Should We Stay or Should We Go? `Organizational ...

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PROOF COVER SHEET Author(s):

Brett Smith, Moriah Meyskens and Fiona Wilson

Article title:

Should We Stay or Should We Go? ‘Organizational’ Relational Identity and Identification in Social Venture Strategic Alliances

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927389 1) Query sheet 2) Article proofs

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Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, 2014 Vol. 0, No. 0, 122, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19420676.2014.927389

Should We Stay or Should We Go? ‘Organizational’ Relational Identity and Identification in Social Venture Strategic Alliances 5

BRETT SMITH*, MORIAH MEYSKENS** & FIONA WILSONy

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Institute for Entrepreneurship, Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA; Department of Management, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA, USA; yPeter T. Paul College of Business & Economics, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA

ABSTRACT In tackling some of society’s most intractable problems, social ventures often engage in strategic alliances to overcome resource constraints and scale their solutions. While considerable research has focused on why strategic alliances are created, less attention has been focused on how they form and why they may (not) persist. Building on an identity-based perspective, we develop a theoretical model of strategic alliance development and change by explaining how, and with what results, leaders of social ventures influence the development of organizational identities within their own organizations and strategic alliance partner organizations. Our model contributes to the identity literature by developing a cross-level model that explains how individual identities can facilitate the development of organizational identities and by extending the individual-level construct of relational identity to the organizational level by introducing the constructs of ‘organizational’ relational identity and identification. Our model contributes to the social entrepreneurship and strategy literatures by suggesting that identity explanations may inform how strategic alliances are formed and why they may (not) persist. KEY WORDS: Social ventures, relational identity, identity theory, organizational identity, strategic alliances, partnerships, networks, social entrepreneurship

Introduction 25

Social ventures are organizations that engage in a wide range of initiatives attempting to create social value by tackling some of society’s most intractable problems such as poverty or human rights (Battilana and Dorado 2010; Correspondence Address: Moriah Meyskens, University of San Diego, Department of Management, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA 92110, USA. Email: [email protected] Ó 2014 Taylor & Francis


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Dees 1998; Mair and Marti 2006; Meyskens, Allen, and Brush 2011). Social ventures are often faced with substantial resource constraints, given the relative size of their organization compared to the magnitude of the problems they are trying to address (Dees and Bloom 2003). As a result and consistent with the approach of traditional firms (e.g. Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven 1996), social ventures often engage in strategic alliances with other organizations to access knowledge, skills and resources to develop, implement and scale their solutions (Austin, Stevenson, and Wei-Skillern 2007; Bloom and Smith 2010; Meyskens, Carsrud, and Cardozo 2010; Seitanidi and Lindgreen 2010). Strategic alliances are defined as close, mutually beneficial agreements between two or more partners in which knowledge, capabilities and resources are shared and may range from licensing agreements to joint ventures (Spekman et al. 1998) Research on strategic alliances has tended to disproportionately focus on why organizations enter into such arrangements (e.g. Eisenhardt and Schoonhoven 1996) often leveraging theoretical logics of transaction cost explanations (e.g. Williamson 1991) and resource-based explanations (e.g. Wernerfelt 1984). While past economic and strategic explanations have contributed much to our understanding of strategic alliances, these explanations may be incomplete as they fail to fully account for the affective, psychological and cognitive processes used by leaders of organizations when making decisions (Livengood and Reger 2010). In addition, past research on strategic alliances has often neglected important questions of process and persistence (Inkpen and Ross 2001; Spekman et al. 1996, 1998). As a result, we know relatively little about the psychological processes that may influence how strategic alliances form and why strategic alliances persist. Responding to the call to more fully account for the psychological underpinnings of managerial action and social considerations, scholars have looked for alternative theories and found identity-based explanations (Ashforth and Mael 1989) to be very promising at multiple levels of analysis (Kistruck, Beamish, et al. 2013; Livengood and Reger 2010). An identity-based perspective provides the definition of an entity, its primary mission, and its basis for action and can be defined as the characteristics of the entity that are central, enduring and distinctive (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011). An identity perspective has also been recognized as a theoretical perspective with much promise in the field of social entrepreneurship and has been applied to an emerging line of research to better understand processes within social ventures (Battilana and Dorado 2010; Dacin, Dacin, and Tracey 2011; Kistruck, Sutter, et al. 2013; Smith et al. 2010). The identity literature has two important constructs that may help increase our understanding about the strategic alliance of social ventures, organizational identity and relational identity. Organizational identity focuses on answering the question of ‘who we are’ as an organization by examining what the leaders of an organization believe is central, distinctive and continuous about their organization (e.g. Albert and Whetten 1985). As such, the leaders of an organization and their resulting actions will likely be influenced by their own organization’s identity as they enter into a strategic alliance with another


