Albert and Whetten Revisited: Strengthening the Concept of Organizational Identity

Abstract

The objective of this article is to formulate the concept of organizational identity in such a way that it can be distinguished analytically from related concepts, such as organizational culture and image, and can be used operationally to identify bona fide organizational identity claims referents and associated identity-referencing discourse. The proposal amounts to a stronger version of Albert and Whetten (1985), in that the implicit links between the elements of their composite, tripartite, formulation are made explicit and their treatment of organizational identity as a defined construct is emphasized. Although the proposal eschews conceptions of organizational identity formulated from the perspective of individuals, it treats organizational identity as an analogue of individual identity, drawing attention to the parallel functions identity plays for both individual and collective social actors, as well as the parallel distinguishing structural features of individual and organizational identity referents. The principle recommendation is to conduct the study of member-agents' answers to the question, “Who are we as an organization?” within the parameters of a defined identity-claim conceptual domain (what) and associated phenomenological markers of identity-referencing discourse (how, when, why).