Forging a collective entrepreneurial identity within existing organizations through corporate venturing

Perhaps you are a doctoral student, mapping out how to parcel your dissertation; perhaps you are a junior scholar, strategizing your research plan; perhaps you are a senior scholar, who is thinking about what you want to say to the field. No matter what stage you are at as a management researcher, you might be looking to the Academy of Management (AOM) journals as a natural home for any and all of these creative research pursuits. However, it might not always be crystal clear how you should craft your work for the AOM journals, what contribution you might make at each journal, and consequently to which journal you should target your intellectual contributions.
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Organizations’ use of non-market strategies – efforts to use regulators or public policy to achieve competitive advantage – has been primarily treated as a response to the institutional environment. However, an organization’s identity – the way organizational members’ view of themselves - and image – the way organizational members believe others view the organization - are key constraints that inform a firm’s non-market strategic choices. Building on the organizational identity literature, this paper argues that the degree of fit between organizational identity and image and institutional norms of corporate political behavior have important implications for how firms seek competitive advantage through non-market strategies. Specifically, the paper suggests a typology of non-market strategies that firms utilize depending on the fit of organizational image and identity with focal institutional norms of corporate political behavior.

This research emphasizes at how do role identity, organization identity and types of conflicts influence universities staff’s conflict coping behaviors. By literature exploring and using empirical survey methods with the four universities staff’s in Taipei Taiwan, we investigate factors that affect the conflict coping behaviors, and various relationships among demographic variables, universities staff’s conflict coping behaviors and other variables. This research enhances the management level and related units to put more emphasis and values on conflict management, and help improving ability of universities staff to process conflict properly. This research adopts the convenient questionnaire survey and the samples are universities staff of four universities in Taipei Taiwan. The valid samples are 204 employees. We use factor analysis and cluster analysis, and we divide samples by role identity into two groups “high role identity” and “low role identity”, and divide organization identity into two groups “high organization identity” and “low organization identity” ,and divide types of conflicts into two groups “task conflict” and “ relationship conflict ” , and we also divide conflict coping behaviors into five groups “domination ”, “collaboration”, “compromise” ,“avoidance” and “accommodation”. The main results showed as follows: 1.There are significant differences in conflict coping behaviors of the universities staff by different role identity and organization identity. 2.There are significant differences in conflict coping behaviors of the universities staff by different organization identity. 3.Role identity, organization identity and types of conflicts of universities staff causes significant impacts on conflict coping behaviors. 4.The organization identity of universities staff causes a significant positive impact on conflict coping behaviors. 5.The types of conflicts of universities staff causes a significant impact on conflict coping behaviors. 6.Employees with different demographic variables will have differences in some dimensions of role identity, organization identity, types of conflicts and conflict coping behaviors.

This paper provides an overview of previous work that has explored issues of social, organizational and corporate identity. Differences in the form and focus of research into these three topics are noted. Social identity work generally examines issues of cognitive process and structure; organizational identity research tends to address the patterning of shared meanings; studies of corporate identity tend to focus on products that communicate a specific image. Nonetheless, across these areas there is general consensus that collective identities are (a) made viable by their positivity and distinctiveness, (b) fluid, (c) a basis for shared perceptions and action, (d) strategically created and managed, (e) qualitatively different from individual identities and (f) the basis for material outcomes and products. This paper calls for greater cross‐fertilization of the three identity literatures and discusses requirements for the integration of micro‐ and macro‐level analyses.

The youth voluntary organization has been outstanding in the social governance. Therefore it’s an important issue how to ensure its role played sustainably in the long term. Particularly in reality, a few youth voluntary organizations sometimes become lax and act no function due to the turnover of its members. So it can tell that it’s given a very realistic meaning to discuss the factors influencing the turnover intention of the management of the organization. Based on the theory of organizational identification, the essay tries to find out the members’ intrinsic motivation to join the youth voluntary organization and its impact on turnover intention, and to verify the regulating mechanism of extrinsic motivation to the organizational identification and the mediating mechanism of organizational identification to the turnover intention. The result of the study into members of the Zhejiang youth voluntary organization shows that: (1) the intrinsic intention has the most significant influence on the turnover of the members of the youth voluntary organization; (2) the organizational identification plays a mediating role between intrinsic motivation and turnover intention; (3) the relationship between intrinsic motivation and organizational identification will be moderated by extrinsic motivation. The result of this study releases a revelatory meaning to raise the organizational identification of the members and restrain their turnover intention.

Different scientific fields consider identity as a pivotal concept when explaining behavior in general, and particularly, during change processes. I explore in this paper the merits of an identity-centered theoretical approach that might help to explain inertial as well as resiliency tendencies within organizations facing technological discontinuities. Specifically, I review empirical and theoretical evidence that seems to indicate that one key to understand how organizations can cope with these discontinuities is studying how organizational members come to understand their collective identity (i.e. organizational identity). Implications of this new approach are also presented.

