Call for Papers: Journal of Change Management

Special Issue: Changing Identity and the Identity of Change

Guest Editors: Deborah Price (Open University Business School, UK) & Rolf van Dick (Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany)

There are many manifestations of identity within an organization. Indeed, organizational identity, social identity, professional identity and self identity can be seen to coalesce to produce a wide range of impacts on that organization. From a positivist perspective, people identifying with the organization are seen to have an improved customer focus (Ullrich et al., 2007), they are thought to have greater levels of job satisfaction (Wegge et al., 2006), to display extra-role behaviours and have a reduced inclination to leave (Riketta and van Dick, 2005). Alternatively, from an interpretive perspective, the 'role' of identity is characterised as a means through which individuals make sense of their surroundings (Fiol, 1998: 37) and garner insights into their relationships with others. From either viewpoint the issue of organizational change presents a challenge.

Change within an organization sets out to alter the characteristics of that organization, be it radical planned change which alters the very fabric of the organization, or emergent change which slowly steers a new direction. In either situation a tension is created between the need for change in order to move the organization forward, and the need for sufficient stability to allow people to draw on organizational referents to produce or inform their identities. Another tension rests in the fact that people who use organizational membership for the creation of their personal identities should - on the one hand – most strongly resist change because it impacts their self-definition. On the other hand, strongly identified employees should support organizational change most strongly as they generally contribute to the organization"s aims.

In recognition of these tensions, this special issue invites theoretical and empirical papers, and research in either quantitative or qualitative traditions, which address the following:

1. How is the process of identification influenced by organizational change?

2. How can we characterise the relationship between identity, identification and organizational change?

3. What impact do organizational, social and personal identities have on an organization’s ability to change and the effectiveness of change initiatives?