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organization. This may be particularly true, given the prominence of the social component of their organizational identity (Moss et al. 2011). Relational identity was developed to explain how one’s role relationship may influence its identity and actions, such as the role-relationship of managersubordinate, and its resulting forms of identification (Sluss and Ashforth 2007). Relational identification is defined as ‘the extent to which one defines oneself in terms of a given role-relationship’ (Sluss and Ashfoth 2007, 11). While relational identity and identification were developed with an individual-level focus on interpersonal dynamics, we believe that, given their focus on roles and identities, they can be fruitfully extended from the individual to the organizational level, resulting in ‘organizational’ relational identity and identification focused on the nature of inter-organizational role-relationships. To address this transition from the individual level to the organizational level, we develop a process model of cross-level identity dynamics to explain how a leader may facilitate the development of organizational identity within and across organizations. In addition, we believe organizational relational identification, which we define as the extent to which the leaders of one organization define themselves in terms of their role-relationship with another organization, can also serve as the basis for explaining why some organizations may (not) persist in strategic alliances. As a result, we explain how organizational relational identity may lead to strategic alliance outcomes ranging from dissolution to endurance based on the type of organizational relational identification ranging from deep-structure identification to disidentification. In this paper, we seek to make at least four contributions. First, we contribute to the identity literature by developing a cross-level process model that explains how individual-level identities can influence organizational identities. We add to the nascent scholarship on cross-level identities (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011) by explaining how individuals use scripts and identity narrative work to develop organizational identities within and across organizational boundaries. Second, we contribute to identity research by extending the constructs of relational identity and identification from the interpersonal to the inter-organizational level. Specifically, we explain how the rolerelationships of strategic alliance partners in social venture partnerships may result in the development of relational identities and identification at the organizational level to motivate behavior. In this way, we seek to use social entrepreneurial scholarship as a means of contributing to the broader organizational studies literature from which social entrepreneurial scholarship so often borrows. Third, we contribute to the strategy and social entrepreneurship literatures by explaining how an identity-based view of strategic alliances complements prior theoretical explanations. Drawing on an identity-based perspective, we explain how strategic explanations focused on economic rationality may need to become more ‘socialized’ in order to better predict and explain the formation of social venture strategic alliances. Finally, we explain how strategic alliances, particularly in the context of social ventures, may persist (or not) based upon the organizational relational identification. In this way, we also contribute to the limited, but emerging, line of research that shifts the emphasis from the influence of identity outcomes on the


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internal environment to that on the external environment (Livengood and Reger 2010) by explaining alliance formation with other actors and organizations. Specifically, we explain how the extent to which a strategic alliance partner defines themselves in terms of their role-relationship with a social venture will lead to outcomes ranging from persistence to dissolution. Our paper proceeds as follows. First, we discuss the literatures on organizational and relational identity and identification. Second, we develop a crosslevel process model that explains how individual-level identities can influence organizational identities and lead to organizational relational identities. Third, we explain how different forms of organizational relational identification may influence the continuity of strategic alliances. Finally, we discuss the contributions, implications and future research opportunities in the study of organizational relational identity and identification.

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Organizational Identity Research in organizational identity attempts to answer the questions of ‘who are we?’, ‘how are we different from others?’, and as an organization, ‘what is most important to us?’. Since its inception, organizational identity research has focused on the aforementioned three-legged stool of what is central, distinctive and enduring about an organization (Albert and Whetten 1985; Whetten 2006). The centrality of an organization’s identity refers to what is important to the organization and is often deeply rooted in the ‘soul’ of the organization (Albert and Whetten 1985; Whetten and Godfrey 1998). The distinctiveness of an organization refers to elements of the organization that make it unique and allow it to distinguish itself from other organizations. In this way, an organization’s distinctiveness places it in social space ‘by naming the organization as being like some organizations and unlike others’ (Corley et al. 2006, 87). The temporal continuity of an organization initially focuses on what is enduring and unchangeable (Albert and Whetten 1985) about its identity. However, more recently, scholars have highlighted that an organization may need to change, even if the identity is maintained for an extended period of time (e.g. Corley et al. 2006; Gioia and Thomas 1996). In this way, organizational scholarship is increasingly focused on issues of identity formation and identity change over time (Gioia et al. 2013). Organizational identity is important to understand because it has been linked to a number of different organizational processes and outcomes, including firm performance, decision-making and organizational change (Brickson 2005; Dutton and Dukerick 1991; Nag, Corley, and Gioia 2007). Organizational identity has been described as ‘the members’ consensual understanding of who we are as an organization’ (Nag, Corley, and Gioia 2007, 824). Following previous researchers, we use organizational identity to describe the leaders’ fundamental beliefs about the firm, including who they are, what they stand for and why they are successful, and we believe the


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beliefs of the leaders are closely related to the identity views of other members of the organization (Hambrick and Mason 1984; Livengood and Reger 2010; Reger et al. 1994). Moreover, as leader(s) of an organization embrace and enact the organization’s identity in decision-making, it moves from being a fundamental ‘theory of being’ to a critical ‘theory of action’ (Livengood and Reger 2010; Reger et al. 1998). As a result, we use this view of organizational identity to better understand the actions of how strategic alliances develop and why strategic alliances persist for social ventures. Organizational Identity and Social Ventures While still emerging, an organizational identity perspective has shown promise as a useful lens for understanding the essence and behavior of social ventures. Across recent studies, research on the organizational identity of social ventures has found a common theme related to their specific mission of social value creation. For example, an exploratory study of successful social ventures found a prominent use of their normative identities, focused on social value creation, above and beyond the utilitarian identity of traditional for-profit firms (Moss et al. 2011). Additional studies have focused on how the organizational identities of social ventures influence their ability to acquire resources and as a means to communicate to resource providers, especially funding organizations, that provide financial capital, generally driven by their uniquely social mission (Grimes 2010; Miller and Wesley 2010; Smith et al. 2010). For example, Smith and colleagues (2010) found that organizational identities of social ventures influenced both their hiring and communication practices. Miller and Wesley (2010) found organizational identity was a critical decision criterion used by social venture capitalists in funding decisions. Grimes (2010) found social ventures used performance measurement as both a means of accountability and a sensemaking tool for its organizational identity and called attention to an understanding of organizational identities and social entrepreneurship as socially constructed. Taken together, the emerging literature on social ventures suggests organizational identity is a promising theoretical lens to understand how these ventures leverage their socially constructed identities, focused on social value creation, to acquire resources for survival and growth, thereby making it ideally suited to understand how organizations come together for strategic alliance relationships. To further understand the relational focus, we now turn to literature on relational identity. Relational Identity and Identification at the Individual Level Relational identity and identification are constructs developed to highlight the ‘largely ignored interpersonal level and its influence on one’s identity and identification in the workplace’ (Sluss and Ashforth 2007, 9). Research on relational identity at the individual level suggests that individuals define themselves not only as part of a collective, but also based on the nature of their role-relationships with others (Sluss and Ashforth 2008). ‘A role is fundamentally relational and is largely understood with reference to the network of


