Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://ir.iimcal.ac.in:8443/jspui/handle/123456789/1466
Title: Navigating identity duality in multinational subsidiaries: A paradox lens on identity claims at Hindustan Unilever 1959-2015
Authors: Pant, Anirvan
Ramachandran, J.
Keywords: History in international business
Institutional environment
Managerial cognition
Organizational identity
Paradox
Subsidiary development, Expansion, and growth
Issue Date: 2017
Publisher: SCOPUS
Journal of International Business Studies
Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.
Series/Report no.: 48(6)
Abstract: Multinational subsidiaries do not merely seek legitimacy within their dual institutional contexts; they also strive to articulate an organizational identity by drawing on institutional resources embedded in these dual contexts. We draw attention to the subsidiary's identity duality and conceptualize it as a paradox, i.e., as the juxtaposition of the contradictory, interdependent, and persistent characteristics of the 'global' and the 'local' in the subsidiary's identity. Using 57 years of archival data from Hindustan Unilever, the Indian subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever, we observe changing patterns in the articulation of identity claims by subsidiary leaders and develop a process model of how subsidiaries navigate identity duality over time. We find that subsidiary leaders may use two modes of organizational identity work for this purpose-logic ordering (the articulation of identity claims that respond to contradictory institutional demands by privileging one and subordinating the other) and logic bridging (the articulation of identity claims that respond to contradictory institutional demands by effecting a Janusian integration of the said demands). Over time, and employing these modes of identity work, leaders at Hindustan Unilever sustained a dynamic balance between the dual cores of the subsidiary's espoused identity. � 2017 Academy of International Business.
Description: Pant, Anirvan, Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, K 502 New Academic Block, Diamond Harbour Road, Joka, Kolkata, West Bengal, 700104, India; Ramachandran, J., Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, Karnataka, India
ISSN/ISBN - 00472506
pp.664-692
DOI - 10.1057/s41267-017-0076-x
URI: https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85018348379&doi=10.1057%2fs41267-017-0076-x&partnerID=40&md5=da7c45b4227dd8af6eada289fdce706d
https://ir.iimcal.ac.in:8443/jspui/handle/123456789/1466
Appears in Collections:Strategic Management

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