Organizational identity change: managerial regulation and member identification in an accounting firm acquisition

Abstract

This study creates a framework for analysing organizational identity change and examines the process in the context of a global accounting firm's acquisition of a UK mid-market accounting practice. It identifies the parallel processes which facilitate organizational identity change: identity regulation on the part of senior management and de- and re-identification on the part of organizational members. The study explores how changes in organizational identity are inextricably connected to organizational members' changing conceptualisations of professional identity.