Material Influences on the Formation of Organizational Identity

Abstract

Little consideration has been given to physical or material influences on the formation or change of organizational identity. Therefore, this article uses the extreme and unique case of Tokushimaru Corporation's mobile supermarket to examine the formation of organizational identity as it is influenced by material elements. In this case study, the identity of the founder was materialized as a business model consisting of a business system and a profit model, and further materialized into a Tokushimaru vehicle for mobile sales. These dedicated vehicles, which were the materials that mediated the mobile sales, became boundary objects and solidly connected the main human actors: headquarters, regional supermarkets, sales partners, and customers. Such a linkage of human and non-human actors comprised a chain of translations that generated new goals while the various actors changed together. As a result, in the case of Tokushimaru, the content of the goals generated during the translation chain was linked to the content of the company's organizational identity. Thus, in the case of Tokushimaru, the materiality of the boundary object, the dedicated vehicle, can be said to have influenced the formation of organizational identity through the linkage of human and non-human actors in the formation of organizational identity.