innovated short-format, action-oriented versions of traditional sports to attract new fans. This article explores how sport governing bodies (SGBs) manage the need for innovations to both conform to existing stakeholder expectations whilst offering novel benefits in comparison to competition (i.e. legitimate distinctiveness).

Created by the English Cricket Board (ECB), The Hundred competition was used as a case study to explore the conformity-differentiation tension through a legitimacy lens using document and media analysis.

Seven themes were created to explain how the ECB managed legitimacy tensions: rule modification, team creation, scheduling, game-day experience, broadcasting, gender equity and sponsorship. In each theme, differentiation and conformity were traded-off by the ECB to prioritise pragmatic legitimacy with broadcasters and sponsors.

For sport management professionals, the Hundred demonstrates the commercial value of differentiating new sporting events from competitors via hybrid broadcasting partnerships, embedded gender equity and designing game-day experiences that attract hard-to-reach consumer demographics.

SGBs must trade-off legitimacy between sources when innovating to survive, and when faced with conflicting expectations, commercial imperatives determined whether to conform or differentiate.

This paper studies the impact of different chief executive officer (CEO) succession strategies on consumer evaluation of family firms. CEO succession is critical for family firms as improper succession planning has been shown to be the primary reason for high mortality rates of such firms. Furthermore, the choice of CEO (internal vs external) by family firms can send different signals to stakeholders and thereby impact their appraisal of such firms.

In this paper, the authors use an experiment-based approach to test how the type of CEO succession (internal vs external) influences the consumer's evaluation of family firms.

The authors find that appointing an internal CEO leads to higher perception of firm capability, trust towards the firm and more favorable consumer attitudes. All these factors, in turn, lead to higher purchase intentions. External CEOs in family firms do not seem to have any de facto advantage regarding perceptions of higher capability.

Thus, the authors contribute to the literature of family firms by showing how family firm's strategic decisions during succession can affect consumer behavior.

Literature on nation branding is heterogeneous and varies significantly, not only in terminological terms but also in theoretical approaches and practical application. This paper aims to conduct an extensive exploratory study that empirically develops a comprehensive nation brand framework for Palestine, with international applications as well.

Initially, a conceptual framework for developing a nation brand is theoretically designed. Subsequently, through a methodologically deductive–inductive approach and qualitative means, it tests, adapts and refines the framework based on empirical data collected from key stakeholders, such as government officials, politicians, business people and academics.

The theoretical part of the research uncovers the extant key models and core concepts, and it identifies several gaps, with the more prominent one being the lack of an integrated and widely adopted framework for developing a nation brand. The research, thus, conclusively builds a holistic strategic framework towards a distinct nation brand for Palestine, with generic/international application and value, also presenting the practical implications of the findings and identifying avenues for further research.

There are varying extant perspectives on the topic, with these different views often reflecting scholars’ and stakeholders’ methodological approaches, perspectives and even deeper ontological beliefs and convictions. This paper is original consequent to its multi-perspective approach, the strength of its theoretical foundation, the extent and methodological approach of its empirical research, the uniqueness of its focus and the comprehensiveness of the framework developed that can also be used as the conceptual cornerstone for testing in other nations branding studies as well.

This conceptual paper aims to respond to the dearth of theory and mechanisms for handling the inherent ethereality, multiplicity and mutability of organisational identity and organisational image.

This study considers existing approaches to organisational identity noting the diverse understandings of the paradoxical nature of identity. The authors suggest that identity is still essentially perceived as what is core and enduring about the character of an organisation with changes of identity being viewed as occurrences effectuated by events. In contrast, the authors argue that, because of the fluid interrelationships between identity and image, organisational identity is better viewed as an unstable construct.

Departing from Bakhtin’s logic of dialogism, this study proposes that identity–image result from dialogic relationships which in turn construct a system of polyphony. This study devises a preliminary polyphonic model which has the capacity to incorporate diverse stakeholder associations and fluctuating interpretations as well as situational understandings of organisational messages.

