Building Character: The Formation of a Hybrid Organizational Identity in a Social Enterprise
Cornelissen J.P. Akemu O. Jonkman J.G.F. Werner M.D.
July 2021Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Journal of Management Studies
2021#58Issue 51294 - 1330 pp.
The formation of a hybrid organizational identity is a significant challenge for many social enterprises. Drawing on in-depth longitudinal data from the first three years of a successful social enterprise – Fairphone, founded in Amsterdam – we induce an empirically grounded theoretical model of how a hybrid organizational identity is formed. We identify a general process of organizational identity formation, with founders, leaders and members experimenting with different organizational characters describing ‘who they are’ as well as with alternative social impact strategies defining ‘what they do’. As part of this experimental process, we elaborate the role of a key leadership process – ‘rekeying’, which involves leaders re-figuring prior understandings into more dual readings – which we found facilitates ongoing adaptation and helps members of the organization to become progressively better able at combining multiple objectives and values as part of a shared hybrid identity. Our theoretical model of hybrid organizational identity formation has a number of direct implications for ongoing research on organizational identity formation and hybrid organizations.
hybrid organizations , leadership re-keying , organizational identity formation , sensemaking , social entrepreneurship
Text of the article Перейти на текст статьи
Erasmus University, Netherlands
University of Liverpool, United Kingdom
Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan
University of Amsterdam, Netherlands
Erasmus University
University of Liverpool
Nazarbayev University
University of Amsterdam
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026