Formation of Organisational Identity

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2010 by Johnson Graduate School,Cornell University.0001-8392/10/5501-0001/$3.00.

We thank Kevin Corley, Jim Detert, DonHambrick, Tim Pollock, and the membersof the ORG seminar at Penn State forhelpful suggestions on previous versionsof this manuscript. Thanks also to EmilyJanke and Vicki Sweitzer for their coding

assistance. In addition, we thank AssociateEditor John Wagner for excellent counselin revising this paper, as well as threeanonymous reviewers for comments that

Forging an Identity: AnInsider-outsider Studyof Processes Involvedin the Formation ofOrganizational Identity

Dennis A. GioiaThe Pennsylvania StateUniversity

Kristin N. PriceDeceased

Aimee L. HamiltonThe Pennsylvania State

University

James B. ThomasThe Pennsylvania State

University

We investigated the processes involved in forming anorganizational identity, which we studied during thefounding of a distinctive new college by using an interpre-tive, insider-outsider research approach. The emergentgrounded theory model suggests that organizationalidentity formed via the interplay of eight notable processesfour of which occurred in more-or-less sequential, stage-

like fashion(1) articulating a vision, (2) experiencing ameanings void, (3) engaging in experiential contrasts, and(4) converging on a consensual identityplus four recurrentprocesses that were associated with two or more of thesequential stages: (5) negotiating identity claims,(6) attaining optimal distinctiveness, (7) performingliminal actions, and (8) assimilating legitimizing feedback.The findings show that internal and external, as well asmicro and macro influences affected the forging of anorganizational identity. In addition, we found that bothsocial construction and social actor views of identity-related processes were not only germane to the formation

of organizational identity but that these processes werealso mutually constitutive in creating a workable identity.

No concept is more essential to understanding the notion of aself in society than the idea of identity (Mead, 1934;Erickson, 1959). In recent years, the reach of the identityconcept has extended to more macro levels of analysis andnow is becoming central to understanding what it means tobe an organization in society as well (Albert and Whetten,1985; Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Czarniawska, 1997; Gioia,Schultz, and Corley, 2000; Hatch and Schultz, 2002; Ashforth,

Rogers, and Corley, 2010). The study of organizational identityis now a flourishing domain among organizational theoristsand researchers. Since Albert and Whettens (1985) foundationalpiece, researchers have embraced the idea of organizationalidentity and explored its implications in a variety of settings(e.g., Adler and Adler, 1988; Golden-Biddle and Rao, 1997;Fox-Wolfgramm, Boal, and Hunt, 1998). Identity has beenfound to serve as an important but usually subliminal guidefor many consequential organizational activities, includingstrategic decision making and issue interpretation (Duttonand Dukerich, 1991; Elsbach and Kramer, 1996; Gioia and

Thomas, 1996; Glynn, 2000; Maitlis and Lawrence, 2003),organizational change (Reger et al., 1994; Chreim, 2005;Martins, 2005; Nag, Corley, and Gioia, 2007), and how organi-zations approach relationships with stakeholders (Brickson,2005). Although there have been a number of studies thatdeal with ongoing organizational identity construction (e.g.,Fiol, 2002; Humphreys and Brown, 2002; Coupland andBrown, 2004) and a few studies that deal with some facets ofidentity formation in organizations (Czarniawska and Wolff,1998; Corley and Gioia, 2004; Clegg, Rhodes, and Kornberger,2007), there has been no comprehensive study of howorganizational identity forms from inception.

In the existing literature, the origins of organizational identityhave tended to be taken for granted as (1) an expression of


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Ward, 2000) or organizational form (e.g., Carroll and Swamina-than, 2000; Pols, Hannan, and Carroll, 2002; Hsu and Hannan,2005; Hannan, Pols, and Carroll, 2007), or (3) assumed tocome about via other processes that have not been adequatelystudied. Scott and Lane (2000) employed what could be calledthe invisible hand of the founder approach when they arguedthat founders and leaders expressions of core organizational

values, as well as the actions taken to disseminate thesevalues, influence identity construction. Their conceptualtreatment portrayed founders and leaders as people whomake sense of the organizations mission and values and alsogive sense to members (Gioia and Chittipeddi, 1991) viaexpressions that make the organization distinct from othersand characterize the organization over longer periods of time.Consistent with this stance, Rodrigues and Child (2008: 888)noted that the organization as a social actor is likely to beheavily conditioned by the identity that its leading grouparticulates for it. These perspectives share an apparentpresumption that understanding identity formation processes

is largely unnecessary because an organizations identity canbe readily inferred from industry membership and/or thefounders vision. Certainly both industry category and found-ers blueprints are important influences that circumscribeidentity formation, but they do not give us adequate insightinto important elements of identity or the actual processes bywhich identity forms. Coarse-grained categorizations andfounding visions, in general, provide only partial understand-ings of identity in the same way that noting an individualsgender or ethnicity does not give us deep insight into keyaspects of her or his identity or the processes by which that

identity was formed. As Stryker and Burke (2000: 291) put it,identity cannot simply be inferred from social locations.

To our knowledge, only three works have studied organizationalidentity formation, per se. Each touches only on some limitedaspects of identity construction, but collectively they serve asa good point of departure for a more holistic consideration ofidentity formation. Czarniawska and Wolff (1998) studied twonew universities in already established educational fields. Oneuniversity succeeded because it acquired an identity that wasin accord with its institutional field and therefore was acknowl-edged as one of us by the other universities in the region.The other failed because it remained a stranger in its institu-tional field. The comparative cases do not address the specificsof the identity formation process that took place within eitheruniversity, but they offer potential clues to two importantaspects of that process. First, the cases suggest that neworganizations may attempt to mimic existing organizations.Second, how new organizations present themselves to theirexternal audiences may be critical, not only to the formationof their identities but also to their survival. Similarly, Clegg,Rhodes, and Kornberger (2007) noted that identity construc-tion occurs within the wider context of the industry in which

an organization competes, so identity is defined with referenceto rivals and non-rivals (see also Porac et al., 1995). Based ontheir study of firms within the developing industry of business