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interdependent roles. Indeed it is relational identities that knit the network of roles and role incumbents together into a social system’ (Sluss and Ashforth 2007, 11). That is to say, the role of the supervisor is meaningless without the complementary role of the other subordinate because it embeds the action of the roles within a larger network and it lays the foundation of self-definition by the interaction in these roles (Sluss and Ashofroth 2007). An individual’s identity is thus partially determined not only by the influence of their personal identities, but also by their role-based identities associated with their role within an organization. A role-based identity is the ‘goals, values, beliefs, norms, interaction styles, and time horizons typically associated with a role’ (Sluss and Ashforth 2007, 11). As such, a role-based identity provides norms and expectations of how to enact the role and interact with others in a network of roles. However, the overarching relational identity between the subordinate and the supervisor is influenced by the personal-based and rolebased identities of the supervisor and the person-based and role-based identities of the subordinate, resulting in a subordinatesupervisor relational identity (Sluss and Ashforth 2007). Since its introduction, relational identity has been used in a number of different settings, including leaderfollower, entrepreneurial team members, and buyerseller, to explain the behavior and outcomes, including commitment, support and identification (Blatt 2009; DeRue and Ashford 2009; Sluss, Klimchak, and Holmes 2008). The literature on relational identity highlights an important distinction between relational identity and identification: relational identity is the nature of the role-relationship and relational identification is the extent to which an individual defines oneself through the rolerelationship, often due to positive valence (Sluss and Ashforth 2007). In our paper, we borrow from the constructs of relational identity and identification and leverage them in two ways to more fully explain strategic alliances in social ventures. First, we recognize an important influence on the leader(s) of a social venture and a strategic alliance partner will be their individual-level relational identities. These individual identities will help shape the interaction between the leaders of the strategic alliance and be the foundation for identification, or self-definition that may facilitate the positive outcomes of a strategic alliance. Second, we extend this work on relational identity and identification from the individual level of analysis where the focus is on the interpersonal relationship to the organizational level of analysis where the focus is on the inter-organizational level of analysis. Given our interest in explaining how an individual-level construct may be used at the organizational level, we will now introduce our process model of ‘organizational’ relational identity beginning begin with an explanation of how individual identities may influence the development of organizational identities.

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A Process Model of ‘Organizational’ Relational Identity and Identification Despite the vast amount of research focused on identity in the workplace, nearly all of this research has focused on a particular level of analysis the


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Organizational Relational Identity

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SENSEMAKING Organizational Identity

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individual, the dyad or the organization (largely the individual and organization) rather than addressing multiple levels of analysis or beginning to address cross-level identity influences (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011). This is surprising as an identity perspective is well suited for cross-level models for at least two reasons. First, identities at one level are nested within another level (e.g. the individual is nested in a dyad) (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011). Second, identity constructs largely retain their meaning across levels to addresses the primary needs of social actors to have a sense of self, to articulate core values and to act based on these assumptions of ‘who we are’ (Gioia et al. 2013). In this way, identity is also one of many multi-level notions that originate from a micro-level view that has been applied to the macro level, resulting in substantial insights and theoretical development (Gioia et al. 2013). Following this tradition in identity scholarship, we build upon the individual-level notion of relational identity and extend it to the inter-organizational level. Before we develop the model, we provide a brief overview of it. Our proposed process model of ‘organizational’ relational identity and identification encompasses several different components, which is graphically depicted in Figure 1. First, we explain how identity can move across levels as the leader(s) of a social venture can influence the development of

Organizational Identity

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SENSEGIVING SENSEMAKING

Social Venture

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Figure 1. A model of organizational relational identity formation


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organizational identity within an organization (from the bottom left to the top left of Figure 1) or across organizational boundaries (from the bottom left to the bottom right or the top right of Figure 1). Then, we discuss how the organizational identity of a social venture may lead to the development of the ‘organizational’ relational identity with another organization of a social venture strategic alliance (from the top left to the top right of Figure 1). Finally, we explain how ‘organizational’ relational identification may (not) lead organizations to persist in social venture alliances (far right side of Figure 1) and some moderators of the relationship.

