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The Development of Corporate Identity:
A Political Perspective*
Suzana Rodrigues and John Child
University of Birmingham
A corporate identity denotes a set of attributes that senior managers ascribe to
their organization. It is therefore an organizational identity articulated by a powerful interest
group. It can constitute a claim which serves inter alia to justify the authority vested in top
managers and to further their interests. The academic literature on organizational identity,
and on corporate identity in particular, pays little attention to these political considerations.
It focuses in an apolitical manner on shared meanings when corporate identity works, or on
cognitive dissonance when it breaks down. In response to this analytical void, we develop a
political analysis of corporate identity and its development, using as illustration a longitudinal
study of successive changes in the corporate identity of a Brazilian telecommunications
company. This suggests a cyclical model in which corporate identity definition and redefinition
involve power relations, resource mobilization and struggles for legitimacy.
INTRODUCTION
The study of organizational identity has attracted a large literature (cf. Albert et al., 2000;
Hatch and Schultz, 2004; Whetten and Godfrey, 1998). This interest reflects Gioia et al.’s
claim that ‘the concept of identity is key to understanding modern organizations’ (2000,
p. 78). Yet there is little agreement on what the concept of organizational identity denotes,
on a relevant theory, or on an appropriate methodology for studying it (Hatch and Yanow,
2006). Rather, as one authority has commented, ‘anarchy reigns . . . even after more than
15 years of active conversation about organizational identity’ (Harquail, 2004, pp. 141–2).
This paper offers a political perspective that addresses one of the theoretical challenges
besetting the subject of organizational identity. The problem resides in the tacit insis-
tence found within much recent analysis on an a-political treatment of what is a politi-
cally charged topic. The essence of our argument is that the study of organizational
identity needs to come to terms with the fact that organizations are arenas within which
conflicting as well as joint interests are pursued. A political perspective extends our
Address for reprints: Suzana Rodrigues, Birmingham Business School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham
B15 2TT, UK (s.b.rodrigues@bham.ac.uk).
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© Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2007. Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK
and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.
Journal of Management Studies ••:•• 2007
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2007.00750.x
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