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Forging an Identity

endorsement and support of their organizations actions andgoals. The authors surmised that members were compelledto do the identity construction work because the industryitself was new and therefore did not provide a clear categori-cal imperative on which new firms could base their identity.They did not directly address this assumption in their study,but their findings do suggest that resolving ambiguity is an

important part of the identity formation process, as Corley andGioia (2004) previously noted in studying a company as it triedto establish itself as an independent entity after it was spunoff from a Fortune 100firm. They found that the most impor-tant insight for understanding the identity of the spin-off wasthe issue of coping with identity ambiguity and decidingwho it wanted to be in its competitive domain. In addition,they found that the leaders sensegiving attempts, choice ofnew industry referents, and discrepancies between identityand construed external image (see Dutton and Dukerich,1991) were also important to establishing the spin-offsidentity. Taken together, these three studies of organizational

identity formation suggest that the process is likely to involveattempts both to attain legitimacy through mimetic processesand to construct some dimensions of distinctiveness withinthe organizational field, as well as a receptive external context

Tese tgnesrl contcluions oar in iaccordwit1ndustryial,orgorganizational fi


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influence identity formation as well. Gioia, Schultz, and Corley(2000), for instance, argued that interactions among mem-bers, as well as interactions between insiders and outsidersaffect organizational identity. Similarly, discursive approachesto understanding identity emphasize that self-other discourseis critical to identity construction (see Ybema et al., 2009). Moregenerally, social identities are affected by sets of meanings

that an actor (person, organization, country) attributes to itselfwhile adopting the perspective of other significant parties, asWendt (1994) noted in considering international relations. Or,as Mead (1934) and Berger and Luckmann (1966) observed,social actors form identities by learning, via interaction, to seethemselves as others do. At the same time that people andgroups define themselves in terms of attributes that arecentral to the collectivity, they also attend to their differencesrelative to others (Tajfel and Turner, 1986; Steele, 1988). Atthe individual level, Brewer (1991) argued that people attemptto achieve a state of optimal distinctivenesssufficientlysimilar to a preferred group, but different enough to be

distinctive.

Taken together, these worksfrom the micro/individual levelof analysis (Mead, 1934) to the macro/national level of analysis(Wendt, 1994)imply that organizational identity formation islikely to be a complex process subject to multiple influencesand infused with ambiguity and one in which organizationalidentity is not defined solely by founders and leaders butnegotiated by both insiders and outsiders. Yet, even takentogether, these works provide only limited insight into howthe interplay of such processes might affect the actualformation of an organizational identity. Legitimacy-seeking, forinstance, is certainly one functional explanation for whyorganizational members engage in identity construction, but itdoes not explain how. Existing work thus provides a limitedunderstanding of how organizational identity forms in nascentorganizations, a process we examine here. In this study, wedelve into the processes and practices that lead to theemergence of a new organizational identity.

At the individual level, Linstead and Thomas (2002: 5) havecharacterized the identity formation process as managingthe tension between the unfolding demands presented by the

answers to the continuously posed questions What do you[the organization] want from me? and What do I want to bein the future? The former question has to do with onesidentity as a social actor in organizational space, while thelatter question has to do with the social construction of apersonal identity. Yet these questions are not discrete; theyare inextricably intertwined. Elevated to the organizationallevel, these questions also represent the two dominantperspectives in the study of organizational identity: the socialconstruction and the social actor views of identity, reflected inour two guiding research questions: How do members of anascent organization develop a collective understanding of

who we are as an organization? and How does a newlycreated organization develop a sense of itself as a social actorin its field or industry?


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construe identity from the aforementioned social constructionor social actor perspectives (Whetten and Mackey, 2002;Corley et al., 2006; Ravasi and Schultz, 2006; Whetten, 2006).As noted, according to the social constructionist view, identityinvolves members negotiation of shared meanings aboutwho we are as an organization and places the focus ofattention on the shared interpretive schemes that members

collectively construct to provide meaning to their organiza-tional experience (Gioia, Schultz, and Corley, 2000; Whetten,2006). Ravasi and Schultz (2006) noted that this view impliesan emphasis on the sensemaking processes associated withthe social construction of identity as meanings and meaningstructures are intersubks0 1nplidmos ag to their organiza-


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case study, there was no clear, fully formed, external point ofreference that the organization could use as a defi nitive basisfor its claims. Further, we were examining a developingorganizational identity, so looking solely at claims made by theorganization mainly would have illustrated the content of theidentity (a declarative statement about the organization, i.e.,what the elements of an identity are). Although content is

interesting, we were most interested in understanding howan organizational identity develops (an interrogative process,i.e., how does identity form?). Given our process orientation,when we launched this study we initially focused mainly on


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Forging an Identity

Purposeful Sampling

We employed purposeful sampling (Kumar, Stern, andAnderson, 1993) of all key informants whohad insight intothe formation of CITS or unique access toknowledge oforganizational history, strategies, and actions. Purposefulsampling was an integral part of the constant comparisontechnique we employed, repeatedly comparing data acrossinformants and over time (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), and wasa critical part of the data gathering stage of this study. Overall,our interpretive approach involved an iterative process ofsimultaneously collecting data, analyzing the data, andseeking newiandAormatdeeme, and sieohalvedand

seS otil noaddinizatioand Forgingmeoceccurrployor what e (Glawas 7


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Categorical Analysis

We began our analysis by identifying relevant concepts in thedata and grouping them into categories (open coding). For thisanalytical step, we used in-vivo (Strauss and Corbin, 1998) orfirst-order (Van Maanen, 1979) codes (i.e., terms andlanguage adequate at the level of meaning of the informants)whenever possible, or a simple descriptive phrase when an

in-vivo code was not available. Next, we engaged in axialcoding (Strauss and Corbin, 1998), wherein we searched forrelationships between and among these categories andassembled them into higher-order themes.