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Influencing Identity Within an Organization Building on more recent research on scripts (Barley and Tolbert 1997; Chaisson and Saunders 2005; Drori, Honig, and Sheaffer 2009), identity narrative work (Ibarra and Barbulescu 2011; Phillips, Tracey, and Karra 2013; Ruebottom 2013) and cross-level identity dynamics (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011), we begin by explaining how a leader of a social venture influences the development of an organizational identity within the social venture and then beyond the organizational boundaries of the social venture with the social alliance partner.1 Drawing from the work on levels of social theory (Wiley 1988), research has begun to explicate how the enactment of an identity at the individual level (I am) influences and facilitates the development of shared identities (we are) through a process of sensegiving and sensemaking (Ashforth, Harrison, and Coley 2008; Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011). A leader of an organization is viewed as the ‘entrepreneur of identity’ because the leader creates and communicates the identity of themselves and the organization to others (Haslam and Reicher 2007). In this way, the leader engages in the process of sensegiving to communicate the intended organizational identity. Sensegiving is defined as attempts to guide the meaning construction of others towards a preferred organizational reality (Gioia and Chittipeddi 1991). The process of sensegiving from the individual leader to others within the organization is often carried out through the use of scripts and identity narrative work. Scripts are defined as ‘recipes, borrowed, followed and modified by individuals to get things socially and materially done’ (Chaisson and Saounders 2005, 751). Scripts can be enacted through ‘behavioral regularities rather than mental models’ and ‘observable recurrent patterns of interaction characteristic of a particular setting’ (Barley and Tolbert 1997, 98). Scripts are used by the entrepreneur to convey both social6 cultural meanings and the identity of the organization as reliable, accountable and legitimate (Chaisson and Saunders 2005). For example, in the early years of establishing the Grameen Bank and the field of micro-finance, Muhammad Yunus borrowed and leveraged the script of human rights to position credit not as a luxury for some people, but rather as a human right for all people. As such, he built legitimacy for micro-finance as a tool for poverty alleviation. In this way, scripts are used as a tool to develop shared meanings and shared values among organizational members (Martin 1982).


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In addition to scripts, an entrepreneurial leader may also use identity narrative work in the process of sensegiving. We define identity narrative work as the social efforts to craft self or organizational narratives that meet an organization’s identity aims (Ibarra and Barbulescu 2011; Phillips, Tracey and Karra 2013). Identity narrative work may involve the use of personal or organizational stories, and meta-narratives to make sense of ambiguous situations by distilling a range of fragmented experiences into a coherent whole (Ibarra and Barbulescu 2011; Lounsbury and Glynn 2001). In this way, identity narrative work is used to gain shared interpretations of past events and encourage shared meanings of both individual and organizational identities. For example, research has shown that entrepreneurs strategically construct a strong shared identity between individuals through the use of identity narrative work by identifying individuals who share personal values, by highlighting aspects of other individuals that are similar to their own, and by engaging in intense interaction of long narratives between the entrepreneur and their potential partner (Phillips, Tracey and Karra 2013). For example, the creation of the GrameenDanone partnership, to produce and distribute healthy yogurt in Bangladesh, was facilitated by the personal meetings and interactions between Muhammad Yunus, Chairman of the Grameen Bank, and Frank Riboud, Chairman and CEO of Group Danone, two organizations with very different missions and goals who formed a partnership. Similarly, research has found that leaders of social ventures engage in the use of rhetoric or persuasive language of socially accepted meta-narratives of social entrepreneurship, where the organization represents an archetypal narrative frame as protagonist on a quest for the creation of social value, to gain a shared understanding and taken-for-granted agreement about their identity (Ruebottom 2013). In this way, the creation of the GrameenDanone alliance was encouraged through the identity narrative of social business as a tool for poverty alleviation, showing the CEO of Danone how the example of microfinance could be productively applied and extended to his own industry, food and nutrition. Through the use of scripts and identity narrative work, the entrepreneur engages in sensegiving to provide meaning and gain a shared sense of identity from other individuals within the organization. In this way, the development of an organizational identity is influenced from an intra-subjective understanding of identity (of the individual) to an inter-subjective agreement (between individuals) (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011; Wiley 1988). Drawing from the case study of Art, a computer graphics start-up, by Drori, Honig, and Sheaffer (2009), scholars have suggested the ‘the founder’s individual level identity can be said to have influenced the formation of Art’s identity (with the help of employees who subsequently enacted that identity until it became seen as “who we are”)’ (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011). This influence occurred as the founder enacted his own principles of creativity and innovation (I think) and infused the employees with these same principles such that the employees took on this identity (we think). In time, the ‘Art framework united the group in terms of a shared mental model that aided in. . .sensemaking and was manifested through its products, values, and activities’ (Drori, Honig, and Sheaffer


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2009, 724). In a similar way, Muhammad Yunus, in his role as founder of the Grameen Bank, has inspired his employees worldwide to develop a shared passion for, and identity around, seeking to help the poor gain access to financial services and improve their lives. The identity influence from one individual to another individual(s) occurs through a reciprocal process of both sensegiving and sensemaking, a reflective process that ‘involves turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words and that serves as a springboard into action’ (Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005). Once the social venture leader engages in the ‘sending’ of identity content through the use of scripts and narrative identity work, it is up to ‘receiving’ individual(s) to interpret and reflect on the identity content before embracing and enacting the identity. If the individual receiving the identity content, defined as the values, goals, beliefs, stereotypic traits, etc (Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008), interprets and believes the content effectively represents organizational reality, then the individual may begin to enact the identity, thereby sharing the identity from one individual to another individual or a group of individuals, forming a dyad or a coalition of leaders. For example, Muhammad Yunus may espouse opportunities to be agents of change, to bring the poor out of poverty through programs and services, and thereby inspire and empower employees of the Grameen Bank to be proud of their jobs and in the process adopt the identity of the organization. In addition, this same influencing process could occur between leaders of the social venture and the strategic partner (bottom left to bottom right of Figure 1), from the leader of the social venture to the leadership team of the strategic alliance partner (bottom left to top right of Figure 1), or from the leader of the strategic partner to the leadership team of the strategic partner organization (bottom right to top right of Figure 1). As this identity-influencing process occurs with the leaders of the social venture, it begins to define what the leadership team believes is central, enduring and distinctive about their organization, namely their organizational identity. This leads to our first proposition. Proposition 1: Through scripts and identity narrative work, the leader of a social venture can influence the formation of an organizational identity.