Digital technologies can enable entrepreneurial processes and outcomes. However, current implications for scholars and practitioners on how to exploit the emerging digital technologies for entrepreneurship in the corporate context, i.e., corporate entrepreneurship, remain unclear. This issue is even more relevant today where the growing pervasiveness of digital technologies finds increasing applicability in corporate entrepreneurship activities. This present study contributes to the academic debate on corporate entrepreneurship in the digital era by offering an exploratory multiple case study – based on semi-structured interviews – that involved four incumbent organizations to deepen the knowledge of the role played by digital technologies in corporate entrepreneurship. We provide empirical evidence on how incumbents can exploit the enabling role of digital technologies to foster corporate entrepreneurship activities. Specifically, we document three enabling mechanisms of digital technologies in corporate entrepreneurship: (i) increasing the number and heterogeneity of inputs for corporate entrepreneurship activities; (ii) increasing the visibility of actors and resources involved in corporate entrepreneurship activities; (iii) accelerating innovation adoption rate in incumbent organizations. The outcome of this study is a framework that discusses the managerial actions required to support incumbents in making corporate entrepreneurship more prolific through digital technologies. In doing so, this study contributes to research on corporate entrepreneurship in the digital era. Results are of interest also to managers and practitioners, providing them practical insights to exploit the enabling role of digital technologies for corporate entrepreneurship activities.

Given the ever-changing nature of contemporary workplaces, members often renegotiate how they view the identity of their organization. One way they do so is by expanding or contracting their conception of organizational identity. In studying these processes, we develop the construct of “identity elasticity”—the tensions that simultaneously stretch, while holding together, social constructions of identity. To explicate the parameters of elasticity, we problematize previous conceptions of the three foundations of organizational identity—centrality, endurance, and distinctiveness—and document the dialectic tensions experienced in their social constructions. We show how identity is experienced not only through a listing of attributes but also by negotiating a set of processual tensions. In so doing, we also bring together two competing views on organizational identity—process and characteristic. We show how experiencing and navigating the tensions of elasticity is a type of organizational identity work (process) that changes organizational members’ constructions of identity (characteristic). We develop our findings as a result of a 10-year-long multiple-method study of an organization undergoing significant growing pains in its identity—the Episcopal Church. Further, we position elasticity as a crucial construct with implications for how organizational identity is viewed.

PurposeIdentity regulation is part of a management control package. Organizations regulate employees’ self-identity to influence their behaviors. The success of this regulation depends on its trade-off with employees’ work identities and personalities. Organizational discourse nurtures this dynamic and interactive process. We focus on the regulation of an (undesired) organizational identity that is born at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, sex and migrant discrimination in accounting-related positions. We aim to analyze how Latina accountants who migrate to Spain perceive that their triple status as Latina, women and migrants affects their careers as accountants and interpret whether this triple intersectional discrimination aims to create a Latina accountant’s self-identity.Design/methodology/approachThis critical study follows a phenomenological approach to analyze the experiences of women born in Latin America who migrated to Spain to occupy accounting-related positions. A thematic analysis of their semi-structured interviews allowed us to examine the challenges faced by Latina accountants in their accounting careers in Spain.FindingsOur interviewees' narratives display an internalization of, even resignation to, a self-identity that we label “Latina accountant identity.” This identity is based on explicit discrimination discourses that cause them to suffer from the intersection of racism, sexism and migrant conditions and is nurtured by the discourses of their senior managers, co-workers and subordinates.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to frame the regulation of an intersectional discriminatory identity that is used to control Latina accountants from the inside, acting on the triple condition of Latinas, women and foreigners, influencing their self-perceptions regarding work and personal lives.

The article reveals the theoretical basis for the development of the concept of «membership in organizations». In sociology, the term "membership" is used in a broad (member of society) and narrow (member of a formal organization) sense. At the level of professional, totalitarian and bureaucratic organizations as social segments, membership is modified as «belonging status», organizational identity, subordination and involvement. Certain value principles are revealed, the formal implementation of which is guarded by the statute and the oath. Organizations decide, on the one hand, on the acquisition and termination of membership, and on the other on the transfer of members to various positions in the organization. Acquisition of membership turns the individual into a component of staff, which becomes the object of organizational decisions. The macro-sociological concepts of F.Tönnies, M.Duverger, T.Parsons, M.Olson present membership as a formal-bureaucratic procedure with limited and open access. Admission to the group, the organization is a preliminary investigation and establishment of the ethical value of the applicant and receipt after testing and testing of the approbation as a «full». Joining the organization or gaining membership in it is a complex procedure of social cooperation, mutual consent. You can join a closed organization only after a long probationary period and serious recommendations from the responsible guarantors, even passing an examination and filtration commission, providing evidence of sincerity and firmness of intention. There are groups with limited and open access, but the process of joining and leaving the group is determined by the nature of the goal that the group wants to achieve, not by some characteristics of membership. Thus, pressure groups (lobbying organizations) attract participants partly through subtle forms of coercion, and partly through the provision of selective incentives (legal and financial advice, advocacy of members of associations before the judiciary and law enforcement agencies). With the acquisition of membership in one organization, the individual receives formal isolation from a member of another organization. Members of a particular organization can be recognized by symbols (flag, emblem, slogan, etc.). Any organization can set its own restrictions or qualifications: age, availability of written recommendations, entrance fees. Active participation in membership not only deepens the experience of the individual and expands the potential of the organization, but expands its influence within the community, involving a wider segment of the community in organizational activities.

