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Leadership succession and the emergence of an organizational identity threat
Author(s) -
Balser Deborah B.,
Carmin JoAnn
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
nonprofit management and leadership
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.844
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1542-7854
pISSN - 1048-6682
DOI - 10.1002/nml.248
Subject(s) - ecological succession , identity (music) , organizational identity , public relations , process (computing) , leadership studies , sociology , organizational change , political science , management , leadership style , organizational commitment , economics , computer science , ecology , physics , acoustics , biology , operating system
Abstract Leadership succession, and the associated changes that new leaders make, can have profound impacts on nonprofit organizations. Despite its importance, there is limited research that examines succession from the point of view of employees and considers how their interpretations of organizational identity and proposed change shape their responses to leadership transitions. In this article, we examine the dynamics that ensued when the founder of Friends of the Earth, a nonprofit environmental organization, stepped down. The case shows how the succession process can expose latent disagreement about an organization's identity and give rise to internal conflict. These patterns suggest that leaders must be attentive to different and often conflicting interpretations of an organization's identity.