Identification strategies and unobtrusive control in organizational change initiatives: A textual analysis of corporate newsletters

To be successful, organizations that undertake a large-scale planned change initiative must maintain employee commitment and loyalty to the organization. Identification with the organization can support that objective and is crucial in changing organizations when managers often introduce different cultural assumptions, values, and norms than those held by the organization's members. Employee identification with the organization is also pivotal in the employee's decision making process. This study analyses a representative sample of an organization's newsletter published during a reengineering project. Identification strategies of common ground, the assumed we, antithesis and unifying symbols are used as the foundation for analysis. Results show that identification strategies are consistently used in this genre of organizational communication to maintain employee commitment during a change initiative. In addition, three additional tactics of the common ground strategy were uncovered: enlistment, self-congratulation and knowledge-sharing. The implications of these results are discussed.