Corporate and Organizational Identities

Integrating Strategy, Marketing, Communication and Organizational Perspective

Bertrand Moingeon, Guillaume Soenen

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780415282048
• eBook ISBN: 9781134460144
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This edited book is devoted to an issue of increasing importance in management theory and practice-organizational identity. The concept of organizational identity has received attention in many disciplines such as strategic management, marketing, communication and public relations and organization theory. In practice a number of consultancy firms h

Part I: The dynamics of identities

1 The five facets of collective identities: Integrating corporate and organizational identity

Guillaume Soenen and Bertrand Moingeon

Introduction

The concern for identity in management is not new. Balmer (1994) traced its origin back to the late 1950s when design consultancies in the US began to emerge. These consultancies aimed at managing companies’ corporate identities, which at the time essentially meant logos and visual identification systems. In 1958, in a Harvard Business Review article, P. Martineau wrote about the “personality” of retail stores. Within academia, in the field of management, the “parenthood” of the concept of “organizational identity” is generally attributed to S. Albert and D. Whetten. Since the publication of their seminal article in 1985, research on identity and related subjects, such as organizational image and identification, have multiplied. In the past five years, this activity has been even more enthusiastic. In parallel, within business circles, issues relating to identity, such as corporate identity (which now encompasses more than just design), corporate image, reputation management, and corporate branding have come to the fore. Industry surveys have reported that identity now ranks high on business leaders’ agendas.

One can distinguish between two historically separate traditions dealing with identity as it relates to organizations: a tradition in marketing, which is concerned with corporate identity, and a tradition in organizational theory, which focuses on organizational identity. The topic has also attracted attention from scholars in strategy (Gray and Smeltzer, 1985; Peteraf and Shanley, 1997; Barney et al., 1998) and in business communication (Cheney, 1991; Rebel, 1997; Christensen and Cheney, 2000). Furthermore, there have been distinct national traditions, which have developed in relative isolation (Moingeon and Ramanantsoa, 1997; Moingeon, 1999). In the 1990s, these various traditions began to interact and slowly cross-fertilization among certain approaches began to occur. As a result, a multidisciplinary approach to identity has emerged (van Riel and Balmer, 1997; Schultz, Hatch, and Larsen, 2000), opening up many new fruitful alleys and greatly enhancing our understanding of collective identities, both of and in organizations. However, the modern landscape of identity scholarship is complex. Fragmentation and some confusion still prevail, even in the definition of core concepts. There are many good reasons – and a wide consensus exists – for portraying identity as an important concept, both for research and management practice. These include the search for new means of differentiation in markets for products and employees and the need for a coherent strategic direction in rapidly changing environments. They also include the challenges posed by globalization and the associated need for increased pluralism, and those caused by dispersed workforces and modern forms of employment that modify the patterns of employee identification, etc. One common thread connects these wide-ranging issues: the identity question, that is, who are we as an organization? Providing an answer will bear on the company’s positioning, its structure, culture, communication strategy, and human resource policies. In fact, it will inform about much of what the company does. Executives are not the only ones concerned with answering the question because employees, clients, and various external audiences also seek to defend their interests and will therefore make certain that their voices are heard. Hence, most firms will have multiple identities. If well managed, they can be a source of competitive advantage, but left unattended, they may become liabilities.

Managing organizations’ multiple identities calls for an integrated approach. However, multiple perspectives, competing epistemologies, multiple issues, distinct traditions – all contribute to rendering the task of providing an integrated synthesis difficult. Still, as identity-related issues become more and more tightly coupled, both academics and practitioners are calling for the adoption of a multidisciplinary stance. In this chapter, we offer an integrative framework: the five-facet model. The model is a synthesis of existing research on organizational and corporate identity and related topics. Our goal is to provide a unified analytical language with a reduced set of concepts for the study and management of identity phenomena as they relate to organizations.¹

The rest of the chapter is structured as follows: in the first section, we briefly review the existing literature and examine previous attempts to establish an integrative approach to identity. We then articulate our own approach, the five-facet framework. We define the five facets of organizations’ identities before explaining the theoretical foundations upon which the delineation of the five facets is based. Subsequently, we explore the dynamics of organizations” identities, notably by revisiting previous empirical works.

