Exploring organisational identity and especially the connectivity between ‘being and becoming’ as it operates at the interface of the relationship between the individual and the organization is a key need in today’s organisations. Indeed, even if traditionally organisational identity has been understood as a process of stabilizing and fixing meanings – a movement towards coherence and continuity – the concept has recently been associated with notions of fragmentation and ambiguity.

In this paper, we approach identity as a socially constructed phenomenon, the organization of which is socially relative, both positioning and defining the self in relation to the Other. In addition, the construction of such identity is mediated by language. The circulation and reiteration of particular discourses contributes to shaping individual being and becoming in organizations. Such discourses create ‘appropriate’ forms of being that are subject to ongoing change.

The case study that this paper presents illustrates this tension. The paper explores a case of an organizational change program in a Southern European service organization and the impact of this program on the employees’ identification practices. The study draws mainly on material based on in-dept interviews with employees working in two different sections of the organization which were differently affected by the change program, as well as on the analysis of archival data (i.e. organization’s official documents). The analysis focused on providing a characterization of the activity of organizing among organizational members as manifested through the creation and maintenance of individual and organizational identities. Initial analysis of the data indicates differences in perception and expectations about the change process among the personnel, affecting their characterization of the organization and of themselves as employees. This is illustrated in the metaphors they use to make sense of the organizational transition and to describe the organization, their work and what it means to be a members of such organization both individually and collectively.