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‘Organizational’ Relational Identity As previously explained, the construct of relational identity has been defined as the nature of one’s role-relationship and it is comprised of role-based and person-based identities (Sluss and Ashforth 2007). In illustrating the crosslevel effects of how an individual (and their identities) may influence an organizational identity, we also developed a foundation for how the construct of relational identity may also be able to move across levels from the interpersonal to the inter-organizational. Recall we explained organizational identity as the leaders’ fundamental beliefs about the firm, including who they are, what they stand for and why they are successful (Hambrick and Mason 1984;


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Strategic Partner Organization-based identities (Ex. economic goals)

Social Venture Organization-based identities (Ex. social goals) Social Venture Relational Identity Strategic Alliance

Social Venture Role-based identities (Ex. Buyer, supplier, etc.)

Strategic Partner Role-based identities (Ex. Buyer, supplier, etc.)

Figure 2. Relational identity at the organizational level

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Livengood and Reger 2010; Reger et al. 1994). Therefore, we draw upon these cross-level effects and this view of organizational identity to develop our definition of ‘organizational’ relational identity, which we define as the nature of an organization’s role-relationships, between two or more organizations emanating from their organization-based and role-base identities, as in the case of a social venture strategic alliance (see Figure 2). In the case of a social venture, the organizational-based identity will be related to the mission of the organization and will often be explicit about the nature of the social value the organization is attempting to create (Dees 1998; Moss et al. 2011). As illustrated in Figure 2, each of the two organizations in a strategic alliance is comprised of both an organizational-based identity resulting from their organizational identity (who we are) and their role-based identity resulting from their participation in a strategic alliance, and their understanding of what it means to be a prototypical role occupant of a strategic alliance which could be developed in a number of ways, including past experience, observing other organizations in a similar role, or communication from strategic alliance partners (Brewer and Gardner 1996). As previously developed, a rolebased identity is the ‘goals, values, beliefs, norms, interaction styles, and time horizons typically associated with a role’ (Sluss and Ashforth 2007, 11). As such, the role-based identity provides norms and expectations of how to interact as a strategic partner and will be influenced by a focus on social value creation in the social venture strategic alliance (Meyskens, Carsrud, and Cardozo 2010; Smith et al. 2010). For example, the Grameen Bank acts as a supplier of micro-finance to small businesses operating in developing countries. As such, the Grameen Bank has an organization-based identity focused on their mission of helping their borrowers get out of poverty. Concurrently, the Grameen Bank also has certain role-based identities based on their role as a provider of financial services. Therefore, the Grameen Bank needs to supply their product effectively and efficiently to ensure repayment and good operating practices so that they meet their own internal goals and those of regulatory bodies of financial soundness.


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Proposition 2: Through interaction, the organizational-based and role-based identities interactively influence the development of an organizational relational identity between social venture strategic alliance partners.

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In Figure 2, the role-based and organizational-based identities do not exist in isolation, but rather in a process of continuous interaction where the rolebased and organizational-based identities shape the enactment of each other (Sluss and Ashforth 2007; Stets 1995). Drawing on the symbolic interactionism (e.g. Blumer 1969; Stryker and Statham 1985), previous research has explained how the meaning of roles, their resulting role-relationships, and how the roles enacted are ‘socially constructed through interaction, observation, negotiation and feedback’ (Sluss and Ashforth 2007, 12). As previously discussed, scripts and identity narrative work may be used, now at the organizational level, to influence how the organizational relational identity is informed by the organizational identity and role-based identity of the social venture. As such, the process of sensegiving and sensemaking is imported from the individual level to the organizational level. In this way, both the social venture and the strategic alliance partner influence the development of the organizational relational identity by contributing to the essence of their organizations and their understanding of their roles leading to interaction, feedback and negotiation where the ‘theory of being’ becomes a foundation for interacting and renegotiating their organizational relational identity (Livengood and Reger 2010; Sluss and Ashforth 2007, 2008). Therefore, the organizational relational identity between the social venture and the strategic alliance partner can lead to an increased focus on social value creation through the reciprocal influence of the organizational-based and role-based identities of both partners and their continual interaction in the strategic alliance. This leads to our next proposition.