Identity scholarship

The concept of organizational and corporate identity has been researched by scholars and practitioners for a number of years (Martineau, 1958; Olins, 1978; Larçon and Reitter, 1979, 1984; Albert and Whetten, 1985; Abratt, 1989; Dowling, 1993; Balmer, 1995; van Riel, 1995; Whetten and Godfrey, 1998; Pratt and Foreman, 2000a; Balmer, 2001a). As noted earlier, research on identity originates in several disciplines, notably organizational behavior and organization theory, marketing, communication, and strategic management. However, despite the many contributions made to clarify the understanding of an organization’s identity, confusion still prevails as to its exact nature. In their seminal article, Albert and Whetten wrote: “Historically, identity has been treated as a loosely coupled set of ideas, distinctions, puzzles, and concepts that are best considered as a framework or point of view” (1985: 264). Ten years later, in his review of the corporate identity literature, van Riel wrote: “One must, unfortunately, accept that at a conceptual level, there is no ambiguous, generally accepted definition of corporate identity” (1995: 72). Similar conclusions have also been reached in organizational theory literature. For instance, Pratt and Foreman (2000: 142) recently concluded that identity theory suffers from “identity confusion” and that this may potentially limit the growth and development of this perspective.²

Let us illustrate the significance of “confusion” with an example. Consider a central question: what is the “identity” of an organization and can it be managed? Some authors view identity as a set of more or less tangible manifestations that are, to varying degrees, controllable (Olins, 1989; van Riel and Balmer, 1997). This is characteristic of many practitioners who write about “corporate identity”: they offer a prescriptive definition in which an organization’s identity involves all of the enterprise’s behavioral manifestations, visual cues, and corporate communications, that is, the “corporate identity mix,” as defined by Birkigt and Stadler (1986). Although it is claimed that corporate identity has its roots deep within an organization’s “soul” – sometimes referred to as the corporate personality (a concept that lacks a clear definition itself) – the emphasis is on the consistent management of all identity manifestations to achieve a distinct and favorable Corporate Image and Reputation (Abratt, 1989; Schmitt, Simonson, and Marcus, 1995). This is why such a perspective can be termed a “manifestation” perspective.

For other authors who tend to use the term “organizational identity,” identity is the basis of a descriptive theory of the organization – a theory that, for instance, documents the factors influencing or impeding organizational adaptation (Larçon and Reitter, 1984; Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Reger et al., 1994). Among those who adopt such an approach, some argue that identity cannot be managed, whereas others claim that it can. For most of them, identity is a collective representation (see for example, Pratt and Foreman, 2000b). This echoes an earlier definition articulated by Dutton and Dukerich (1991). Such an approach can be referred to as a “representation” perspective.

So, is an organization’s identity a collective representation or is it a set of manifestations? Things are actually even more complex than this. Reflecting upon multiple approaches to identity scholarship, Gioia (1998) suggested that the functionalist, interpretive, and postmodern perspectives be differentiated. Functionalists assume that identity is a social fact, while interpretivists stress that identity is not a given, but is socially constructed. Postmodernists question the very idea of identity, arguing that it is merely a linguistic manifestation, that is, identity is not only enabled, but also produced, by the use of language. Therefore, at the collective level, identity is at best a fiction, produced by power holders to serve their interests. Of these three perspectives, Gioia noted that the functionalist is the most developed, and he stressed that “entertaining different ways of thinking about identity in fact changes the character of identity itself” (1998: 26). This makes the task of integration difficult, even hazardous.

Previous literature reviews (Kennedy, 1977; Abratt, 1989; Balmer, 1995; van Riel, 1995; van Riel and Balmer, 1997) have notably concluded that (i) identity is complex and strategic in nature, (ii) the field is surrounded by semantic confusion and contradicting definitions, and (iii) there is little cross-disciplinary fertilization (that is, until very recently, there were very few cross-references among distinct research traditions³). Unfortunately, considering our objective to build an integrative model, these reviews are of limited help. Kennedy’s review (1977) is more concerned with the concept of image than with that of identity. Abratt’s (1989) is limited to the communication and marketing literature. On the positive side, it uses conceptual categorization, that is, it is based on the core concepts of corporate personality, corporate identity, and corporate image. This feature is also shared by Balmer’s review (1995), which integrates several marketing subfields (e.g. PR, design, strategic marketing) as well as some strategy texts. Balmer does justice to the conceptual richness of the field and has identified up to seven “schools of thought,” which fall broadly into two categories: those that focus on questions of strategy, culture, and communication, and those that deal with how design can help bring about change. However, this categorization makes it difficult to integrate the various contributions on identity into a coherent whole. The same can be said of van Riel’s review (1995). Balmer and Soenen (1999) have attempted to provide an integrated perspective. Building on Abratt’s (1989) work, they have developed the ACID test model. This model, primarily based on empirical research in consultancy practice, distinguishes between four types of identity: Actual, Communicated, Ideal and Desired (for recent development of this model, see Balmer, 2001b). It introduces the important idea that there are multiple identity types, however it lacks clear theoretical and epistemological underpinnings. Hatch and Schultz (2000) have noted that although the multidisciplinary nature of identity and image and reputation research create considerable conceptual confusion, they are also a rich source for theorizing. To solve the trade-off between simplified and over-whelming complexity, Hatch and Schultz adopted the method of relational differences based on Saussurian logic, which involves comparing and contrasting a term to other related terms. Applying this logic, they compared and contrasted identity to two related concepts – organizational image and culture. This approach enabled them to propose a relational definition of identity, which contributes to a better understanding of the concept:

Identity is formed both from internal and external positions. Who we are cannot be completely separated from the perceptions others have of us and that we have of others. Multiple images of identity refer to the same organization. Identity is a text that is read in relation to cultural context. Tacit understandings sit alongside overt expressions of identity [and] identity involves the instrumental use of emergent cultural symbols.