We coded the data using NVIVO, a qualend (i5sT*(anal6 0ingrogram


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metacommentary for his post-analysis remarks because theytook an encompassing view not only of the findings concern-ing a given theme but also of the entire study. The dean madethese metacommentaries when we presented our findings tohim after we had gathered all data and completed the initialtheme analyses. We were able to corroborate the content ofhis remarks with the chronological journal entries, thus

allaying concerns about the potential for bias in retrospectiveinterview data. The deans metacommentaries also offer aEnsur(alT)95(rustwor)250


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however, other researchers might draw somewhat differentconclusions from the same empirical materials that weanalyzed.

CREATING A NEW ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY

Contextual Background

By the mid 1990s, industry and state leaders were askinguniversities to produce qualified information-science-orientedgraduates for the states workforce. Other universities withinthe states education system were not fulfilling the needs ofthe states industries, and an opportunity existed to create a


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Forging an Identity

Table 2

Timeline of Events in CITSs Formation

Month Activities related to CITSs formation and development Data sources

Year 0

Sept. Strategic planning committees formed Archival records (including e-mails)


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limited his involvement to information sharing, providing fiscalresources, and giving the necessary symbolic support fromthe university level. Leaders of the initiative, one of whomwould later become dean of the new school and another whobecame the associate dean of research, came from variousdisciplines within State U. None of the other members of thefeasibility committee ended up taking positions within CITS.

CITSs eventual faculty (five faculty hires the first year withapproximately five each additional year until Year 7) weretrained mostly in specific functional domains (because therewere few cross-functional scholars available). Many held joint

positions across multiple departments and schools withinState U. Prospective faculty published in their respective func-tional journals but also did multi- and interdisciplinary researchand were invested in seeing the program grow in prestigewould laested ipln seeing,tee endedareoiving Manreosdochand werTjatobridgdaratolitytogwoand wertion sharin, peoart, ing technologyTjatoj-6.7789 w


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Forging an Identity

intended to be a causal or dynamic model but, rather, is a

representation of the core concepts and their relationshipsthat served as the basis for the emergent theoretical frame-work and a full grounded theory model.

Table 3 presents representative quotations and events thatsubstantiate the second-order themes we identifi ed. The fi rstfour themes articulating a vision, experiencing a meaningsvoid, engaging in experiential contrasts, and converging on aconsensual identity occurred in more-or-less seI5.7u,n a four


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Table 3

Representative Quotes, Events, and Archival Entries Underlying Second-order Themes

Theme 1: Articulating a vision

Articulating idealsand goals

Not too long after I became president, of course, I started thinking about academic programsand opportunities at [State U] and I felt we were now in the information age and [State U]


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Forging an Identity

Table 3 (continued)

Representative Quotes, Events, and Archival Entries Underlying Second-order Themes

Theme 4: Converging on a consensual identity

I think thats what makes our school so rich is that there is not just a common vision, butthat we got to a pretty common agreement about who we thought we were. (Staff

14)

Engaging inopportunities forconsensus

10 cross disciplinary subcommittees to form CITS.

Retreats and brown bag lunches within CITS to discuss the character of the school.

A lot of us went to those brown bags. Not just the dean and the faculty. Many times thedean invited the staff in, too. After a while, things came together. I thought thosediscussions were pretty good. Helped a lot to bind us together, I think. (Faculty

10)

Theme 5: Negotiating identity claims

Sharinginformation

[The dean] does a lot of work to build the sense of community here and sharesinformation [with everyone involved] about the way we go about things and the way weposition ourselves. (Assistant to the provost)

When we started this school it was just a blank sheet of paper. We had never done facultyrecruiting, promotion, tenure, anything like that so it was a good idea when we formedthe various committees because everybody could bring in how they did it in engineering,or in the business school, or wherever. So you had many different twists on things andwhat you could do. We shared everything [with everyone in the school], so we discussedhow we wanted to do things and how we wanted to present ourselves to the rest of theuniversity. (Staff

14)

Debating organizationalvalues

People were jockeying for their own way because it was their personality and prior billing oftrying to get their select group, or their node of people they have working in their researchareas, they wanted theirs to be the strongest so they were jockeying for position. Youcould understand it, really, because they believed in their own values, but, then, otherpeople had other different values. (Faculty

8)

The issues that were key to faculty are faculty recruitment, theyre always trying . . . toinfluence your environment. So if I hired X I have somebody that thinks like methat givesus a sphere of influence that is larger than the one that I had. (Faculty

12)

Curriculum battles are where an awful lot of identity things show up. (Faculty13

)

Theme 6: Attaining optimal distinctiveness

Being similar Copying best practices; recommendations in Strategic Planning Reports fifth chapter toemulate other information schools.

Scanning & benchmarking; Focus groups with 500 private and government sectoremployers; fifth chapter of Strategic Planning Report describing 20 benchmarkedorganizations (information field and other academic disciplines).

Being different One executive who summed up the situation, said, To be attractive for corporate support[State U] has to demonstrate this is a fundamental change, not incremental. Anotherechoed this statement, indicating that, The IST proposal must be sufficiently different inorder to be noticed. (Strategic Planning Report: 35)

The buildings significance should not be downplayed. The building was a unifying factor,a vehicle for demonstrating the programs strengths, uniqueness, and offering exposure.(CITS advisory board member in Year 9 Strategic Plan Report)

Such a balancing act. We wanted to be different and we just pounded on that, but wecouldnt be toodifferent or we wouldnt be members of the club. Got to be like them,but not just like them. (Faculty

23)

Theme 7: Performing liminal actions

Trying out behaviors The dean really encouraged us to write up these research proposals aimed at funding ear-marked for interdisciplinary social science researchnot interdisciplinary IT research.I didnt think we had a chance, but I tried it anyway, and we got it. (Faculty

24)

In lieu of a history, you fight for the identity. Because a history, norms, mores, a culture thatdefines who you are is very important. In the beginning there is very little organizational

memory, so what happens is that in lieu of that . . . you engage in the process of creat-ing it, refining it, doing it. That is where the action comes in. You try out some things thatreflect an identity and see if they work. If they do, you are helping to create an organiza-

C S


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and initiating a formal strategic planning report months beforehe made public his vision for a school that would somehowintegrate technology, information, and users.

