How Organizations Become Enduring: Disentangling the Organizational Identity Paradox

Persistence, the “ugly twin” of change, tends to be overshadowed by the more fashionable questions of innovation and novelty. Yet, especially in turbulent and shifting technological and socio-economic environments, questions have to be asked about why some organizations remain “frozen” and by what means they are capable of persisting and maintaining their structures. An environment that is supposed to be ever-changing is pushing organizations to develop adaptive capabilities. From this perspective, constant change becomes ordinary and predictable, whereas persistence is an oddity and inertia appears as the incapability to adapt. This general tendency can also be found in the growing body of literature that deals with organizational identity (see Albert and Whetten, 1985; Cornelissen, Haslam, and Balmer, 2007; Whetten, 2006).