From Corporate Culture to Corporate Identity

Abstract

A FRENCH PERSPECTIVE ON IDENTITY This paper introduces a distinct approach to organizational identity study which has lately been known as the ‘French School of Thought’ (Moingeon and Ramanantsoa, 1997). Larçon and Reitter (1979) defined identity as a set of interdependent characteristics of an organization which give the organization specificity, distinctiveness and coherence over time. Following this path-setting definition, a ‘tradition’ of identity research emerged at HEC Business School, Paris. This definition is broadly similar to that of Albert and Whetten (1985) which is regarded as the foundation stone of the OB (organizational behavior) approach to identity (Whetten and Godfrey, 1998). However, there are some specificities to the French school of thought which will be illustrated below in the context of the study of firms merger, notably, this case illustrates the importance of a notion of organizational imaginaire, a concept somewhat linked to that of organizational images (Dutton et al., 1994).