Discursive practices of remedial organizational identity work: A study of the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration

•The paper analyzes identity work among members of an organization that is subject to intense and persistent public criticism.•The paper shows the importance of salient discourses in members’ identity constructions and how new and refined identity constructions were developed.•The paper depicts identity work as an overlapping process between self-perceptions and perceptions of other's perceptions.•The paper challenges the view of identity work as embedded in a relatively robust and fixed master narratives.•The paper sheds light on the positive and productive features of organizational identity work.

SummaryThis paper examines organizational identity work among members of publicly criticized and discredited organizations. It does so by exploring the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration (NAV), an organization that has been the object of considerable persistent public critique over the years since its foundation in 2006. Based on a discursive analysis of how members of NAV have interpreted the critique and constructed senses of organizational identity, the paper highlights four types of discursive practice: ‘accepting,’ ‘condemning,’ ‘distancing,’ and ‘positively calibrating.’ These practices demonstrate how the critique was incorporated into members’ organizational identity constructions in various ways and with various outcomes, and how members navigated and articulated ambivalent conceptions of the critique, the organization, and their role as organizational members. Based on the findings, implications for the role of discursive practice in remedial organizational identity work are discussed.