Doing organizational identity
earnings surprises and the performative atypicality premium
Additional information
Authors
Gouvard P.,
Goldberg A.,
Srivastava S. B.
Type
Journal Article
Year
2023
Language
English
Abstract
How do organizations reconcile the cross-pressures of conformity and differentiation? Existing research predominantly conceptualizes identity as something an organization has by virtue of the products or services it offers. Drawing on constructivist theories, we argue that organizational members’ interactions with external audiences also dynamically produce identity. We call the extent to which such interactions diverge from audience expectations performative atypicality. Applying a novel deep-learning method to conversational text in over 90,000 earnings calls, we find that performative atypicality leads to an evaluation premium by securities analysts, paradoxically resulting in a negative earnings surprise. Moreover, performances that correspond to those of celebrated innovators are received with higher enthusiasm. Our findings suggest that firms that conform to categorical expectations while being performatively atypical can navigate the conflicting demands of similarity and uniqueness, especially if they hew to popular notions of being different.
Keywords
Categories, Organizational identity, Economic sociology
Journal
Administrative Science Quarterly
Volume
68
Number ( Month )
3
Pages (or article number)
781–823
Diffusion
License
CC BY
Visibility
Public
Status open access
Hybrid
