(Un)Mind the gap: How organizational actors cope with an identity-strategy misalignment

In this article, we explore how organizational actors cope with a perceived misalignment between their organization's identity and strategy. Based on an inductive, interpretive case study at a public broadcasting organization, we identify three cognitive tactics through which organizational members cope with an identity-strategy misalignment: contextualization, abstraction, and fatalism. Furthermore, we show that the enactment of these cognitive coping tactics coincides with specific strategy-related tasks that prioritize different aspects of an organization's identity and, therefore, invokes different conceptions of the identity-strategy misalignment. Based on these findings, we develop a framework that conceptualizes how organizational members cope with an identity-strategy misalignment. We end the article by discussing the implications of our study for further research on the linkages between organizational identity and strategy.