To imitate or differentiate: Cross-level identity work in an innovation network

Organizational identification (OID) is the outcome of social construction processes in which individuals define themselves in terms of their organizational membership. Students’ identification with their university reflects value congruence with the institution and is reflected in communication. Drawing on social identity theory (SIT) and utilizing quantitative and qualitative data from students (n = 555), we found relationships between OID and construed external image of the university, trust in the university, satisfaction with the university, perceived interorganizational competition, and outcomes, including intended future involvement. Students were re-surveyed nine months later (n = 397, with 83 respondents matching Time 1 and Time 2) to assess their OID stability. Open-ended responses describe situations and events that strengthen/lessen OID. We offer implications for OID, SIT, and for organizational communication research and practice.

Psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers have long recognized that people have multiple identities—based on attributes such as organizational membership, profession, gender, ethnicity, religion, nationality, and family role(s)—and that these multiple identities shape people's actions in organizations. The current organizational literature on multiple identities, however, is sparse and scattered and has yet to fully capture this foundational idea. I review and organize the literature on multiple identities into five different theoretical perspectives: social psychological; microsociological; psychodynamic and developmental; critical; and intersectional. I then propose a way to take research on multiple identities forward using an intrapersonal identity network approach. Moving to an identity network approach offers two advantages: first, it enables scholars to consider more than two identities simultaneously, and second, it helps scholars examine relationships among identities in greater detail. This is important because preliminary evidence suggests that multiple identities shape important outcomes in organizations, such as individual stress and well-being, intergroup conflict, performance, and change. By providing a way to investigate patterns of relationships among multiple identities, the identity network approach can help scholars deepen their understanding of the consequences of multiple identities in organizations and spark novel research questions in the organizational literature.

Purpose: This research seeks to examine identity tensions in IT project managers involved in developing Agile Information Systems Development (ISD). It looks at the transition from the hierarchical functional PM structures to the non-hierarchical decentralised decision-making forms of Agile. These tensions relate to how the organisational tensions affected the roles of project managers. The third study concerns role tensions leading to conflicts and identity work about traditional and agile paradigms. Materials and Methods: The study employs a qualitative research technique involving semi-structured interviews among the participants, the IT project managers. It gathers data on the project managers and explores the nature of their conflicts and how managers resolve these conflicts regarding tensions concerning compliance and cooperation, role definition, and leadership adaptations in the Agile context. Findings: The research identifies three primary areas of tension for IT project managers; Lack of coordination between attempts to enforce bureaucracy (laws and policies) and coordination (work incorporation). Ambiguity of the roles played in various organisational settings Failure of the organisational structures to provide clear roles that individuals play during their operations. Agile leadership challenges moving from decision-making authority to a more coordinated leadership position. Organisational officials and project managers use measures including endorsing peripheral positions, engaging peers and enrolling for organisational development to deal with such opposing forces. Importance is placed on the organisational climate, resources and training within the study to focus on organisation adaptability and identity work within Agile frameworks. Implications to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study suggests practical measures for management organisations to improve individual and organisational outcomes in Agile ISD settings; Develop suitable training courses as a measure to help people adapt to the Agile type with effectiveness. Make networks and peer support systems for project managers. This increases role conflict, which should be minimised by establishing a clear structure of responsibilities and tasks within the company. The findings also advance theory by discussing how professional identity develops and the psychological and social changes that occur when transitioning to Agile culture.

Many researchers and practitioners from the industry would agree on the importance of corporate entrepreneurship as an effective means for rejuvenating companies and improving their financial performance. In the era of intense global competition, Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) realize that a greater focus is required in entrepreneurial behaviors in identifying foreign market opportunities, seeking partnerships with foreign firms, and building organizational capabilities in order to enhance their competitive advantage. But, what do we really know about the role of corporate entrepreneurship on internationalization among the SMEs? Most of the studies focus on corporate entrepreneurship among established companies who have strengths in both resources and reputations in the market. Within this context, this article describes a study of corporate entrepreneurship and its role in SMEs internationalization. Data were collected from 300 internationalized SMEs in Malaysia, from manufacturing industry representing consumer and industrial products. Regression analysis was then used to analyze the data. The study also examines the impact of size as a moderating variable between corporate entrepreneurship and internationalization. The results suggest that corporate entrepreneurship has a positive impact on internationalization when size functions as moderating factor in relatively smaller firms. This effect on the internationalization, indicates that corporate entrepreneurship is particularly effective practice among SMEs when the companies are small. This study poses two implications for practicing managers and policy makers. First, the study encourages SMEs to nurture corporate entrepreneurship from the beginning or at inception as it pave path for firm internationalization. Second, the study suggests a need to use a long term horizon to judge entrepreneurial actions and its impacts on the firm internationalization.