Since Albert and Whetten: The Dissemination of their Conceptualization of Organizational Identity

Since the seminal work by Albert and Whetten (1985) organizational identity has become a widely spread concept that is of high relevance in several fields. This study provides a systematic review on how Albert and Whetten’s (1985) seminal work has disseminated within business as well as into other research fields. Combining quantitative and qualitative text analysis, we analyze a sample of 793 papers that cite the study by Albert and Whetten (1985). Results show that the conceptualization of organizational identity by Albert and Whetten (1985) is often only partially adopted. By conducting a systematic literature analysis, we can show the dissemination of specific elements introduced by them and in this way shed light on elements that have so far gained less attention in research. Based on these findings, our study contributes to organizational identity research by offering further research questions based on the organizational identity conceptualization of Albert and Whetten (1985).