The presidents vision circumscribed the boundaries withinwhich identity formation would occur. As a preliminary

identity claim, the vision specified the broad contours of theeventual organizational identity by generally ruling in certaincategorical features while explicitly or implicitly ruling outothers (i.e., we are a school of information, not a school ofcomputer engineering). For CITS as a social actor, however,this vision lacJegiae ceociss a stlacies hilisitiatual orga-er, cateesi.e

o 5.337ci-2


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dean, in his role as a leader of the strategic planning committee,began to work with committees to set up a curriculum, get itapproved by the Board of Trustees, and establish admissions.The initial vision, as verbalized by the university president,needed to be elaborated in more detail. The eventual deanrealized this: The level of [the visions] specifi city changes asyou go up. The president provides the broad picture within

which identity forms: create a school that produces leadersfor the digital age, but that charge doesnt tell us much D(o id


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particular silos because they didnt own the identity. They had toaccept that of their own volition.

Theme 2: Experiencing a Meanings Void

In the second phase, in Years 1 and 2, the ill-defi ned identityprompted founding members to experience a meanings voidand to explore ways to fi ll it. The concept of the meanings

void is best expressed by the statement, We dont knowwhat it means to be what the founding vision says we aresupposed to be. In this step, the members engaged insensemaking to give meaning to the presidents vision, which


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Forging an Identity

CITS faculty characterized themselves as muddling throughin Years 1 and 2 (Faculty

5). They were so caught up in their

daily work of research, teaching, and the responsibilities ofrunning a new school that they often did not concern them-selves explicitly with the identity of CITS, unless confrontedwith the need to explain themselves or their program tooutsiders. As an alumnus said, I think probably it was [faculty

member] who fi


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over 100 applications from faculty and staff within the univer-sity (archival records). Some State U faculty were interestedin protecting the interests of their departments, some wereinterested in transferring into this new program, and somewere happy where they were, but saw this program as doingthings that they would like to collaborate on (assistant to theprovost). The leadership eventually decided against accepting

any new hires from inside State U, instead choosing their firstfaculty members (five in total) from other universities (archivalrecords), which had major implications for identity. Thischoice reflslab eemfroshirs ofCITSns funadere to retateanl

deannsjournval#2t).Asoirsfetauirs of this new identitsw as theconccepinte sicimplnary, aeconcceps thatw asnot gene

- eldswerecertgaillyconccronsoin theepars ofdeans, aovelapgteom oo muichfor siplacre tham,forworse . . . tasgdoing togest lln thefunaoinn (assistant to tpeviousrexperiencrasatgteeir fomher inssiuatios, forbettheror forworseeldsnoteds).Peoplhe would


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research triangle, with each point representing one of threeinterdisciplinary fi elds information, technology, and socialscience (i.e., people) (deans journal #2). [CITS] used atriangle model to represent our three interdisciplinary aspectsOther schools like Michigan also have their own symbols tostate the importance of various components (Faculty

6).

Founding members of CITS used these symbols as the basis

for critical decisions. For examITSg0 Tc0 TwaMaluthed new ft


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compared their interpretations of the vision with other new mem-bers of thisschool. It was sometimes a contentious process, too.Of course, people initially preferred the comfort of their own silos orthey preferred reverting to a comfortable past, modeling after whatthey already knew. We spent months trying to do anything to getpeople out of their fetal positions. The thing is, if you really want tobe different, you need to engage in some process that tells you howyou can be different. But my hand wasnt much in this process

other than insisting that we couldnt model ourselves after someother existing school. This past/presr exe.11oast process evolved onits own.

Theme 4: Converging on a Consr sual Identity

In the fi nal stage of the sequential processes, occurringpredominantly in Years 4 and 5, members began to form aconsr sus about what they believed were the ce11oal,distinctive, and putatively stable features of the organization.They were able to go beyond agreeme exon who they werenot and start agreeing on affi rmative aspects of who they

were as an organization, as their beliefs and claims alignedand reinforced each other. Although there was almost unani-mous agreeme exthat CITS was a professional, practice-orie eed school, the main distinguishing identity referent, towhich virtually everyone agreed, ce11ered on the idea ofbeing i11erdisciplinary (field notes). This notion had been anundercurre exin the conceptualization and conversations aboutwho and what the new college was going to be, but over timethis idea became the core concept conferring distinction forthe members of the new school. As one new faculty memberput it, We took all the presidents talk about i11egration andbeing multifunctional and with the deans guidance trans-

laeed iexinto the core idea of our identity, being i11erdisciplin-ary. People converged on that core as a really good thing(Faculty

17). The dean further noted that

The i11erdisciplinary notion is absolutely key. It seems obvious in ret-rospect, but it wasnt all that obvious at the time. Most were eitherinvolved from either an information systems perspective or a puretechnology perspective. By melding the information piece with thetechnology piece and adding i1 the social science piece, the in1erdis-ciplinary idea really became rooted i1 us. It was at once unique andchallenging because you had to meld a whole bunch of stove pipesto make a stream of smoke. Different stovepipes, too, because

we had people that were rooted i1 theatre, history, engineering,computer science, information science, the law . . . from psychol-ogy, from sociology, from gender studies . . . they were just all overthe traditional academic map. The trick was for us to understand thatcollectively we could inform on information better than anyplace inthe cou11oy.

Different stakeholders began to affi rm CITSs identity as itemerged and coalesced. A consr sual identity formed asstakeholders (both insiders and outsiders) accepted the visionand goals of CITS and fou1d ways that they could bothvalidaee and influence who CITS was. People from across

other colleges and campuses affi rmed CITS as a worthwhileconcept and school, further bolstering the identity (fi eldnotes). CITS was unique in that it de ned ies i11erdisciplinary


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original folks had ownership [of the identity], they built it,implemented it, and engaged it (CITS dean) to the point atwhich there were debates about who embodied the inter-disciplinary concept the most.

A consensual identity eventually emerged in part becausemany different stakeholders had opportunities to cometogether and see CITS as CITS saw itself, to express similarvalues, and to assess how CITS fit into their larger domain.CITS faculty and staff allotted time at retreats and brown bagsessions to discuss identity-related issues, which helpedthem move toward shared understandings (field notes). Thedean said that with greater shared understanding of what aninterdisciplinary CITS scholar looked like, he could, bring in alawyer, a computer scientist, a sociologist, a psychologist,and they would all find their place in the community. . . .

