Organizational Identity Work in Times of Identity Ambiguity

What happens when the identity of an organization is unclear? This study examines organizational identity work in small cultural organizations facing difficulty in making sense of their identity beliefs causing identity ambiguity. In this context, identity beliefs are in doubt, the relevance of practices is questioned and the relations to others are unclear. Using a dynamic approach to organizational identity, we compare two cases experiencing a strong level of identity ambiguity, tracing how identity beliefs and their associated meanings evolve over time, taken from a total of 13 cases, 470 hours of observations and 27 interviews. We then provide an empirical account of organizational identity work process, focusing on interactions and experiences, which is under-theorized. Our research identifies two different outcomes to the identity work process: identity being reinvented or reasserted, stressing the need for new ideas to be experienced before they are adopted (or not) and become (or not) part of organizational identity. We extend theory on organizational identity work, which has been largely overlooked, developing a framework of how small organizations confront identity work in times of identity ambiguity.