Legitimating Nascent Collective Identities: Coordinating Cultural Entrepreneurship
研究新兴创业群体的集体身份如何获得合法性，提出成员讲述的集体身份故事和成长故事是关键，对组织行为学和创业研究者有参考价值。
The concept of collective identity has gained prominence within organizational theory as researchers have studied how it consequentially shapes organizational behavior. However, much less attention has been paid to the question of how nascent collective identities become legitimated. Although it is conventionally argued that membership expansion leads to collective identity legitimacy, we draw on the notion of cultural entrepreneurship to argue that the relationship is more complex and is culturally mediated by the stories told by group members. We propose a theoretical framework about the conditions under which the collective identity of a nascent entrepreneurial group is more likely to be legitimated. Specifically, we posit that legitimacy is more likely to be achieved when members articulate a clear defining collective identity story that identifies the group's orienting purpose and core practices. Although membership expansion can undermine legitimation by introducing discrepant actors and practices to a collective identity, this potential downside is mitigated by growth stories, which help to coordinate expansion. Finally, we theorize how processes associated with collective identity membership expansion might affect the evolution of defining collective identity stories.