How are we keeping “Who are we?”

Organizational identity of Fujifilm

Abstract

Existing research often cites continuity as a characteristic of organizational identity. In today’s world of dramatically changing business environments, however, how are organizations to maintain continuity? This paper uses text mining to analyze 14 years of annual reports, from 2002 to 2014, of FUJIFILM Holdings Corporation to understand changes in characteristic terms. Results showed that even as the market for FUJIFILM’s primary business, photographic film, shrunk dramatically, the term “film” continued to be used in various contexts, and the meaning of the term updated in response to changes in the company’s business structure. The company’s management used this process to deliberately keep continuity in an effort to maintain organizational identity.