Joep Cornelissen

Social Identity, Organizational Identity and Corporate Identity: Towards an Integrated Understanding of Processes, Patternings and Products

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.

Communication, Organizing and Organization: An Overview and Introduction to the Special Issue

This paper provides an overview of previous work that has explored the processes and mechanisms by which communication constitutes organizing (as ongoing efforts at coordination and control of activity and knowledge) and organizations (as collective actors that are ‘talked’ into existence). We highlight differences between existing theories and analyses grounded in communication-as-constitutive (CCO) perspectives and describe six overarching premises for such perspectives; in so doing, we sharpen and bound the explanatory power of CCO perspectives for organization studies more generally. Building on these premises, we develop an agenda for further research, call for greater cross-fertilization between the communication and organization literatures, and illustrate ways in which communication-informed analyses have complemented and strengthened theories of the firm, organizational identity, sensemaking, and strategy as practice.

PUTTING FRAMING IN PERSPECTIVE: A REVIEW OF FRAMING AND FRAME ANALYSIS ACROSS THE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL LITERATURE

AbstractThere are few constructs that are as ubiquitous across traditions of management and organizational research, and indeed the social sciences more generally, as that of frame or framing. The ...

Bridging Corporate and Organizational Communication: Review, Development and a Look to the Future

The theory and practice of corporate communication is usually driven by other disciplinary concerns than the field of organizational communication. However, its particular mind-set focusing on wholeness and consistency in corporate messages increasingly influence the domain of contemporary organizational communication as well. We provide a formative and critical review of research on corporate communication as a platform for highlighting crucial intersections with select research traditions in organizational communication to argue for a greater integration between these two areas of research. Following this review, we relax the assumptions underlying traditional corporate communication research and show how these dimensions interact in organizational and communication analysis, thus, demonstrating the potential for a greater cross-fertilization between the two areas of research. This cross-fertilization, as we will illustrate, enriches the theorization of corporate and organizational communication and may better link micro- and macro level analyses.

What Are We Playing at? Theatre, Organization, and the Use of Metaphor

This article addresses the question of how metaphor works and illustrates this with an explication of the ‘organization as theatre’ metaphor. It is argued that the so-called comparison account of metaphor that has dominated organization studies to date is flawed, misguided, and incapable of accounting for the fact that metaphors generate inferences beyond the similarities required for comprehending the metaphor and that metaphoric understanding is creative, with the features of importance being emergent rather than existing antecedently. A new model of metaphor for organizational theorizing is therefore proposed in this article and illustrated through an extended discussion and explication of the ‘organization as theatre’ metaphor. This explication shows furthermore that the ‘organization as theatre’ metaphor has not broken any new ground or led to any conceptual advances in organization theory, but has just provided a language of theatre (actors, scenes, scripts, and so on) for framing and communicating identity and role enactment within organizations. Constitutive principles and governing rules are derived from this model and from detailing the ‘organization as theatre’ metaphor, which, it is suggested, can guide theorists and researchers in their use of metaphor in organization studies.

The Role of Analogy and Metaphor in the Framing and Legitimization of Strategic Change

Strategic change initiatives disrupt established categories of stakeholder understanding and typically present a problem of justifying and legitimizing the change to stakeholders in order to gain their buy-in and support. While it has been suggested that the analogical or metaphorical framing of strategic changes is crucial in that it fosters understanding and creates legitimacy for the change, we set out to specify the conditions and uses of analogical and metaphorical framing in effecting support for strategic changes. Specifically, we argue that (a) analogies are more effective in the context of additive changes, whereas metaphors are more apt for substitutive changes, and that (b) relational analogies and metaphors are generally more effective in securing support for strategic changes, as opposed to analogies or metaphors that highlight common attributes. We also argue that the overall effectiveness of analogies and metaphors in the framing of a change is furthermore dependent on (c) the degree to which these frames are culturally familiar to stakeholders and (d) the extent to which they connect with the prior motivations of stakeholders.

Metaphorical images of organization: How organizational researchers develop and select organizational metaphors

The article examines how metaphors are developed and selected within organizational theorizing and research. The issue addressed is not whether metaphors exist and play a part in organizational theorizing – as this is now widely accepted – but to draw out how metaphors are actually used and are of conceptual value, particularly as such insights may aid organizational researchers in a better use of them.Working from this position, the article reviews the extant theoretical literature on metaphor, surveys the organizational literature to document past and contemporary metaphors-in-use (1993–2003), and identifies the heuristics (i.e. judgmental rules) that have been used by organizational researchers in developing and selecting these metaphors. The identified heuristics are the integration, relational, connection, availability, distance and concreteness heuristics. On the basis of these identified heuristics, and the biases and errors associated with them, the article also posits a number of governing rules that can guide organizational researchers in their continued development and selection of metaphors in the organizational field.

Sensegiving in entrepreneurial contexts: The use of metaphors in speech and gesture to gain and sustain support for novel ventures

Gaining and sustaining support for novel ventures is a vital yet difficult entrepreneurial process. Previous research on this topic has generally focused on the social competence and social capital of those creating new ventures, and their ability to align their ventures, with collective norms of novel ventures as sensible, acceptable and legitimate. We suggest that sensegiving – the ability to communicate a meaningful course for a venture – to investors and employees may also play a direct role in achieving support for a venture. Based upon a micro-ethnographic study of two individuals who were in the process of creating new ventures, we demonstrate how they give sense, to others in real time that involve not just their speech but also their gestures. Overall, we find evidence that in the early stages of the commercialization of a venture, metaphors in both speech and gesture are consistently used to emphasize agency and control and the predictability and taken-for-grantedness of a novel venture.

New tensions and challenges in integrated communications

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how tensions and challenges associated with the implementation of integrated communications in practice have intensified in recent years under the impact of two conflicting trends: new social and organizational “drivers” towards integration; and the appearance of savvy and sophisticated audiences.Design/methodology/approach – Taking the point of departure in now classical discussions of structural “barriers” to integration, today more fundamental difficulties limit the implementation of integrated communications – difficulties rooted in epistemological issues of organization and communication are argued.Findings – Integrated communications present a paradox to contemporary communication management. On the one hand, integration seems to be the most logical and sensible way of managing communications in a complex world of multiple and critical audiences. On the other hand, its prescriptions are essentially at odds with what is known today about organizat...

Corporate brands and identity: developing stronger theory and a call for shifting the debate

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to engage with the issue of construct clarity in corporate communications research giving particular attention to corporate branding and identity whereby a critique of existing alignment models provides a basis for a shift in the debate geared towards an alternative approach.Design/methodology/approach – The commentary offers a discussion of a particular challenge to theory development around the clarity and specification of key constructs such as corporate identity and corporate brands. This leads to an elaboration of existing models of corporate branding and identity management and the subsequent suggestion for a shift towards alternative analytical interpretive models that are not premised on ontological assumptions of a conduit model of communication and objectivist assumptions of alignment and consistency. Shifting the debate in this direction has significant implications for research as well as practice.Findings – There is a need to move away from sender‐domina...