Organizational Relational Identification As previously explained, the construct of relational identification can be defined as the extent to which one defines oneself in terms of a given role-relationship (Sluss and Ashforth 2007). Extending this definition from the interpersonal to the inter-organizational level, we define organizational relational identification as the extent to which an organization defines itself in terms of a given organizational role-relationship. Previous research has suggested the process of identification, and by extension organizational relational identification, ‘is applicable to any organizational collective or role’ (Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008, 339), and it is important because organizational outcomes may vary based on the different types of identification that occur (Elsbach 1999; Sluss and Ashforth 2007). Therefore, we first explain the process of identification, applied to organizations in a social venture strategic alliance, and then explain the resulting forms of organizational relational identification. The dynamics of identification occur as an interplay between entities where one entity begins to incorporate at least some elements of higher level collectives into their own self-definition by a process of enactment and feedback


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through sensemaking (or breaking) and sensegiving and are fairly well established (Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008). In the case of social venture strategic alliances, the strategic partner, through the collective action of its leaders, may begin to incorporate more ‘socially oriented’ values, such as a focus on poverty alleviation, into their own organization’s identity, thereby influencing their organizational identity through involvement in the interorganizational social venture strategic alliance.2 Similar to the tactics we previously developed about influencing identity from the individual to the organizational level, a social venture’s leadership will engage in sensegiving through the use of scripts, identity narrative work and other organizational impression management tactics (Smith et al. 2010). This process is illustrated in Figure 1 (top left to top right side). As the leadership of the strategic alliance partner receives the sensegiving, they will choose how to respond based on the mechanism of identity congruence (e.g. Scott and Lane 2000). For our purposes, identity congruence is assessed based on the degree of alignment between the role-based identity, organizational-based identity and6 or organizational relational identity of the strategic alliance partner and the social venture. The identity congruence is determined by the enactment of identities and the reflection of the overlap or similarity between the identities. This enables the leadership of the strategic alliance partner to ‘learn their identities by projecting them into an environment and observing the consequences’ (Weick 1995). The projection (or enactment) of their identity allows the leaders to then reflect on the reactions by internal and external constituents to their identity enactment and derive meaning from the experience to inform their identity going forward (Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008). If the enacted identity provides utility, it will likely be adopted as a role-extension of the organization and adopted as part of their organizational relational identity. The degree of identity congruence between the strategic alliance partner and the social venture will lead to different types of organizational relational identification, ranging from deep-structure identification to disidentification (see Figure 3). When there is high congruence between the strategic alliance

515 TASK INTERDEPENDENCE

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TYPE OF ORGANIZATIONAL RELATIONAL IDENTIFICATION

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Deep Structured Identification Situated Identification Relational Disidentification

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Figure 3. A model of identity congruence, organizational relational identification, and persistence of social venture alliance


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partner and the social venture based on the enactment and sensemaking process, the resulting identification will tend towards deep-structure identification, where the organizational self-definition of the strategic partner leads to a ‘cognitive schema formed in work settings, across roles, over time and across situations’ (Rousseau 1998, 218). For example, the identity congruence between the Grameen Bank, a social venture, and Group Danone, a progressive for-profit company which has made public commitments to stakeholders beyond shareholders,3 may lead to deep-structure identification focused on the dual social and economic goals of reducing poverty through malnutrition, whereby Group Danone will continue to promote their social business efforts to multiple for-profit and non-profit partners. When there is a moderate degree of congruence between the strategic alliance partner and the social venture based on the enactment and sensemaking process, the resulting form of organizational relational identification may be situated identification, where the organizational self-definition of the strategic partner involves a sense of belonging to the collective of inter-organizational alliance, but the self-definition is more temporary, unstable and triggered by situational cues (Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008). Finally, when there is limited congruence between the strategic alliance partner and the social venture based on the enactment and sensemaking process, such as a dependency on charitable donations, the resulting identification may be organizational relational disidentification, where the organizational self-definition is distanced rather than defined by the organizational relational identity. Given identity incongruence or gaps, the organization may engage in a process of sensebreaking, defined as a process that ‘involves a fundamental questioning of who one is when one’s self is being challenged. . .[creating] a meaning void that must now be filled’ (Pratt 2000, 464). This leads to our next proposition. Proposition 3: Identity congruence of the organizational relational identity will be positively related to organizational relational identification between social venture strategic alliance partners.

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Organizational Relational Identification and Persistence in Social Venture Strategic Alliances While the literature on persistence in strategic alliances includes transaction costs and resource-based explanations, it also includes more psychological explanations (Inkpen and Ross 2001). We complement prior explanations by explicating the role of relational organizational identification in persistence in social venture strategic alliances. As inferred above, the type of organizational relational identification, ranging from deep-structure identification to disidentification, varies based on the degree of identity congruence. Prior work on organizational identification found it to be positively related to a number of important outcomes, including organization citizenship behaviors (e.g. Abrams, Ando, and Hinkle 1998). The work on identity at the organizational level has found that how the leaders collectively define the organization affects their strategic


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decision-making (Livengood and Reger 2010). In this way, organizational identity goes from being a theory of being to a theory of action (Reger et al. 1998) and likely leads to attitudebehavior consistency (Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008; Ajzen and Fishbein 1977). When the leaders of a strategic partner find identity congruence with the relational identity in a social venture strategic alliance and therefore allow the identity to define their organizational identity across roles, times and situations, it is likely to lead to their persistence in the social venture strategic alliance to maintain consistency between their identification and their behavior. For example, the strategic alliance of GrameenDanone has endured for nearly 10 years since both entities have deep structured identification to give back to society as part of their mission and identity. By comparison, when the leaders of a strategic partner experience organizational relational disidentification and distance themselves from the organizational relational identity as a social venture strategic partner, it is likely to lead to dissolution. Proposition 4: Organizational relational identification will be positively related to persistence in social venture strategic alliances.

