Discussion: View Thread

Identity and Change: How "Who We Are" Influences How We Drive or Cope with the Unexpected

Convenors:

Davide Ravasi

Cass Business School, United Kingdom

davide.ravasi.1@city.ac.uk

Nicole Rosenkranz

EHL Lausanne, Switzerland

nicole.rosenkranz@ehl.ch

Mamta Bhatt

IESEG School of Management, France

m.bhatt@ieseg.fr

CALL FOR PAPERS

This sub-theme explores the ways by which identity facilitates individuals and organizations to drive or respond to radical, often unexpected, change. The turbulent environments that characterize most industries today provide both opportunities and threats. Established companies face challenges in adapting to ever changing markets, and the need to anticipate change in order to be part of it or even drive it. For entrepreneurs, this turbulent environment provides opportunities to position themselves in existing markets with novel products, services or business models. A still nascent, but ever growing research stream looks into how identity constructs on different levels of analysis allow us to explain how both established organizations and entrepreneurial ventures facilitate or actively manage organizational change in order to create value.

We invite scholars with a variety of theoretical, methodological and empirical angles to join us in the exploration of how identity helps individuals and organizations to cope with the unexpected. Other contributions relating to general topics of identity including (but not limited to) self-concept, identity construction, identity threats, social identification, etc. will also be considered. An indicative list includes, but is not limited to, work that raises the following questions:

How do identity-related constructs and processes influence help organizations balance stability and change?

How do individuals and organizations respond to shocks and change in certain elements of identity?

How do individuals and organizations reconcile multiple identities, logics and schema to address surprising events both inside and outside an organization?

How do the construction and management of identities over time enable individuals and organizations to address planned and unplanned change?

How does change affect identities on different levels of the organization and vice versa over time?

How can identities be used to be the spark of a market surprise (e.g. entrepreneurial identities)?

For a more detailed outline please visit our sub-track page at EGOS: Track 18 - Identity and change!

We look forward to your submissions!

Davide, Mamta & Nicole