Organizational Identification and the Symbolic Shaping of Information Communication Technology

Abstract

Research on organizational identification and communication technologies has yielded contradictory results that may be partially explained by conceptualizing the relationship between technology and identification as mutually influential. Drawing on structuration theories of identification and technology, this article argues that identifications shape the way that communication technologies are symbolically created and used and, at the same time, technology use influences identifications. Interviews and focus groups conducted at a geographically dispersed organization showed how meanings associated with technologies were shaped in negative ways because of organizational identifications and disidentifications.

Keywords:

• Disidentification
• Geographically Dispersed Organizations
• Identification
• Information Communication Technologies

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gregory S. Larson

Gregory S. Larson (PhD, University of Colorado Boulder, 2000) is an associate professor in the Department of Communication Studies, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812.

Gerald L. Pepper

Gerald L. Pepper (PhD, University of Minnesota, 1987) is a professor in the Department of Communication, University of Minnesota Duluth, 469 AB Anderson Hall, Duluth, MN 55812.