Dealing with revered past:historical identity statements and strategic change in Japanese family firms

Sasaki, Innan and Kotlar, Josip and Ravasi, Davide and Vaara, Eero (2020) Dealing with revered past:historical identity statements and strategic change in Japanese family firms. Strategic Management Journal, 41 (3). pp. 590-623. ISSN 0143-2095

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Abstract

Research Summary This paper examines how strategy-makers attempt to reconcile change initiatives with organizational values and principles laid out long before, still encased in strategic identity statements such as corporate mottos and philosophies. It reveals three discursive strategies that strategy-makers use to establish a sense of continuity in time of change: elaborating (transferring part of the content of the historical statement into a new one), recovering (forging a new statement based on the retrieval and re-use of historical references), and decoupling (allowing the co-existence of the historical statement and a contemporary one). By so doing, our study advances research on uses of the past, establishes important linkages between identity and strategy research, and enhances our understanding of the intergenerational transfer of values in family firms. Managerial Summary Crafting a new corporate philosophy or mission statement can help implement strategic change, but can also be experienced as a disruption in people's sense of "who we are" as an organization. This paper reveals a variety of strategies that managers can use to deal with the tension between promoting change and maintaining a sense of continuity with a distant, revered past. By doing so, it helps managers confronting these issues deal with the enabling and constraining effects of the past. While this is a more general challenge for organizations with historical legacies, it is a particularly delicate issue for family firms grappling with the need to transfer values from one generation to the next, while retaining flexibility to change and adapt over time.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Strategic Management Journal
Additional Information:
This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Sasaki, I, Kotlar, J, Ravasi, D, Vaara, E. Dealing with revered past: Historical identity statements and strategic change in Japanese family firms. Strat Mgmt J. 2020; 41: 590– 623. https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.3065which has been published in final form at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/smj.3065 This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1400/1408
Subjects:
?? HISTORICAL EMBEDDEDNESSORGANIZATIONAL IDENTITYSTRATEGIC CHANGESTRATEGIC IDENTITY STATEMENTSSTRATEGY PRACTICESBUSINESS AND INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENTSTRATEGY AND MANAGEMENT ??
ID Code:
134650
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
23 Jul 2019 10:20
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
15 Sep 2023 00:55