Making Use of Organizational Identity - Authentic Organizations

Schultz, 1998). In empirical studies, researchers have usually ascertained an organization's
identity by aggregating the verbal statements about the organization's identity made by many
individuals (Harquail & King, 2003; Olivier & Roos, 2004), by observing and analyzing group
conversations (e.g., Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997; Glynn, 2000; Corley & Gioia, 2004), and/or by
reading managerially-produced statements about the organization's identity (Corley & Gioia,
2004). And, empirical research has often emphasized the specific words used to define the
organization, which creates additional problems when these words are labels, such as “nonprofit”
or “for profit,” that are used to condense richer, more complex linguistic construals of
organizational identity into simple categories (e.g., Gioia & Thomas, 1996; Golden-Biddle &
Rao, 1997; Pratt & Foreman, 2000). Much information about identity beliefs is lost, and some
information is never captured.
There are many theoretical and empirical challenges related to the role of language in
expressing and constructing organizational identity. (See Gioia, Corley & Schultz, 2000 for a
discussion). The basic concern is that even though organizational identities can be created,
expressed, and made manifest through collective organizational behavior, by strategic acts (e.g.,
Harquail & King, 2003; Whetten & Mackey, 2002), by physical signs and symbols (Hatch &
Schultz, 2001; Schien, 1984; Stern, 1988), and by products (Cappetta & Gioia, 2006), the
meaning of these other expressions is still interpreted, negotiated, and shared through language.
This puts much weight on organization members' ability to articulate their shared beliefs and to
conduct effective conversations about them. Beliefs about the attributes that compose the
organization's identity need to be sought, evoked, put into words and shared, all before
organization members can have a conversation about them or employ them explicitly in
sensemaking or decision making.
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