Organizational Identity: A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Organizational Meaning

Organizational identity offers a theory and practice for analyzing the intersubjective meaning of organizational behavior. It advances an explanation of individual feelings about organizations rooted in infancy, what Winnicott (1965) calls a 'holding environment,' and an explanation of interpersonal relationships in adulthood but with origins in infancy and childhood, what Kohut (1977; 1984) calls 'self object transferences.' It further presents the notion of transference of emotions in hierarchical organizations as an instrument for observing and explaining key interpersonal relationships between organizational super ordinates and subordinates, and between organizational analysts and clients. Knowing organizational identity provides an understanding of unconscious motivations governing the behavior of organizational members.