* Academy ol MonagemenI Review 2000, Vol. 25, No. 1,63-31. ORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITY, IMAGE, AND ADAPTIVE INSTABILITY DENNIS A. GIOIA Pennsylvania State University MAJKEN SCHULTZ Copenhagen Business School KEVIN G. CORLEY Pennsylvania State University Organizational identity usually is portrayed as that which is core, distinctive, and enduring about the character of an organization. We argue that because of the reciprocal interrelationships between identity and image, organizational identity, rather than enduring, is better viewed as a relatively fluid and unstable concept. We further argue that instead of destabilizing an organization, this instability in identity is actually adaptive in accomplishing change. The analysis leads to some provoca- tive, but nonetheless constructive, implications for theory, research, and practice. In recent years identity and image have be- come the subjects of rather intensive organiza- tional study, perhaps because both concepts are multilevel notions dealing with individual and organizational issues and because both can lend insight into the character and behavior of organizations and their members. Whether those insights concern personal versus organi- zational identity (Ashforth & Mael, 1989), threats to identity (Elsbach & Kramer, 1996), organiza- tional image and identification (Dutton, Duk- erich, & Harquail, 1994), organizational image as an end state (Alvesson, 1990), adaptation (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991), issue interpretation (Gioia & Thomas, 1996), or member commitment (Whet- ten, Lewis, & Mischel, 1992), identity and image have acquired the status of key concepts em- ployed to describe and explain individual and organizational behavior (see Whetten & God- frey, 1998). In this article we focus attention pri- marily on the concepts of organ izafion ai identity and image. Essential to most theoretical and empirical treatments of organizational identity is a view, specified by Albert and Whetten (1985), defining We thank Samia Cbreim, AMR special Issue editor Jane Dutton, Martin Kilduff, Kristian Kreinei, Dave Lepak, Mette Morsing, Gary Weaver, and three anonymous AMR review- ers for constructive comments on earlier versions of this article. identity as that which is central, enduring, and distinctive about an organization's character. Scholars have predicated virtually all later treatments of organizational identity on these definitional pillars. In contrast, scholars have seen organizational image as a broader con- cept, which includes notions involving the ways organization members believe others see the or- ganization (Dutton & Dukerich, 1991); fabricated, projected pictures aimed at various constituen- cies (Bernstein, 1984); and the public's percep- tion of a given organization (Berg, 1985). In this article we argue that there is a close reciprocal relationship between organizational identity and various forms of image—a relation- ship that augurs for some reconsideration of the bases for the normally accepted conception of identity. We argue further that this reconsidera- tion is important, because the consequences of adhering to the now taken-for-granted concep- tion have implications not only for our ways of thinking about organizations and their members but especially for the ways in which we think about how organizations change. This is partic- ularly the case as organizations deal with in- creasingly complex and turbulent environments and as the role of the media in organizational life becomes more pronounced. Our main contention is that organizational identity, contrary to most treatments of it in the literature, is actually relatively dynamic and 63