From Hopeful Heroes to Cynical Martyrs: Identity Work and the Path‐Dependent Identification with Maladaptive Logics

Lindie Botha and Ralph Hamann

Journal of Management Studies, 2025, vol. 62, issue 8, 3351-3385

Abstract: Scholars have long attended to both the persistence and change of institutional logic–identity constellations, but we know less about why and how organizational members might cling to a logic despite its evident maladaptive character and the resulting emotional upheaval. Based on a 5‐year ethnography of a conservation organization’s paramilitary campaign against rhino poaching, we induct a process model to show how the crisis‐induced adoption of a new logic and the corresponding identity work can have path‐dependent effects that tip hopeful heroism into cynical martyrdom and a dogged commitment to a maladaptive logic, with negative organizational implications. We identify three forms of identity work that act as self‐reinforcing mechanisms of this path dependence: polarizing, normalizing, and cynical coping. Elaborating the intersection of scholarship on institutions, identity work, identification, and path dependence, we explain how an initially valorized identity can twist into a darker, dysfunctional version of itself, with path‐dependent mechanisms contributing to organizational rigidity in the face of crises.

Date: 2025
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