(Hatch and Schultz, 2000: 27)

Building on all these works discussed above, we propose an integrated model of organizations’ identities.

The five facets of organizations’ identities

Identity emanates from someone and is attributed by someone to someone else – in the case of collective identity, the “someone” is a group. The five-facet framework articulated below is based on the premise that fundamentally, collective identity can be thought of as an answer to the question: who is this group? Clearly, this question can be answered by many people, such as group leaders, group members, key audiences or an external researcher studying the group or organization. This question may seem trivial, but when examined carefully, its responses shed light on the fragmentation, the contradictory definitions, and the lack of cross-fertilization that has until now characterized this field of research. Adopting a multistakeholders perspective, one realizes that much previous work on organizational identity and corporate identity does not actually deal with separate realities, but is instead concerned with the multiple facets of a common underlying empirical phenomenon. Contradiction and fragmentation stem from this “common phenomenon”’s possession of at least five distinct facets (Figure 1.1).

• The professed identity refers to what a group or an organization professes about itself. It is the answer, the statement(s) or the claim(s) that organizational members use to define their (collective) identity.
• The projected identity refers to the elements an organization uses, in more or less controlled ways, to present itself to specific audiences. It notably consists of communications, behaviors, and symbols. The key distinction between the professed and the projected identity is that the latter is mediated.
• The experienced identity refers to what organizational members experience, more or less consciously, with regard to their organization. It consists of a collective representation held by members.
• The manifested identity refers to a specific set of more or less tightly coupled elements that have characterized the organization over a period of time. It may be conceived as an organization’s “historical” identity.
• The attributed identity refers to the attributes that are ascribed to the organization by its various audiences. It differs from the experienced identity which is self-attributed.

Figure 1.1 The five facets of collective identities – definitions.

1 The professed identity

The professed identity refers to what a group or an organization professes about itself. It is in the realm of discourse and it constitutes a self-attributed identity. It is the answer, the statement(s) or the claim(s) that organizational members use to define their (collective) identity. Such an answer can be provided by group members themselves or can be solicited, for instance by an external researcher examining the organization’s identity. Within an organization, every group – and not only senior management – will have a professed identity. However, the extent to which this professed identity is actually communicated to others – hence, becoming part of the projected identity – varies positively with the group’s legitimacy, status, and power within the organization. As a statement of identity, the professed identity can be future-oriented, programmatic.

This facet of identity evokes Albert and Whetten’s original definition of organizational identity as a claim. Indeed, in their 1985 article, Albert and Whetten talked about “identity statements,” positing that a statement of organizational identity consists of three claims: “the criterion of claimed central character … the criterion of claimed distinctiveness … [and] the criterion of claimed temporal continuity” (265). Another proponent of this approach is Glynn, who stated that developing an organization’s identity can be construed as a claim-making process about those organizational attributes that are “central, distinctive and enduring” (2000: 286). Often, however, scholars and practitioners alike are concerned about a professed identity only when it comes to be projected through various communication means toward specific audiences. We refer to this latter mediated identity as the projected identity.

2 The projected identity

The projected identity refers to the elements an organization uses, in more or less controlled ways, to present itself to specific audiences. It notably consists of communications, behaviors, and symbols. This category is broader than that of the professed identity: the key distinction between the professed and the projected identity is that the latter is mediated. The projected identity varies according to circumstances (one could talk of a circumstantial identity) and according to audiences (one could talk of a “façade” identity). The projected identity can be the direct expression of the professed identity. For example, a letter to shareholders printed in an annual report forms part of the projected identity and can be regarded as the direct expression of management’s professed identity. However, other elements of the projected identity are rooted in the identity experienced by organizational members and in the organization’s manifested identity.

Most people writing from a marketing background adopt conceptualizations of identity that fall in this category (Margulies, 1977; Garbett, 1988; Ind, 1997; Wilson, 1997; Melewar, 2000). For example, van Riel and Balmer defined corporate identity as “the way in which an organization’s identity is revealed through behavior, communications, as well as through symbolism to internal and external audiences” (1997: 341). German authors Birkigt an...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Figures
• Tables
• Contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: The dynamics of identities
• Part II: Identities in action
• Part III: Managing identities