In terms of [CITS], everyone here believes something needs to bedone to address a wide variety of issues concerning technology,information, and users and believes that it is impossible to get itdone with one particular approach. It is such a common ground thatI believe it holds people together. As long as we understand howeach individual can contribute to the big picture, the shared inter-disciplinary identity can be held. (Faculty

15)

As the organization grew and people self-selected into CITS,they also agreed to the interdisciplinary goals and visionarticulated by the people who recruited them (field notes).

Deans metacommentary: Although there were people who wantedto pursue their own paths, eventually everyone seemed to cometogetherin principle and in practiceon the interdisciplinary piece

as an identity anchor. That piece everyone publically agreed on (fac-ulty, administrators, students), although they might have defined itin somewhat different termswho they interacted with, etc. I knewwe were there when our resident computer science guru chided acolleague at a meeting, saying, Hey, those social science types areOK. . . . To make this identity core work, though, we needed exter-nal validation to help us internalize our developing identity. The bestmoments were when executives like Michael Dell or other scholarswould get up in presentations and say, This is exactly where weought to be going. You can bet that I picked up that kind of stuffand ran with it, touting it to the hills inside and outside.

Integrating Sequential and Dynamic Recurrent ProcessesCITS and its members moved through the four phasesdescribed above in essentially a sequential fashion. As theseprogressive processes unfolded, they intersected with a setof dynamic processes comprising four recurrent themes.These themes were not equally apparent during every step ofthe progressive process; rather, they moved in and out ofsaliency as the sequential phases proceeded.

Theme 5: Negotiating Identity Claims

The recurrent theme of negotiating identity claims centers on

the evolving negotiations in which members engaged todecide what identity claims they would make to definethemselves to each other and for outside stakeholders These


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become (fi eld notes). These identity negotiations wereuseful to CITS members to put their minds on the table, soto speak (Faculty

20) and to help them collectively negotiate

the values of the organization, the claims they would make onits behalf, and the actions they would and would not engagein as a consequence of those agreed-upon values and claims.The faculty found themselves often arguing over value

differences surrounding research topics and methodologiesand the establishment of norms regarding, for example,promotion criteria and resource allocation. The CITS deancommented that at one point early in the history it was myscience is better than your science. There were regulardiscussions about which journals counted for tenure, disputesabout whether qualitative or quantitative research was realresearch, as well as debates about what theory was and wasnot. The vibrant and dynamic tensions (Faculty

18) that

erupted forced CITS members to argue and provide arationale as to why [a particular approach] was valuable to aninterdisciplinary program (Faculty

9).

Members made identity claims to each other and to externalparties via their statements about the implications of thearticulated vision, their commitments on behalf of the organi-zation and their actions. Describing and explaining themselvesto other departments and colleges at State U was a regularand self-enlightening occurrence for CITS members, because


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Deans metacommentary: Debating among ourselves who we weregoing to be was necessary because of tensions that existed amongthe different perspectives. The whole process of trying to reconciledifferences led people to discover that they could talk to each otherand fi nd common ground and thats just what happened. Further-more, people not only had to reconcile issues among themselves,but also had to decide how we presented ourselves to externalaudiences. . . . A number of things came out of these dialectical col-


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was always a question of how far do you want to hit the ball withoutknocking it out of bounds, kind of thing. You want to play on the golfcourse with the big boys, but you dont want to upset them by beingtoo different. At the same time you want to make your mark byhaving something distinctive.

The desire to be similar enough to the big boys kept CITSlooking for credible benchmarks and policies and practices

that would be associated with a top school (fi eld notes).

Despite CITSs efforts to be viewed as similar to schools in aselect group, it also worked to differentiate itself. In his notes


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was a watershed event in CITSs history and in engraining itsemerging identity. When asked about the importance of thenew building CITS was eventually housed in, State Uspresident said:

Its a signature building by one of the worlds great architects. . . .I think its very important because of its location, because of thequality of the building. In some ways it set the standard for future

architecture at [State U] instead of just building your regular old boxtype building. I mean, it really is a precursor; it set the stage forhiring nationally eminent architects for the law school, the businessbuilding, the material and life science buildings, and the new schoolof architecture and landscape architecture.

The CITS building literally and metaphorically helped distin-guish CITS from other4s and schools, helped makeCITS more recognizable, while paving the way for CITS to beseen as a ground-breaking, cutting-edge school (fi eld notes).

Deans metacommentary: There was no map for navigating this

territory. Being new, we wanted to be related to something calledthe I-Schools, and yet be somehow unique. That was one of ourbiggest dilemmas. There was a fear that if we were too distinctive,we would be seen as a renegade or would be outliers to the generalcommunity that we wanted to belong to. We wanted to be different,you see, but not toodifferent. . . . The building was extraordinarilyimportant; it became an icon for our newness and our identity. Wegot a building that somehow helped defi ne who we were, so whenwe got it, we said, We are somebody, and not just somebody, butsomebody distinctive. This whole process came full circle; we fi rstfi gured out who we thought we wanted to be, made a lot of publicstatements about who we wanted to be, got feedback saying othersbelieved and accepted us as who we wanted to be, got a buildingthat represented who we wanted to be, and that convinced us thatwe were who we wanted to be. Pretty cool.

Theme 7: Performing Liminal Actions

The recurrent theme of performing liminal actions becameprominent during the middle two phases of the sequentialprocesses. As CITS was developing its identity, it engaged in aseries of liminal actions, which included trying out behaviorsand adopting provisional new ways of doing work. Liminalactions, a concept we derived from van Genneps (1960) notion

of a liminal phase, are those taken with a sense that the rulesand expectations have yet to solidify, so actions happen in atentative manner. Expectation of the development of a futureidentity triggered tentative structuring activities, in whichmembers took actions as if the identity was already clear and real. CITS evolved a series of these low stakes, explor-atory behaviors consistent with its identity claims that, ifsuccessful and accepted as legitimate by insiders and outsid-ers, became a more detailed feature of CITSs identity.

