Navigating Multiple Identities for Positive Change Through Organizational Listening

Abstract

Organizational listening is critical in times of change, especially for organizations that must meet diverse stakeholder interests. Organizations’ views on who they are—whether they are altruistic or self-oriented entities—may shape organizational listening practices in meaningful ways. To explore the undertheorized topic of organizational listening, we conducted a mixed-method sequential explanatory study. Drawing on survey and interview data from 122 U.S. nonprofits, we found an organization’s utilitarian identity for economic value creation is only related to practical motivation to engage in listening, whereas a normative identity for social mission is related to listening motivation, information analysis, and information integration. In addition, we found that organizational listening fully mediates the relationship between organizational identity and organizational change potential and implementation, indicating positive change would most likely occur through soliciting and incorporating stakeholder inputs. These results contribute to theorizing organizational listening and suggest implications for navigating multiple identities in organizational change processes.