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Sanne Frandsen

Assistant head Organization, Department of Business Administration

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Organizational Image, Identification, and Cynical Distance: Prestigous Professionals in a Low-Prestige Organization

Author

  • Sanne Frandsen

Summary, in English

This study examines how a negative organizational image influences organizational identification among prestigious professionals working in a lowprestige organization. A communicative perspective on identification is used to illustrate previously unexplored processes of cynical distancing and shifts in identification targets as ways for business professionals to cope with discrepancies between the organizational identity and the organizational image. These concurrent processes allow professionals successfully to diminish the

potentially harmful impact of the negative image on their well-being and their positive work identity. On this basis, the article questions the assumption that the organizational image plays a pivotal role in impelling collective identity change process, as the findings here suggest that the business professionals’ communicative acts may uphold the negative organizational image.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

351-376

Publication/Series

Management Communication Quarterly

Volume

26

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Topic

  • Business Administration

Keywords

  • identity
  • cynicism
  • image
  • Identification

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0893-3189