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While we have specified how organizational relational identification will influence persistence in social venture alliances, we also expect that this relationship will vary based on at least two moderating factors: task interdependence and reputation. Task interdependence is defined as the degree to which those within a role-relationship rely on each other to complete their work (Thompson 1967). Task interdependence has been identified as an important variable in the development of relational identities because it serves as a common mechanism for increasing relationships and sensemaking through cooperation and interaction (Murray et al. 1996; Sluss and Ashforth 2008). Therefore, it is likely to serve as an important variable to amplify or suppress the effects of organizational relational identification on persistence in a social venture strategic alliance. Regardless of how a strategic partner defines oneself via the role-relationship with the social venture, an increase in task interdependence such as the joint production of a product amplifies the extent to which the partner’s organizational relational identification affects persistence in a strategic alliance because it requires additional contributions of time and effort to achieve the goal of the partner in the strategic alliance. For example, the GrameenDanone alliance relies on Danone to manufacture the yogurt product and on Grameen to distribute the product, and enable access to this product by the poor, thereby strengthening the identification between the two partners, and therefore the persistence of the alliance through task interdependence. This leads to our next proposition. Proposition 5: Task interdependence will moderate the relationship between organizational relational identification and persistence in social venture strategic alliances, such that the greater the task interdependence, the stronger


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We also expect the relationship between organizational relational identification and persistence in social venture strategic alliances will vary based on the reputation of the social venture. Reputation is described as ‘stakeholders’ perceptions about an organization’s ability to create value relative to its competitors’ (Rindova et al. 2005, 1033). Research indicates external stakeholders play a key role in negotiating and validating an organization’s identity and therefore may reinforce or challenge an organization’s self-definition and related outcomes (e.g. Dutton and Dukerick 1991). If the reputation of a social venture is high in the eyes of the board of directors of a strategic alliance partner based on their ability to engender positive goodwill, then the relationship between how the partner defines themselves by their rolerelationship and their persistence in the social venture strategic alliance will be strengthened because it will allow the strategic partner to ‘bask in the reflected glory’ (Cialdini 1976; Dukerich, Gordon, and Shortell 2002) of the social venture. For example, Group Danone initially benefitted from the prior success and positive reputation of the Grameen Bank as they entered Bangladesh through the GrameenDanone alliance, and even developed advertisements featuring Muhammad Yunus. This leads to our final proposition. Proposition 6: Reputation will moderate the relationship between organizational relational identification and persistence, such that the higher the perceived reputation of the social venture, the stronger the relationship between organizational relational identification and persistence in social venture strategic alliances. Discussion

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In this paper, we have introduced the constructs of ‘organizational’ relational identity and identification to provide an identity-based explanation of formation and persistence in social venture strategic alliances. Although traditional explanations of strategic alliances and their persistence focus on economic and resource-based theories, an expanding body of research recognizes that strategic decisions are often influenced by other more cognitive and psychological explanations (e.g. Livengood and Reger 2010). As such, we have added organizational relational identity and identification to explain the firm-level behavior in strategic alliances. In so doing, we have developed a process model that makes a number of contributions to research on identity, social entrepreneurship and strategic alliances. In developing our constructs of relational identity and identification at the organizational level, it was important to explain how identity could function across levels. While research on identity has exploded over the last few decades, very little research has moved beyond a specific level of analysis. By explaining how identities may be influenced from the individual to the organizational level, we responded to the growing call to develop theory and models


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across levels for identity (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011). Building on emerging work on cross-level effects in identity and social theory (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011), we explain how the use of scripts and identity narrative work by an individual leader could influence the development of an organizational identity. By developing a model across levels of analysis, we take an initial step that may open the door for a flood of theoretical research on identity that has focused on an individual level of analysis and may be further advanced by cross-level theorizing (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011). By illustration, we have explained the strategic alliance between the Grameen Bank and Group Danone, in the formation and persistence of the GrameenDanone partnership. While the conceptual model has been developed in the context of social ventures, we also see an opportunity for extending this theorizing to strategic alliances, more broadly. In this way, we see the potential for the literature on social entrepreneurship to contribute back to the boarder literature on organizational studies from which it so often draws. In addition, the notion of multi-level theorizing also sets the stage for more robust empirical testing and greater specification of identity effects of nested identities through quantitative testing in hierarchical linear modeling (Hoffman, Griffin, and Gavin 2000). We believe social entrepreneurship and the context of social venture strategic alliances may serve as fertile ground to advance our understanding of both identity and social entrepreneurship through cross-level empirical testing. The introduction of the constructs of ‘organizational’ relational identity and identification extends the utility of a more recent development in the identity literature that acknowledges its relational component (Sluss and Ashforth 2007). By introducing relational identity and identification at the organizational level, we build on the rich tradition in the identity literature where the micro-level view has been fruitfully applied to the macro level, resulting in substantial insights and theoretical development (Gioia et al. 2013). Research on organizational relational identity and identification can leverage the emerging literature on individual relational identity and identification at the individual level, where appropriate, for more rapid theoretical development of topics such as convergence processes of multiple identities (Sluss and Ashforth 2008). In addition, a relational understanding may provide additional insights and open up new paths for organizational research on organizational identity as it moves through ‘aged adolescence’ (Corley et al. 2006) by offering new ideas to critical questions of organizational identity change and elasticity (e.g. Kreiner et al., forthcoming). In the same way, the introduction of these constructs offers potentially interesting opportunities to reconnect role theory with its structural functionalist roots (Stryker and Statham 1985) and therefore allow for greater theoretical integration of identity and social network theory (Jones and Volpe 2011) as well as the expansion beyond a dyad to multi-organizational networks. Such an approach may be particularly useful in the context of social ventures where many social innovations are developed and scaled through networks. Beyond our contributions to identity theory, we believe our model of organizational identity and identification helps expand our theoretical understandings