Aside from doing collaborative research together, the CITSfaculty still had some diffi culty applying the label of interdisci-

plinary researcherto themselves priorto Year 4 (fi eld notes).Although joint appointments were a part of the hiring processone of the rst CITS professors initially put his title down as


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the professors attention, to which the professor responded,Well, I dont want to disappoint my colleagues in [my homediscipline]. I dont want to alienate them, or have them thinkIve left, or as the dean understood it, I dont want them tothink Im part of an interdisciplinary school; you still need meto have one foot in each world (CITS dean). Reluctant toclaim the title of interdisciplinary researcher or remove

themselves from the confines of their functional backgroundsduring CITSs first few years, faculty members eventuallybecame more confident in applying the CITS interdisciplinaryidentity to themselves and acting aculsly by initiatingmore collaborative, interdisciplinary research.

Perhaps the best example of tentative action in alignmentwith CITSs emerging identity as an interdisciplinary school,however, was CITSs application for grants, applications thatresulted in awards of over $20 million earmarked explicitly forinterdisciplinary research (archival reus). As the dean said,People started applying for these NSF grants, expecting to

be turned down, and instead they won them. They startedlooking around and saying, Hmm, I guess the reason we gotthat is because the information scientist and the cognitivescientist and the computer scientist and the social scientistwere all on one team. Such successful liminal actions wereimportant in affirming the initially ill-formed idea and claims ofbeing interdisciplinary. After members tried out behaviorsconsistent with this identity (e.g., by seeking interdisciplinarygrants), both the idea and the articulation of themselves as aninterdisciplinary school were strengthened (field notes). In thewake of winning major grants, CITS was now becoming aclear, identifiable entity and a successful one at that.

Deans metacommentary: Identity is not just an abstract idea. Itsintertwined with what you do as an organization, and with your suc-cess at what you do. To decide who you are requires doing some-thing, taking some tentative baby steps; when those baby steps workout it helps to firm up your identity. Getting these grants when wethought they were a long-shot was a big leap for us, and certainly forthe development of the identity. . . . To be able to act out that Iminterdisciplinary and Im proud of it was tremendously important,because the field, often unwitt lsly, doesnt facilitate the work ofan interdisciplinary researcher. But there was enough success thatpeople now wanted to at least wear the T-shirt. We put ourselves

forth as interdisciplinary, we acted as if we were interdisciplinary,and we got validated as interdisciplinary.

Theme 8: Assimilating Legitimizing Feedback

Receiving legitimizing feedback pertains to stakeholdersaffirmations that the organization is achieving legitimacy, i.e.,that its actions are desirable, proper, or appropriate withinsome socially constructed system of norms, values, beliefs,and definitions (Suchman, 1995: 574). CITS used suchfeedback to affirm and bolster its identity-related beliefs. Thisreuurring theme was most prominent during the last two

stages. As CITS became a more prominent entity, known forits students, research, and programs, other units at State Ubegan to take notice [Other schools] feel threatened


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Forging an Identity

CITS had organized its coursework and majors differently thanmost other programs at State U, incorporating, for example,mandatory internships, team projects, and foreign languagerequirements. Consultation and collaboration with industryproved increasingly successful as CITS regularly posted aplacement rate nearing 98 percent, and starting salariestypically were among the highest received by State U under-

graduates (CITS Web site, Year 6). Such placement and salaryfi gures were deemed to be major legitimizing signifi ers. OneDepartmenpositive cothat we wa[CITS] (F

16). He also said, This is very positive if youness, and industry weve been extremely effegaining in both external and internal legitimac

11). As a resee ,

outsiders can understand what [CITS] is doing. Then, with asolid foundation, [CITS] can pursue its own direction and gainits own identity (FIdee 8l

17). The fi rst I-School Conference,

therefore, was a heady time for CITS i53bers, as theydiscovered that their emerging identity within an emergingeld was not only distinctive but was recognized and legiti-


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Deans metacommentary: In the end, you need to develop a senseof who you are, but you need to get others to affi rm it. And thosetwo processes work together. Developing our identity, and gettingresponses to the identity we wanted to project, was a nerve-wrackingthing. We got a lot of reactions that caused us to blink. In the earlydays I was blinking a lot. We had built a curriculum, a sense ofpurpose, symbols to represent this identity we were trying to enact.But at the end of the fi rst four years, when the fi rst graduates were


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Forging an Identity

process. This negotiation process was characterized byongoing discussions, debates, and tensions over the valuesand attributes that the organization and its members wouldclaim as features of the new interdisciplinary school.

As members acknowledged the vision and worked to developclaims consistent with the vision, they also confronted itsambiguity, thus leading to a second sequential phase, experi-encing a meanings void. Although members had a generalsense of what the organization was intended to be, theyneeded to construct the meanings associated with who weare trying to become, because the attributes and actionsassociated with the character of their future organization werein flux and yet to be decided. As they dealt with these issues,members initially found it easier to agree on what the organi-zation was notthus eliminating possibilities and furthercircumscribing the boundaries of their identitybeforeattempting to agree on who or what they were. In theirefforts to distinguish themselves within their field and industry,

they began to work toward a goal of attaining optimal distinc-tiveness. CITSs members worked to fill the meanings voidwith identity content and processes that provided an optimal

Figure 2. Grounded theoretical model of the organizational identity formation process.*

*Based on the second-order themes of figure 1. Clear ovals represent sequential themes; shaded ovalsrepresent recurrent ones. The dotted line arrows indicate the influence of the recurrent themes on the

sequential phases that they affected the most.


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legitimacy, and yet also being dissimilar from them (by virtueof being interdisciplinary) distinguished them, so they beganto tout their similarities and differences to each other and tooutside audiences. They also began the process of performingliminal actions, tentative actions and commitments seen asconsistent with the newly forming identity. The most promi-nent of these actions took the form of more collaborative

research, which affirmed the interdisciplinary label internally,and more grant seeking for interdisciplinary research, thesuccess of which produced external validation.

