The interplay of organizational identity and design in situations of change

Although much research has been undertaken on strategic change, many aspects of identity change remain ill understood. The lack of a comprehensive understanding of identity change might partly result from a narrow approach to research which focusses on discrete elements of organizations. There are, however, calls to expand scholarship by considering other core elements of organizations, such as design, when studying identity change.
We respond to these calls by studying strategic change from an identity and design perspective at a leading charity. In so doing, we show that design changes can surface dormant identity tensions and trigger identity change. We uncover a two-stage process that plays a role in this context and is rooted in a fundamental disagreement about the purposes of the organization. Finally, we show how structural changes can move an organization’s identity from an ideographic to a holographic form.