This study’s proposed model allows to trace how organisational identity–image is continually co-constructed recursively and cyclically and to systematise the various voices that are important for an organisation’s strategic objectives.

Smart Heritage is a recently established discourse that entwines smartness and the heritage discipline. Studies have shown that place identity is at the core of value-based frameworks of built heritage. This study aims to unveil the role of identity in existing Smart Heritage frameworks, which is currently a gap in existing research.

To better understand place identity in the Smart Heritage context and facilitate future framework establishments, this study uses a cross-case analysis method to scrutinise common trends in the identity development of seven current best practices.

The results show that current best practices involve smart technologies in sustaining or rebuilding heritage identities, mostly mapped on the local scale. Catered solutions are essential in this context due to historic cities’ variegated pursuits of identity. Most current Smart Heritage projects are at the transitioning stage from digital to smart, as the autonomous ability of smart innovations is yet to be fully realised on the city or the global scale. Researchers are encouraged to draw essence from existing heritage frameworks considering the built heritage’s place identity, which is at the core of culturally sustainable Smart Heritage transitions.

This study concludes with five recommendations for addressing heritage identity in Smart Heritage frameworks, targeting future research avenues. Also, this study furthers the discussion on the linkage of Smart Heritage, place identity and marketing strategy, contributing to the city branding and tourism management field. Future research should extend the case-study selection beyond Europe, which is a recognised limitation of this study.

This study aims to examine how leadership identity manifests at the individual and collective levels within a relational training context among a group of multicultural higher education students.

This is a case study and examines the interactions among eight multicultural students through the theoretical lens of leadership identity development (LID) theory.

The main findings of this study suggest that LID manifests through an open will and intensifying motivation to the collective impulse of achieving shared goals through nurturing the collective cognition to integrate diverse perspectives and a broadening view of leadership as a collective capacity for co-creation and generativity.

Although the paper builds on a case study with a limited number of participants and the ability to generalise its findings is partial, the study may provide practical applications for training leadership in other collaborative contexts and supporting it at the individual and collective levels.

The LID theory and LID model have been applied simultaneously to a training lab to examine how LID manifests among a multicultural group of higher education students. The lab emphasises a participatory leadership-oriented pedagogy.

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused severe challenges to ethnic minorities in the UK. While the experiences of migrants are both complex and varied depending on individuals' social class, race, cultural proximity to the host country and acculturation levels, more in-depth studies are necessary to fully understand how COVID-19 affects specific migrant groups and their health. Taiwanese migrants were selected because they are an understudied group. Also, there were widespread differences in pandemic management between the UK and Taiwan, making this group an ideal case for understanding how their acculturation journey can be disrupted by a crisis.

Qualitative data were collected at two different time points, at the start of the UK pandemic (March/April 2020) and six months on (October/November 2020), to explore migrant coping experiences over time. Theoretically, the authors apply acculturation theory through the lens of coping, while discussing health-consumption practices, as empirical evidence.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, participants worked hard to achieve high levels of integration in the UK. The pandemic changed this; participants faced unexpected changes in the UK’s sociocultural structures. They were forced to exercise the layered and complex “coping with coping” in a hostile host environment that signalled their new marginalised status. They faced impossible choices, from catching a life-threatening disease to being seen as overly cautious. Such experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society.

It is important to note that the Taiwanese sample recruited through Facebook community groups is biased and has a high level of homogeneity. These participants were well-integrated, middle-class migrants who were highly educated, relatively resourceful and active on social media. More studies are needed to fully understand the impact on well-being and acculturation of migrants from different cultural, contextual and social backgrounds. This being the case, the authors can speculate that migrants with less resource are likely to have found the pandemic experience even more challenging. More studies are needed to fully understand migrant experience from different backgrounds.

Public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. In particular, this paper has shown how separation, especially if embraced temporarily, is not necessarily a negative outcome to be corrected with specific policies. It can be strategically adopted by migrants as a way of defending their health and well-being from an increasingly hostile environment. Migrants' home country experience provides vicarious learning opportunities to acquire good practices. Their voices should be encouraged rather than in favour of a surprising orthodox and rather singular approach in the discussion of public health management.

