This essay offers a contemporary overview of issues in organizational identity, organizational identification, difference, and branding, including references to personal experience, work trends, and popular culture. Along the way, we consider how certain intellectual traditions remain relevant today, as well as identify research exemplars for challenges to accustomed notions of identity in and around organizations. We conclude with some suggestions for reflection on research and practice, and with a series of discussion questions for students and other readers.

The benefit corporation (BC) in the United States is a new type of corporation legally required to generate profit for its shareholders and to pursue public benefit. BCs explicitly work to balance profit maximization and social mission, which is an ongoing challenge for businesses with an expansive view of the bottom line. This multiple case study extends scholarship on identity formation (IF) in nontraditional organizations, such as BCs, by providing empirical evidence of how identities develop in relation to prevailing cultural sentiments. In particular, we demonstrate how BC struggles over organizational identity (OI) reference broader socioeconomic discourses, identify mechanisms through which perceived pressures suppress alternative interpretations of OI at a micro-level of member interaction, and expose tensions between dominant and alternative frames for business enterprise.

Alternative organizational culture is an evocative yet ambiguous term. In disciplines like communication, sociology, anthropology, management, economics, and political science, the term leads us not only to consider existing models and cases of organizing differently from the norm but also to imagine paths and possibilities yet to be realized. The ambiguity and referents of the term are important to probe. The term and its associations should be understood historically as well as culturally. Alternative organizational culture also implies certain dialectics, leading to questions about both principles and applications.

Chapter 3 Organizational Communication and Organizational Rhetoric II The Theme of Division Charles Conrad, Charles ConradSearch for more papers by this authorGeorge Cheney, George CheneySearch for more papers by this author Charles Conrad, Charles ConradSearch for more papers by this authorGeorge Cheney, George CheneySearch for more papers by this author Book Editor(s):Øyvind Ihlen, Øyvind IhlenSearch for more papers by this authorRobert L. Heath, Robert L. HeathSearch for more papers by this author First published: 11 May 2018 https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119265771.ch3Citations: 1 AboutPDFPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShareShare a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Summary This is the second of two tandem chapters that focus on organizational rhetoric and organizational communication. While Chapter 2 stressed the theme or merger, Chapter 3 stresses "division" as an inescapable complement to merger, again within multiple domains of inquiry as well as human experience. Chapter 3 also emphasizes the ways the term "discourse" has eclipsed rhetoric, in some ways inappropriately. Both chapters consider interrelations of the symbolic and material—necessary to fully understanding organizational life. Citing Literature The Handbook of Organizational Rhetoric and Communication RelatedInformation

grantees; (2) human beings, personhood, and transcendent institutions; (3) network (re)-distribution of agency; (4) intention and intentionality; (5) identities, roles, and relationships; (6) power and effect; and (7) process. This culminating chapter identifies the similarities across the perspectives introduced as well as points of departure. Most importantly, this chapter raises questions about agency and communication scholarship moving forward. The theories represented in this volume put communication at the center of organization and organizing. For those interested in the potential of this kind of communicative approach for extending organizational understanding, this book helps distinguish the subtleties between these tightly related approaches within a constitutive paradigm. Due to these theoretical complexities, the necessity of explaining the fundamental commitments in this scholarship does, at times, still bury the role of agency within a given approach—losing the forest for the trees. Yet, the authors still manage the collective accomplishment of elaborating on agency’s contributions to organizational research and raising questions for research moving forward. Ultimately, this volume identifies agency as crucial and often under explicated organizational phenomenon. For management and organizational scholars, this is a useful collection of literature and approaches to view side-by-side with explicit focus on the role of agency in organizing. However, these chapters are far from comprehensive representations of the nuances of agency within each of these theoretical frames. Instead, these chapters often offer a taste of research published elsewhere in organizational communication journals. As such, this collection represents existing arguments and uses of agency in organizational communication theory. Still this book serves as a valuable resource for forwarding the theorizing of agency primarily through the critical reflection on agency’s role in the study of organizations. Each chapter offers its own definition and application of agency to organizational questions, establishing multiple paths forward for the development of organizational theory. Therefore, though the bewilderment continues, though there are still a multitude of meanings with regards to agency, this volume succeeds in alleviating a key frustration in organizational communication research and fostering organizational exploration with an eye on agency.

There are many different ways in which the corporation might be subjected to critical scrutiny, and some of these lines of argument will end with the idea that new forms of economy and organization need to be explored. Not all of them, because other solutions will involve a stress on new forms of state or multilateral regulation which might ameliorate the problems, or on the strengthening of countervailing powers, such as trade unions, activists or consumers (Hadden et al., 2014). Whilst not dismissing such strategies, we would prefer to suggest that a new economy is required, a post-capitalist (and post-corporate) configuration which would play a part in solving many of the problems identified in this book so far. This chapter attempts to put forward an argument concerning how alternatives to the corporation might be evaluated. There are many different ways in which human beings might organize their affairs, but many of them – fascism, slavery, feudalism – are not progressive alternatives. So, if we are suggesting that we should ‘take back the economy’ from corporations (Gibson-Graham, 2013; see also Gibson-Graham, 1996; McNally, 2005; Gibson-Graham, 2006; Parker et al., 2007; 2014a; Davies, this volume), then what might these new organizations look like?

This paper aims to contribute to a greater understanding of the theory of virtue ethics and its applications in the business arena. In contrast to other prominent approaches to ethics, virtue ethics provides a useful perspective in making sense of various business ethics issues with an emphasis on the moral character of the individuals and its transformational influences in driving ethical business conduct. Building on Geoff Moore’s (Bus Ethics Q 12(1):19–32, 2002; Bus Ethics Q 15(2):237–255, 2005; Bus Ethics Q 18(4):483–511, 2008) treatment of Alasdair MacIntyre’s practice–institution schema, the paper discusses how individuals, as moral agents, can serve to promote virtuous business conduct and help foster a moral and ethical climate in the organization and in society at large. Using interview data from a broader study of the New Zealand wine industry as explanatory examples, the paper argues that while many companies’ sustainable practices are still largely market based, such excellent business practices are often driven by individuals’ moral and ethical pursuits.