National Identity, Globalization and the Discursive Construction of Organizational Identity^*

Abstract

This paper pursues two goals. First, it explores the connections between national identity and organizational globalization within the context of three British organizations' attempts to synchronize their corporate and organizational identities through diversity management initiatives. Second, it teases out the implications of these connections for current theorizing on organizational identity, looking in particular to extend Hatch and Schultz's (Human Relations, 55 (2002), pp. 989-1018) processual model of imageculture dynamics. Based on a Foucauldian theoretical frame, and a data set comprising 36 in-depth interviews, we show the complex and highly particular relationships between articulations of Britishness, and corporate, organizational and personal identities. Such complexity is suggestive of the contradictory connections between national and organizational identities, and of the disjointed, discursive and affective characteristics of organizational identity. Our contribution to the study of organizational identity lies in both an illumination of the local discursive dynamics of identity construction at the individual and collective levels, and an assertion of the ontological role of discourse(s) in structuring understandings and expressions of organizational identity.

Organizational Discourse: Domains, Debates, and Directions

“…Martens, Jennings, & Jennings, 2007), national identity (e.g. Jack & Lorbiecki, 2007), and individual identity (e.g. Brown & Lewis, 2011;Ibarra & Barbulescu, 2010).…”

Bridging the contradictions of social constructionism and psychoanalysis in a study of workplace emotions in India

“…Jack and Lorbiecki's (2007) work has demonstrated the historical importance of colonialism for analysing work environments today. Thus, Sonal's vehemence may very well be a response to repeat experiences of condescension in her work, such as her previous Business Process Outsourcing job, in which she indicated that she had received explicit training for interactions with foreign customers.…”

Commemorating alternative organizations and marginalized spaces: The case of forgotten Finntowns

“…Commemoration at the national level in the West often reflects gendered and racialized spaces, privileging narratives of powerful elites and capitalist ideologies such as competition and individualism. Organizational identity narratives often tend to be constructed in line with these larger national identities, silencing some voices in order to portray a monolithic, cohesive identity that does not exist (Anteby and Molnár, 2012;Jack and Lorbiecki, 2007). If commemorations in public spaces tend to be of the 'great men' of history or capitalist elite organizations, this is a political process that includes forgetting others.…”