Identity and multinational corporations - Building unity within diversity

siirretty Doriast

When all doors close: Implications of COVID-19 for cosmopolitan entrepreneurs

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic is an external shock that has disrupted the foundations of everyday life. For cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, the impact is even more decisive as it confronts their core values and jeopardises their identities, ways of working and the lifestyles they cherish. Cosmopolitans are individuals who identify themselves as citizens of the world and voluntarily move from country to country in pursuit of self-fulfilment in both life and work. Cosmopolitan entrepreneurs are future-oriented and open to the world and the opportunities it may provide. Beyond securing, maintaining and improving their professional and/or economic positions, their mobility is an elementary part of the cosmopolitan life itself, something they find attractive, interesting and stimulating. Thus, a cosmopolitan entrepreneur’s business is often non-location-bound to enable continued mobility. With our interview-based research, we shed light on how COVID-19 has changed the lives of Finnish-born cosmopolitan entrepreneurs, discussing what they feel about the changes and how they see their future.</p

A new research agenda for managing socio-cultural integration

Post-acquisition socio-cultural integration has received increasing attention from both scholars and practitioners since the early 1990s. During the past decade, research has increasingly focused on emotions and identity in mergers and acquisitions. This chapter introduces the reader to the vibrant research field and its relevance. This section sets the scene for the book, which provides a deeper understanding of how emotions—both positive and negative—as well as values and identity enable a deeper socio-cultural integration after a merger or acquisition, and how leadership plays a crucial role in making it all happen. This chapter also highlights how the Nordic approach to post-acquisition socio-cultural integration refers to a large community of Nordic academics focusing on the softer social and human side of acquisition, often relying on a huge variety of qualitative methods, and to Nordic companies that are not afraid of adopting a more collaborative approach to post-acquisition integration

Academy of Management annual meeting proceedings

The death of a central figure, like a charismatic founder, can dilute the sense of collective identity among the various stakeholders of a local community. Maintenance of collective identity can be a difficult task, because the organization needs to then simultaneously deal with multiple identity drifts. We conducted an inductive study of Finnish company Ponsse, the founder recently passed away. The second-generation chairman took the lead to articulate the values that implicitly prevailed during the leadership of the founder. Our findings show that organizations that experience a loss can maintain and strengthen their collective identity after the passing of a charismatic leader by engaging in material identity work. Our study highlights two phases underlying the process of reinforcing the collective identity: creating the material environment and enacting material experiences. We contribute to deepen current understanding of how collective identities can be reinforced after a major loss by illuminating the material underpinnings of identity work." </p

System‐spanning values work and entrepreneurial growth in family firms

Culture and values are key drivers of corporate entrepreneurship in early stages of family firm development, but value conflicts often arise over time that progressively inhibit their entrepreneurial efforts. How can family firms reconcile conflicting values to sustain corporate entrepreneurship over time? Our 45‐year longitudinal case study of a large global family firm shows that family business leaders’ practices of invoking and flexibly using family and business values were crucial to achieve sustained entrepreneurial behaviour and growth over an extended period of time. We theorize these efforts as system‐spanning values work enfolding through specific family, business, and temporal mechanisms. By identifying and elucidating three types of values work (i.e., rooting, revitalizing, and spreading), our study advances current understanding of the micro‐foundations underpinning the relationship between values and entrepreneurship in family firms

Academy of Management annual meeting proceedings

The death of a central figure, like a charismatic founder, can dilute the sense of collective identity among the various stakeholders of a local community. Maintenance of collective identity can be a difficult task, because the organization needs to then simultaneously deal with multiple identity drifts. We conducted an inductive study of Finnish company Ponsse, the founder recently passed away. The second-generation chairman took the lead to articulate the values that implicitly prevailed during the leadership of the founder. Our findings show that organizations that experience a loss can maintain and strengthen their collective identity after the passing of a charismatic leader by engaging in material identity work. Our study highlights two phases underlying the process of reinforcing the collective identity: creating the material environment and enacting material experiences. We contribute to deepen current understanding of how collective identities can be reinforced after a major loss by illuminating the material underpinnings of identity work." </p