An unexplored paradox of organizational identification is its possible association with behaviors that exploit the organization for personal benefit. In this article we address why, for some ...individuals in positions of power and authority in the organization, organizational identification is a path to viewing the organization as eminently exploitable. We introduce "narcissistic organizational identification," a form of organizational identification that features the individual's tendency to see his/her identity as core to the definition of the organization, in contrast to conventional conceptualizations of organizational identification, where the individual sees the organization as core to the definition of self. We provide theory explaining how antecedents of conventional organizational identification—including a sense of control and influence over the organization, a sense of psychological ownership of the organization, a sense that the organization is regarded highly by others, and a sense that others identify one in terms of the organization—can instead lead to narcissistic organizational identification in the presence of narcissism, a relatively stable personality dimension that includes grandiosity, self-importance, and a sense of superiority and entitlement.
•Gaps remain in understanding what and how to communicate regarding sustainability over the web.•We illustrate a powerful yet simple way for companies to assess and improve their sustainability based ...corporate identity.•The methodology is based in automated content analysis across a sample of ten companies in the Ibero-american region.•A dictionary comprising 354 key words and a total of 933 variants has been developed across the three TBL dimensions.•The methodology is interesting for practitioners in both the business and investment sectors.
In recent years, communicating about sustainability based corporate identity – i.e., the values and ethos of an organization that reflect the sustainable foundations around which the corporate brand is built – has become a central element for building a positive organizational reputation. In the business sector, the triple bottom line (TBL) approach, or a balanced conception of sustainability around environmental, social, and economic performance, has been increasingly adopted over recent decades. This paper adopts a multiple case study approach to develop and illustrate a methodology for analysing sustainability based identity as communicated through corporate websites. A critical and comparative assessment was performed on the information conveyed by a sample of ten Ibero-American companies belonging to different countries and sectors, resulting in a number of specific improvement recommendations. As part of the methodology, a dictionary comprising 354 keywords and a total of 933 variants was built corresponding to the three TBL dimensions, which was then used to perform automated content analysis across the corporate websites in the sample. Overall, this study illustrates a powerful but simple way for companies to assess and improve their communicated sustainability based corporate identity.
This study explores how organizations experience and respond to identity challenges that arise due to conflicting interpretations of their past. Drawing on a case study of a fintech venture, we offer ...a process model that illuminates the unfolding of "temporal identity complexity," a sensemaking process that involves different members developing conflicting understandings of how the past undermines the organizational identity. Our model also reveals how leaders can restore members' beliefs in the organizational identity through "temporal synergizing," a sensegiving process that recombines conflicting interpretations of the past to support desired identity claims in the present and future. In contrast with prior research that has emphasized the need to construe a sense of identity continuity over time, we show how organizations can instead capitalize on perceived discontinuity in their past to reaffirm their identity. We discuss this and other contributions to research on organizational identity, focusing on its threads on sensemaking and rhetorical history. This includes exploring the important role that temporality and emotions play in organizational identity reconstruction.
Neural recordings, returns from radars and sonars, images in astronomy and single-molecule microscopy can be modeled as a linear superposition of a small number of scaled and delayed copies of a ...band-limited or diffraction-limited point spread function, which is either determined by the nature or designed by the users; in other words, we observe the convolution between a point spread function and a sparse spike signal with unknown amplitudes and delays. While it is of great interest to accurately resolve the spike signal from as few samples as possible, however, when the point spread function is not known a priori, this problem is terribly ill-posed. This paper proposes a convex optimization framework to simultaneously estimate the point spread function as well as the spike signal, by mildly constraining the point spread function to lie in a known low-dimensional subspace. By applying the lifting trick, we obtain an underdetermined linear system of an ensemble of signals with joint spectral sparsity, to which atomic norm minimization is applied. Under mild randomness assumptions of the low-dimensional subspace as well as a separation condition of the spike signal, we prove the proposed algorithm, dubbed as AtomicLift, is guaranteed to recover the spike signal up to a scaling factor as soon as the number of samples is large enough. The extension of AtomicLift to handle noisy measurements is also discussed. Numerical examples are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approaches.
Building on work at the individual and organizational levels suggesting that an individual’s self-concept and an organization’s identity are dynamic, we relax the generally held assumption that ...perceptions of organizational identification are perceived as relatively stable over time and highlight the importance of understanding the perceived dynamism in members’ relationships with their organizations over broader time horizons. We introduce various identification trajectories—a member’s current perception of how his or her identification has evolved and will evolve over time—and investigate the sense of momentum that characterizes these trajectories. We also generate theory about the different action tendencies created by various types of trajectories and examine their influence on cognition, affect, and behavior in the present. Our theoretical model helps to explain why two members of the same organization with similar degrees of identification in the present might think, feel, and behave quite differently. In addition, our theoretical perspective enables us to understand why high (or low) identifiers might display cognition, affect, and behavior typically associated with low (or high) degrees of identification.
We offer as our main theoretical contribution a conceptual framework for how the past is evoked in present identity reconstruction and the ways in which the past influences the articulation of claims ...for future identity. We introduce the notion of textual, material, and oral memory forms as the means by which organizational actors evoke the past. The conceptual framework is applied in a study of two occasions of identity reconstruction in the LEGO Group, which revealed differences in ways that the past was evoked and influenced claims for future identity. Our study suggests that (1) a longer time perspective in the use of memory enabled a longer time perspective in formulating claims for future identity, (2) a broader scope of articulated identity claims for the future was related to the combination of a broader range of memory forms, and (3) the depth of claims for future identity was related to the way in which memory forms were combined. At a more general level, our paper illustrates how viewing identity construction from the perspective of an ongoing present adds a new dimension to understanding the temporal dynamics of organizational identity.
This study extends the conceptualization of corporate identity (CI), and develops a valid and reliable scale for the concept via multistage research design. After detailed literature review, key ...elements of CI in practice are clarified using 20 semi-structured interviews with senior managers in leading UK companies, followed by an online survey among senior managers in the UK food and beverage sector. Five dimensions of CI are identified following two-step structural equation modelling: consistent image, top management behavioral leadership, employee identification, mission and values dissemination, and founder transformational leadership. The scale is examined for nomological validity with an outcome variable, namely corporate social responsibility. The contribution is novel, as for the first time CI is empirically validated as a second-order hierarchical construct. The resultant scale guides practitioners to specify priorities when developing CI, acts as a tool to assess the effectiveness of activities over time, and enables corrective action where needed.
The special characteristics of family firms, such as the owning family’s involvement and control or its strong identification with the business, make creating and preserving a good reputation ...desirable. Recent studies confirm the positive influence of a firm’s reputation on organizational success and non-financial goals, such as customer retention and social capital. The image and reputation of family firms have been the subject of numerous studies. Despite increasing research intensity, a comprehensive overview of this topic is still lacking. This work provides an inventory of and structure for extant research on the image and reputation of family firms. To this end, a systematic literature analysis has been performed, which includes 73 papers from scientific journals from various business fields. Image and reputation are discussed in different theoretical and geographical contexts. Moreover, this contribution summarizes the ways in which the public perceives family firms and existing influencing factors, courses of action and impacts; in a subsequent step, this work integrates these findings into a model that can serve as starting point for future research activities.
Considers the significance of corporate identity, internal corporate brand/identity images, and corporate brand identification for corporate brand orientation. Three propositions based on the above ...are formulated. By highlighting the importance of these concepts, scholars are more fully able to comprehend the importance and connectedness between the concepts. The same is true for senior managers who have responsibility for managing and nurturing meaningful corporate brand orientated organizations. They also need to be cognizant of these dimensions and regularly appraise them.
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