THE PAST IS NOT DEAD: LEGACY IDENTIFICATION AND ALUMNI AMBIVALENCE IN THE WAKE OF THE SANDUSKY SCANDAL AT PENN STATE

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Eury, Jennifer L.; Kreiner, Glen E.; Trevino, Linda Klebe; Gioia, Dennis A.
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); Pennsylvania State University; Pennsylvania State University - University Park
• 刊物名称: ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4273
• DOI: 10.5465/amj.2015.0534
• 发表日期: 2018
• 页码: 826-856
• 关键词: EXPANDED MODEL; IDENTITY; image; ORGANIZATIONS; emotions; CRISIS; selves

摘要

We investigate how the temporal effects of past, present, and future influence organizational identification. We examine an underrepresented but important stakeholder group-organizational alumni-whose prior organizational experiences can leave a legacy identification, such that alumni continue to define themselves in terms of the organization's ideals and values, even after leaving. We examined alumni responses to the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State by analyzing a subset of more than 25,000 communications sent by more than 14,000 alumni in the year following the scandal. We found that alumni drew upon their legacy identification as they went through an emotion-laden struggle involving predominantly positive experiences in the past, predominantly negative experiences in the present, and uncertain experiences in the future. We show how targeting processes toward insiders and outsiders affect identification states, including three previously undocumented forms of ambivalent identification: reconciled identification, selective identification, and conditional identification. Our grounded model illustrates the broad applicability of the legacy identification concept, which has strong implications for studying the temporality and complexity of identification processes.