• Discuss how identity provides a foundation for strategy and how it influences opportunities for organizations to achieve competitive advantage
• Discuss how strategic processes may influence the construction of a new organizational identity and the organizational commitment to identity
• Relate theories on strategy and identity to each other, and apply them in order to analyze issues of relevance to strategy, identity and organizational change processes
• Critically reflect on implications of the theories of organizing change for strategy and identity
• Account for how theories in both courses can be used to understand the dynamics of organizational change and implications for managing and working in organizations
• Explain the roles of narrative, sensemaking and commitment to organizing change, strategy and organizational identity
• Connect theories and methods for researching organizational change, strategy and identity in the context of a concrete organizational situation.

The aim of this course is to interrogate organizational problems related to the interplay between strategy and identity in different contexts (large and small organizations, long-lived firms and start-ups, public and private entities, project-based organizations, etc.). The course builds on and extends the students’ prior knowledge of classical perspectives on strategy and identity, while introducing new – temporality perspective – on the strategy-identity interplay, moving towards strategy-as-process view, in which organizational change is an essential aspect. This implies seeing strategy and identity not as fixed entities but, rather, as being in the making. Identity, for example, is the answer to the question “who are we becoming”, whereas strategy will be conceived in terms of how it emerges and becomes consolidated in the organization. A process view facilitates analysis and discussions of ‘how’ organizational identity influences the unfolding of strategies across time – and how the emergence of new strategies may lead to a new identity. The course has a temporal emphasis, which enables past, present and future to be analysed, such as how organizational actors may leverage their past in the development of strategies for the future or how they make visions of the future actionable in the present.

The course explores the role of strategic leadership in framing strategies and identities in a context of ethical dilemmas, as well as the role of strategic narratives and logic of tact for engaging external stakeholders in the co-creation of collective strategies and identities. In addition to enhancing students’ analytical skills, the course aims at advancing their envisioning and framing skills, enabling them to envision, articulate and critically reflect on sustainable futures. Further, the course seeks to stimulate curiosity about and understanding of complexities related to contexts of high ambiguity and volatility along with imagination for action. The perspectives, theories, models, and concepts discussed in the course will also be put to use to discuss and frame strategy, identity, and change in the context of grand challenges (e.g. The Climate Emergency, Covid-19) that face organizations and humanity more broadly.

Overlap with the course Organizing Change
This course overlaps with Organizing Change (OC) in several ways. Both courses focus on theories and conceptual frameworks that elaborate the processes underpinning strategy, identity and organizing hereby stressing the active role of organizational actors. While SI focuses on how actors set the direction for the trajectory of the organization, OC focuses on the various mechanisms in maintaining and transforming organizations. The group work in class and on the projects, the feedback activities, as well as the shared exam for both courses are structured in such a way that constructive collaboration becomes essential whilst constantly honing the students’ critical thinking. Taken together the two courses will explain how strategies and identities are open to change and how organizing processes serve to hold them together. Both courses will draw on abductive methods as the foundation for the joint shared student projects.

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