The continuing negotiation of identity claims, ongoingattempts to seekontiasinarel8uccacy, aexpllabooinahe liminal actihe


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Forging an Identity

essential processes. This emergent model focuses explicitlyon organizational identity formation, rather than identitychange, threat, or persistence, which have been the focus ofprior work (e.g., Dutton and Dukerich, 1991; Elsbach andKramer, 1996; Gioia, Schultz, and Corley, 2000; Fiol, 2002; Corleyand Gioia, 2004; Chreim, 2005; Ravasi and Schultz, 2006).

The grounded theory of organizational identity formation thatwe developed can be viewed as both simple and complex, oras Colville (2008) noted, it has the kind of simplexity thatcharacterizes fund1; 5.ithat arisj/Ffour sequ This eatimes:lle (2


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would not be consistent with those claims, and the means forescaping from the meanings-void trap via the use of internaland external experiential contrasts. King, Felin, and Whetten(2010: 6) noted that an organizations point of view [as asocial actor] is the path-dependent result of an organizationshistory. In the absence of such history, members drew ontheir own personal histories in other organizations as a

referent for deciding what actions and commitments wouldbe appropriate. We also found important elements of theidentity formation process that pertained to the seeking ofoptimal distinctiveness the essential identity-deciding


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Forging an Identity

and the outcome was certainly not assured by either categorymembership or founders vision.

Second, it is clear from considering the entire groundedmodel that both micro and macro, as well as internal andexternal processes are involved in the forging of an identity.Organizational identity is progressively, even continuously,negotiated by organization members via their interactionswith each other and with external stakeholders (see Couplandand Brown, 2004). Similarly, both individual and collectiveprocesses from vision ideation by the founders (Rodriguesand Child, 2008) to repeated negotiations on multiple lroiractiY

alegitimtion by tvalud naudienessi(DiMaggi and mPoell

ngenracion bf an workabe ldentity.


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had made in their public presentations, and then hired peoplethat fit their claimed identity, which then strengthened theirdefinition of themselves as an interdisciplinary school. Simi-larly, liminal actions were important in affirming the initiallyill-formed core identity, essentially completing a cycle thatbegan when CITS members wanted being interdisciplinaryto be their distinctive hallmark, which led them to construct a

public claim of being interdisciplinary. They then tried outbehaviors consistent with the initial idea and the claims (e.g.,by seeking interdisciplinary grants), which strengthened theirunderstanding of themselves as an interdisciplinary schooland of their claims as such a school.

nsistent with the initiao riaonsrir cla6.94ally byy coatorsbutecia swh


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Forging an Identity

revisit our data for the purpose of reanalysis, as well as togather new data, as we realized that there were other impor-tant dynamics that we needed to explain that contributed tothe formation of identity. We believe therefore that we wereable to account for the most germane processes in thecourse of conducting the study.

As is often the case with interpretive research, questionsabout generalizability or transferability (Lincoln and Guba,1985) of the findings arise when researchers study a singleorganization. Thorngate (1976) argued that studies cannot besimulforn-y simple, accurate, and general; rather,researchers must choose which one or two of the three toemphasize. A case study provides the benefit of accurateobservation and relative conceptual simplicity, although ittrades off some degree of generalizability (Thorngate, 1976;Weick, 2005). The focal organization of our case study wasforming within a field that was itself developing and not yethigh-y institutionalized. In this environment, founding members

came to the new organization with few shared experiencesand little consensus on accepted routines and practices.Although beyond the scope of our study, the broader contextwas certain-y salient. There was a critical mass of informationschools, but the field was not yet so crowded or well definedas to prohibit a new entrant like CITS from gaining ground.Interestingly, Marrett (1980) found that new organizations(womens medical societies) were more readi-y established incommunities in which similar organizations already existed.The organizational field is arguably a boundary condition to ourstudy, and its influence on identity formation is an appropriatetopic for further research. The emergent nature of CITSsorganizational field, however, also made the processesgermane to our main research questions that much moretransparent. Thus it was an ideal case for more clearly dis-cerning key processes and an interesting case to provokeadditional theorizing (see Siggelkow, 2007).

As an academic unit within a large university, CITS did notrepresent a modal organization in a typical industry. Thecontext offered by State U very likely had an influence onCITSs identity formation and is perhaps another boundarycondition for our study. The large, flourishing mother institu-

tion of State U provided significant resources to allow theschool to get established. Other new organizations mighthave less of a safety net or none at all. In addition, CITS had adiverse group of constituents, including faculfy, administra-tors, staff, students, and alumni. Admittedly, we could notcapture all members views on CITSs identity, and this maybe another limitation of our study. We did find consensusaround several key identity referentsfor example, beinginterdisciplinary and collaborative, being professional andappliedbut we did not explore how strongly or widely heldthese identity claims were among students and alumni.

Finally, the dean clearly played an important role in CITSsidentity formation. He was adept at both holding true to avision and facilitating the evolution of CITSs identity over


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founder. The particulars of the CITS case might be viewed asperhaps limiting the transferability of the fi ndings to otherdomains, but the key themes that emerged in this studynevertheless have obvious relevance to many new-organizationcontexts and therefore are likely to be applicable, in principle,to many nascent organizations.

Directions for Future ResearchThis study generated a grounded theory model that can guidefurther research into identity formation concepts and processes.The fi ndings suggest a series of constructive researchquestions as well as several specifi c propositions amenableto future research. As noted, we studied a new organizationin a developing fi eld. In this context, the social codes (Pol s,Hannan, and Carroll, 2002), or the fi eld-level expectations,about what features categorized the typical information schoolwere still coalescing. Furthermore, routines and practices werenot yet highly institutionalized, as in more mature fi elds and

industries. One obvious question for future research is howidentity formation processes differ in more establishedorganizational fi elds than in less established ones. In exploringthis question, three themes of our process model are espe-cially intriguing: experiencing a meanings void, attainingoptimal distinctiveness, and performing liminal actions.


