Identity and change: recent developments and future directions created by Deborah Price and Rolf van Dick

Organizational change, once endemic, can now be seen to have reached epidemic proportions. The stark reality of the global economy is one in which international economic circumstances have profound repercussions for organizations, be they private sector enterprises trying to maintain market share, or public and voluntary sector enterprises trying to reduce costs while continuing to meet demand. Change is therefore not simply desirable, it is necessary to ensuring survival. Change within an organization sets out to alter the characteristics of that organization, be it radical planned change disrupting the very fabric of the organization, or emergent change slowly steering a new direction. Such alterations necessitate discontinuities in the relationships between the organization and those who work within. Beyond the extrinsic motivators of reward and remuneration, the relationships that people have with organizations offer them a locus for identification. Where change disturbs the relationship, it also disturbs the processes of identification. As a form of social identity, organizational identification (van Dick et al., 2004) allows people to draw on the central, distinctive and enduring characteristics of the organization (Albert and Whetten, 1985), as referents informing their sense of who they are in relation to others (Pratt, 1998). This social identity theory (see Haslam, 2004) suggests the ways in which on-going organizational narratives shape people’s sense of self. From a self-categorization perspective, disruption to the in-group versus out-group landscape challenges people’s ability to situate their identity in any meaningful way (Turner et al., 1994).