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Abstract
Whether intentional or not, identity-focused organizational change alters shared understandings of that which is central, distinctive, and continuous about an organization. Research into such change has practical and academic significance because it addresses core questions pertinent to organizational theory that have real-world ramifications. This dissertation leverages the dynamic context of workplace giving to examine identity-focused change processes across national fields of nonprofit organizations including the United Way system. In order to formulate hypotheses, this dissertation draws upon insights from existing research on the workplace giving context, organizational identity, and organizational change, most notably the institutional logics perspective. Hypotheses are tested using longitudinal data from the Combined Federal Campaign, the workplace giving campaign of the US Federal Government, and a variety of analytical methods. Each chapter of this dissertation examines identity-focused change in the workplace giving arena from a slightly different vantage point. The fourth chapter of this dissertation considers the manner in which nonprofits may use various federated fund affiliation options to signal their alignment with distinct collective identities and their associated communities. I use logistic regression to examine factors associated with variation in the fund affiliation choices of nonprofits over time. I find that despite the sea change unfolding in the workplace giving arena, nonprofit fund affiliation choices continue to be shaped by an enduring logic of community identification. The fifth chapter of this dissertation examines the multifaceted nature of identity across a national field of interconnected organizations: the United Way system. I use expert coding, supervised machine learning, and descriptive statistics to examine geographic and temporal variation in the use of different identity facets over time. The findings from this study provide preliminary evidence that contextual pressures at different levels of analysis shape the identity claims made by organizations across an interconnected field. The sixth chapter of this dissertation focuses on how the interaction of local and field level context affects identity-focused organizational change as it unfolds across an interconnected system. I find that identity facet usage varies depending on the characteristics of the local community in which individual organizations operate despite national field-level pressures.