The paper has clear public health policy implications. Firstly, public health policymakers are advised to dedicate more resources to understand migrants' experiences in the host country. Acknowledging migrants' voice is a critical first step to contribute to the development of a fair and inclusive society. Secondly, to retain skilful migrants and avoid a future brain-drain, policymakers are advised to advance existing infrastructure to provide more incentives to support and retain migrant talents in the post-pandemic recovery phase.

This paper reveals how a group of previously well-integrated migrants had to exercise “coping with coping” during the COVID crisis. This experience, over time, challenged their integration to the host country, resulting in a loss of faith in the UK’s health system, consequently increasing separation from the host culture and society. It contributes to the understanding of acculturation by showing how a such crisis can significantly disrupt migrants' acculturation journey, challenging them to re-acculturate and reconsider their identity stance. It shows how separation was indeed a good option for migrants for protecting their well-being from a newly hostile host environment.

This paper aims to highlight a broader definition of good building performance that goes beyond the traditional emphasis on technical aspects, only adopting the lens of the social construction of technology (SCOT) in the empirical space of the workplace sector. Several building performance evaluation (BPE) methods focus on technical aspects such as energy consumption, indoor environmental conditions and compliance with building regulations and standards. Technical aspects, albeit important goals, only embed a partial component of what buildings are expected to deliver. There is growing interest in considering the organisational and experiential expectations of building performance, particularly integrating various views of performance as expected by different user groups.

The paper adopts an archival research method to analyse the archive of the workplace consultants DEGW, particularly focusing on their work on London’s Broadgate development in the 1980s and the 1990s.

The findings reveal how voices from a pluralistic client organisation can be addressed to articulate a broad definition of building performance that integrates different viewpoints encompassing technical, organisational and experiential expectations. In DEGW’s work, the views on building performance of various stakeholders involved in the everyday use and management of buildings are identified without imposing predetermined agendas or research notions of performance. Particular emphasis is given to understanding clients as not a homogenous entity but consisting of different interest groups, which implies multiple conceptualisations of building performance and the building itself.

The performance expectations of a building vary between organisations and even within any organisation. Moreover, the needs of an organisation will change over time, and the BPE criteria need to be changed to ensure better alignment between organisations and the physical spaces they occupy. A critical reflection on the conceptualisation of “users” and “building” in BPE methods is required to create an integrated approach towards building performance.

The paper offers insights by adopting the theoretical lens of SCOT to explore an integrated approach to building performance that captures the varied needs of building users through the example of London’s Broadgate development.

Following a bibliometric approach, this study examines research on brand and branding in family businesses (FBs) to identify influential sources and main areas of knowledge, proposes an integrative framework that provides a holistic perspective of this field with an interdisciplinary cross-fertilization view and explores new avenues for future research and practice.

Based on 449 bibliographic references retrieved from the Web of Science database through a systematic process, the authors employed bibliographic coupling analysis to visualize the relationships among key works in the field and subsequently performed a literature review to deepen the analysis.

The bibliographic coupling analysis structured the existing research into six thematic clusters. Four of them follow an internal perspective and focus on FB identity and its influence on the construction of corporate brand identity, whereas the other two follow an external perspective that explores how FB brands are communicated and perceived by stakeholders and the influence of corporate brands and branding on FB image and reputation. Drawing from an in-depth review of the literature, this study offers a novel integrative framework, together with a set of proposals with managerial and theoretical implications.

The proposed framework aims to clarify the relationship between internal identity and management to build and communicate a FB brand. The study also shows the symbiosis that exists among family values, corporate reputation, brand equity and awareness in FBs. The existing interconnection between the family and business generates unique associations that are difficult to imitate.

This study is the first documented attempt at a bibliometric analysis of brands and branding in FBs, which serves to clarify the linkages between different research streams and connecting marketing, organization and FB literature to guide future research. Moreover, the integrative framework provides researchers and practitioners with a better understanding of its scope, highlighting the importance of corporate brand strategies beyond the boundaries of marketing departments.