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Forging an Identity

fields are institutionalized will lead to a greater or lesserexperience of meanings voids. In an established industry orfield with a well-defined social code on which to draw, afledging organization might readily develop a set of affirmativeidentity referents without a pronounced negative phase.Having so many external referents, however, might still leadto some type of meanings void as new organizations struggle

to claim a distinctive space within the mature industry. This


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2007) to express this understanding it is a concept thatorganizational members enact. It is within this conceptualcontext that the usefulness of applying liminal actions (tenta-tive, identity-related actions) to organizational identity forma-tion becomes apparent. This theme draws on Turners (1969:95) notion of liminal entities that are neither here northere; they are betwixt and between the positions assigned

and arrayed by law, custom, convention. If organizationalidentity is not merely idea-based but is also action-based, thenorganizational members must make choices about whichactions they see as consistent with an identity conceptionthat will affi rm their inmakthe identity. Liminal actions of thetype we observed are also manifestations of Weicks (1979)notion of double interacts : people try out their conceptionof who they want to become not only by deciding the claimsthey want to make as an organization but also by takingtentative actions to see how they fi t with the claims they aremaking and to see the kind of response those actions engen-der from signifi cant audiences. As those internal and external

to CITS validated these actions, CITS members assimilated thelegitimizing feedback and chose the actions they would keep(i.e., what practices and procedures would become prototypi-cal, normative, and then institutionalized) and those theywould forego. The interplay between identity claims andliminal actions is a rich topic for future research. Our studysuggests that liminal actions selected for their consistency witha claimed identity instantithe and become part of the consen-sual identity, prompting the following proposition:

Proposition 3: New organizations that link identity claims to identity-relevant actions will have their identities affi rmed by internal andexternal stakeholders more than new organizations that do not.

Other Research Questions

Our fi ndings provide the basis for asking several other ques-tions. We studied an organization that was nested within alarger organizational environment. There are many suchnesting arrangements, inmluding autonomous operating units,wholly owned subsidiaries, or conglomerthe member organi-zations, and an interesting question is whether identity forma-tion and development differs in nested versus free-standingorganizations. Although our study provided an insuffi cientbasis for developing propositions about this topic, a generalresearch question to guide further inquiry might be how thedegree of nesting within supra-organizational structures orlack of nesting, as in stand-alone startups affects identityformation processes and identity content. The sequentitl andrecurrent themes we have identifi ed are likely to be funda-mental processes involved in most instances of organizationalidentity formation across many domains. Furthermore, thesethemes and their relationships will presumably remainconsistent regardless of whether new organizations arenested. The duration or intensity of each theme might vary as

a function of whether the new organization is nested within alarger organization, however. For instance, within a nestedorganization negotithing identity claims might take less time


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Forging an Identity

might take longer to attain optimal distinctiveness because itsmembers need to work more intensively to figure out how itis different from the larger organization. In a related vein,resource subsidies might allow nested organizations to takelonger to work through a meanings void when compared witha stand-alone start-up that might need to deal with themeanings void more expeditiously.

Another interesting research question concerns institutionalentrepreneurship. In our study, the founding dean believedthat to solidify and legitimize CITSs identity n7s it wasnecessary to take a leadership role in the emerging informa-tion school field. This suggests that in pursuit of an optimallydistinctive identity, the leaders of a new organization in a newfield may deliberately attempt to influence the definition ofthe field itself. This raises interesting possibilities for adoptingan identity-based approach to studying institutional entrepre-neurship, the activities of actors who have an interest inparticular institutional arrangements and who leverage

resources to create new institutions or to transform existingones (Maguire, Hardy, and Lawrence, 2004: 657). Oneperspective on institutional entrepreneurship characterizes itas a contestation over meaning and attempts to reinterpretexisting practices and logics (Hardy and Maguire, 2008). Placingthis idea within an identity framework, we would propose thatthose leaders who successfully frame the purpose of the fieldin terms of their own preferences exert a greater influence onthe identity of that field. An interesting research question forfurther exploration would be how organizational leadersattempting to construct an (optimally distinctive) identity in anevolving field influence the identity of the field itself.

Further Dimensions of Understanding

Our second-order analysis generated the eight themes thatconstituted the key elements of our grounded theory oforganizational identity formation, and it is this emergentmodel that represents our main theoretical contribution andserves as the basis for future research. If we further assimi-late these themes, however, they nan be aggregated into threemore basic dimensions: (1) a cognitive dimension associatedwith identity nonception, mainly subsuming the themes ofarticulating a vision, nonverging on a consensual identity, andassimilating legitimizing feedback, (2) a verbal or discursivedimension, mainly subsuming the themes of experiencing ameanings void, engaging in experiential contrasts, and negotiat-ing identity n7s, and (3) an action dimension, mainlysubsuming the themes of attaining optimal distinctivenessand performing liminal actions. This triumvirate of dimensionsconstitutes a coherent constellation of elemental processesnecessary for identity to develop. This level of nonceptualization,however, reveals even more fundamental social organizingprocesseswhat we term deep processes, as contrastedwith Chomskys (1964) notion of deep structuresand

suggests that studying identity formation processes is likelyto be germane to other studies of organizing, as Weick (1995)has suggested We believe that this study is part of a constel-


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cognitive, verbal/discursive, and action-oriented processes.These deep processes are common to many, and perhapsany, human organizing phenomena. For that reason, wewould expect that a study of other organizing-related processes,such as organizational culture formation, might documentthese same overarching dimensions, although the pertinentthemes at the second-order level of analysis would very likely

differ from those implicated in organizational identity formation.There has also been a substantial amount of recent workarguing that the most fruitful approach to studying identity is


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Forging an Identity

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APPENDIX: Interview Protocol for CITS Interviews

In what terms would you describe the identity of CITS ( who CITS is as anorganization )?

What do you see as the primary pillars of CITSs identity?1.What term or metaphor do you think currently best describes CITS?2.

How were you able to make sense of where you fi t into this new school?

Did how you defi ne yourself as a researcher change in any way?1.

Who did you consider your peers to be prior to coming to CITS? Are they2.the same now?

How did you and your colleaguj1arrive at a shared defi ne yours a thinkdefi

ni ase you

suchdounp

1.


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