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in strategic management and social entrepreneurship. While explanations of strategic alliance have traditionally drawn on economic rationality, we believe an identity perspective on strategic alliances which more fully accounts for the psychological underpinnings of managerial action complements prior explanations. We do not intend to replace but rather to complement previous explanations that focus on transaction costs and resource-based views. In this way, we join more recent scholarship aimed at explaining managerial action that may extend beyond economic motives (e.g. Livengood and Reger 2010) by highlighting the important role of ‘social’ motives in explaining managerial behavior (Kistruck, Beamish, et al. 2013). In this way, our model is consistent with findings that economic rationality may be myopic when it comes to utility functions of managerial decision-making and a broadened perspective, including social rationality, such as socialficing, may be useful when considering social venture strategic alliances. Socialficing is defined as ‘the purposeful pursuit of social objectives at the expense of financial efficiency as compared to satisficing’ (Kistruck, Beamish, et al. 2013, 60). In this way, we encourage the broadened use of identity theory as a mechanism to more fully understand many of salient and emerging issues related to topics of social entrepreneurship, such as social innovation and accelerators, where economic rationality may not fully account for the behavior of the actors. Finally, we explain why strategic alliances persist based upon the type of their organizational relational identification. In this way, we add to the relatively sparse literature on persistence in strategic alliances and the emerging literature in social entrepreneurship using an organizational identity lens to better understand the phenomenon (Grimes 2010; Miller and Wesley 2010; Moss et al. 2011; Smith et al. 2010). While the literature on strategic alliances has focused primarily on alliance formation, more recent attention has focused on persistence (Inkpen and Ross 2001). Our focus on organizational relational identity may help further inform research in the area of life cycles and alliance mindsets (Spekman et al. 1998) by explaining how the managerial cognition of what is central, enduring and distinctive may inform and be informed by the nature of the strategic alliance, its role-relationship and its temporal continuity. In addition, the literature on social entrepreneurship and organizational identities may be advanced by shifting the emphasis of identity outcomes from the internal environment to the external environment (Livengood and Reger 2010). In a similar way, our research suggests that it may be helpful to shift the emphasis from the organizational identity of the social venture in isolation to the inter-organizational relationships entered into by the leaders of the social venture. In this paper, we have focused on the collective leaders of the social venture and strategic alliance partner, but it is unclear how the managerial cognition of the leaders may (not) extend throughout the organization, especially in very large organizations. In some social venture strategic alliances, the formation of the alliance may be between mid-level managers of organizations where the organizational identities may not be so firmly imprinted. It may be useful to consider the effect of firm size, the socialization processes by the organizations, and other ways to operationalize organizational identity in future research.


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We have also focused exclusively on a single strategic alliance between a social venture and their strategic alliance partner. While a singular alliance may be possible, many organizations especially those facing substantial resource constraints may engage in a multitude of strategic alliances. Although the existence of multiple strategic alliances may not directly influence the process model we developed, it may indirectly influence how a social venture or strategic alliance manages the development, salience and hierarchy of their role-based identities when attempting to manage a portfolio of strategic alliances and associated identities. In a similar way, we have focused primarily on the ‘social’ or normative identity of social ventures (Moss et al. 2011). Yet, emerging literature on social entrepreneurship recognizes that social ventures may be comprised of hybrid identities, thereby raising the possibility of conflicting or competing identities within the same social venture. The integration of organizational relational identity and hybrid organizations may be an important path for future research. In developing our cross-level model of identity, we have made some assumptions about how identities develop at different levels of analysis. While this approach is consistent with emerging work in the area (Ashforth, Rogers, and Corley 2011), it also raises theoretical issues that may need to be addressed as individual and organizational identities emerge from different research traditions. We believe this important work is necessary and may continue to contribute to an even greater understanding of cross-level dynamics and theorizing. In conclusion, the model of organizational identity and identification provides a promising theoretical perspective to begin to explore the identity implications of social venture strategic alliances. The theoretical propositions developed offer an initial framework for how these constructs may be applied to broaden our understanding of cross-level identity dynamics, organizational relational identity and identification, and persistence in social venture strategic alliances. It is our hope that this initial work on relational identity in social venture strategic alliances will open up new lines of inquiry in theoretical development and empirical testing in the field of social entrepreneurship.

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1. It should also be noted that the process of influencing identity may also be initiated by someone other than the leader of the social venture. We illustrate the process beginning with the leader(s) of the organization because leaders often serve the role as gatekeepers of identity (Scott and Lane 2000). 2. While our example focuses on how the social venture engages in sensgiving and the strategic alliance partner engages in sensemaking, this is acknowledged as a mutually recursive and reciprocal process. We show only one example for the sake of parsimony. 3. In 2009, in the middle of the economic crisis, Danone CEO Franck Riboud made the following statement: ‘It is a common sense observation that no living organism can grow and develop in a deprived environment or a desert. It is in a company’s best interests to take good care of its economic and social environment, in one word, its “ecosystem”’ (Forbes.com, Co-Creation: Moving Beyond CSR, 3 March 2014, http://www.forbes. com6 sites6 ashoka6 20146 036 036 co-creation-moving-beyond-csr6 ).


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