Capitalizing on Paradox: The Role of Language in Transforming Organizational Identities
研究了在激进组织变革期间，员工强烈认同带来的悖论，提出了一个利用悖论张力、通过语言标记和修辞技巧引导身份转变的模型，并以一家高科技公司10年转型为例。
A strongly identified workforce presents a paradox during times of radical organizational change. Though it may bind people together behind the change initiative, strong organizationwide identification often blinds and potentially blocks the view of new possibilities. Prior research on identity change has tended to either ignore the paradox or resolve it by advocating some middle ground such as hybrid organizational identities or group-level identifications. This paper presents an identity transformation model that capitalizes on the paradoxical tensions over time by unpacking the processes by which individual and organizational levels of identity interact. It operationalizes the model by suggesting linguistic markers that describe the different stages of the process and rhetorical techniques that leaders can use to guide people through the process. To illustrate the model and its application, the paper highlights moments across a 10-year period at Tech-Co, a high-technology company undergoing a significant identity transformation.