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Reengineering Identity

A Case Study of Multiplicity and Duality in Organizational Identification

Natalie Nelson

University of Colorado at Boulder

Recent theoretical work in organizational identification has developed two themes: that members of complex organizations have multiple social groups with which they identify and that acts displaying members’identifications contribute to the construction of collective identities. Using a multimethodological and longitudinal approach, this case study of a planned organizational change found that (a) members central in the communication network identified similarly across four social groups, whereas others concentrated on subsets of these identities; (b) members’ use of discursive resources to explain a contentious event both displayed structured interests and made claims on the collective’s identity; and (c) members’preferred identity structures were more local than distant following the event. These findings contribute to scholarship and practice by illustrating the multiplicity and duality of identification, by introducing a procedure to assess multiple identity structures simultaneously, and by calling attention to the influence of activity patterns in shaping identities, particularly during planned change.

Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 1, 5-38 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/0893318902161001


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