organizational identity via recruitment and communication: lessons from the international...

Organizational Identity Via Recruitmentand Communication: Lessons From theInternational ThermonuclearExperimental Reactor Project HILARY COLL INS

A study of the efforts employed among scientific, en-gineering, and support staff in the early phases of theInternational Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor(ITER) project outside Marseille, France, found thatthe management of communication tools as part of astrategic sense-giving process enabled the formationof a transitional identity. This eased employees’transition into their new surroundings and fosteredtheir engagement with the organization and its mis-sion. Having implications for both the motivationand retention of employees, the findings show thatsense making and sense giving using communica-tion tools affects the pace at which an organizationcan forge an organizational identity. © 2012 WileyPeriodicals, Inc.

Coordinating a groundbreaking internationalproject involving three levels of employees fromaround the globe is a massive undertaking. Whatsteps can be taken to ease the transition of foreignworkers in a new and challenging setting whilefostering their identification with organizationalgoals? That was the question facing Agence ITERFrance, the French organization charged withmanaging France’s contribution to the InternationalThermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER)project, a multinational effort to construct a nuclearfusion reactor.

The Welcome Office of Agence ITER France com-missioned a research study to determine how themultinational project was perceived internally andhow well integrated the employees were in terms

of motivation and commitment to it. The resultsprovided the Welcome Office with an understand-ing of the formation of identity processes and howimportant they were within the context of internalorganizational development.

A Look at the ITER Project and the Role of AgenceITER FranceThe ITER project is a multibillion-dollar enterpriseinvolving seven partners—the People’s Republic ofChina, the European Union (including Switzerland),India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the RussianFederation, and the United States, working togetherto build a nuclear fusion reactor to generate cleanpower. Agence ITER France is responsible for de-livering the project, which is being built adjacent tothe Cadarache Nuclear Research Centre, about 40miles from Marseille, France.

The workforce is largely recruited from the sevenpartners on five-year renewable contracts. The re-search into the creation of a clean power sourcehas spanned more than 40 years. Some of the orig-inal researchers who worked on separate initialprojects are still employed in an advisory capac-ity. A large proportion of the initial contracts forscientific and engineering work were awarded topeople who had been involved in preceding projectsin the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan. Eventhough it is a second language to most of the em-ployees, English is the official language spoken onsite.

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c© 2012 Wiley Per iodicals , Inc .Publ ished onl ine in Wi ley Onl ine Library (wi leyonl inel ibrary .com)Global Business and Organizat ional Excel lence • DOI : 10.1002/ joe .21440 • Ju ly /August 2012

France’s atomic energy commission, the Commis-sariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA), was set up tosupport projects such as ITER. Funded by the Frenchgovernment, it is responsible for the initial recruit-ment of ITER employees and provides the humanresources and support services needed to help inte-grate the employees into French life. These includeFrench-language classes that are made available dur-ing working hours to all ITER employees.

Since 2007, Agence ITER France has been responsi-ble for site preparation, including clearing, leveling,and auxiliary works such as the installation of wa-ter supply and electrical networks. The agency man-ages the French contribution to the ITER project—both in-kind and financial—and will ultimately bein charge of site decommissioning. Agence ITERFrance is in permanent contact with the various or-ganizations involved in the ITER project, includingthe European Domestic Agency, Fusion for Energy(which will oversee the construction of all scientificbuildings and facilities), and the French authorities.The ITER project is expected to grow to a peakof 1,000 employees during its operational phase.Agence ITER France provides services for those ar-riving from abroad via its Welcome Office, whichserves as the interface with the French authoritiesfor all administrative procedures following initialrecruitment.

The Research ProblemThe research project focused on understanding theperception of the international employees’ experi-ence of recruitment and the early stages of employ-ment within the ITER project in France. Throughits Welcome Office, Agence ITER France investedin a cultural awareness program to integrate newlyrecruited employees from diverse national culturesinto the project. This cultural awareness initiativeincluded language classes, lectures on national cul-tural differences, and support for relocation and in-tegration into the local community. The office staff

also staged events linked to employees’ nationality,such as a Japanese Day or a Korean Day.

The research project focused on understanding theperception of the international employees’ experi-ence of recruitment and the early stages of employ-ment within the ITER project in France.

Initially the researchers were asked to interviewBritish staff using a questionnaire that had been de-signed by the Welcome Office to find out how suc-cessful the office had been in assisting employees inthe recruitment and settling-in process. There wasa separate questionnaire for the employee and onefor the spouse. Other research teams were asked tointerview other foreigners, and the researchers werematched with interviewees of their own nationality.

The researchers who had access to British employ-ees found the classification problematic. In reality,interviewees were those whom the Welcome Of-fice considered to be “British.” Consequently, theresearchers spoke to Irish nationals, who were in-dignant at being classed as British, and a varietyof people of different national and cultural back-grounds who had obtained British citizenship. Theyalso were asked to interview spouses, if they hadvolunteered for the program. Although they in-terviewed 15 employees, only one spouse volun-teered to participate. The reason for this quicklyemerged.

First, there was an assumption that a person clas-sified as British had a British spouse. This wasnot always the case. Second, the use of the term“spouse” also proved problematic. Many intervie-wees thought of a spouse as female and married. Inaddition, the British employees were uncomfortablewith the notion of having one’s partner or spouseinterviewed about their job, and they were reluctantto ask their partners to talk about their home life for

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fear the information would get back to managementand possibly have negative repercussions.

With the authorization of the Welcome Office andwith the consent of the interviewees, the researchersextended the original questions to seek more in-depth information on the interviewees’ recruitmentand employment experience. The final reports com-piled for the first stage of the research were submit-ted to the Welcome Office and were made availableto the other researchers; but for reasons of confi-dentiality, the records of the completed participantinterviews were not.

The first stage of the research was aimed at un-derstanding employees’ perception of the recruit-ment and induction process. The results indicatedthat interviewees did not receive all the informa-tion they needed to inform and reassure them,so they turned to information provided by vari-ous communication tools to try to understand theirplace in the organization and what the organizationentailed. These tools included documents, journals,and intranet and Internet websites intended for bothinternal and external audiences. The second stage ofthe research was aimed at understanding how the in-formation from the communication tools was inter-preted, how this affected employees’ identificationwith the project, and what effect, if any, this had onthe project’s development.

The Process of Identity Formation in OrganizationsAn organization is likely to be heavily conditionedby the identity its leading group articulates for it(Gioia, Price, Hamilton, & Thomas, 2010). Neworganizations may mimic existing organizations,and the way new organizations present themselvesto their external audiences may be critical notonly to their identities, but also to their image amongstakeholders.

Identity construction occurs within the wider con-text of the industry in which the organization

operates; therefore, identity is defined with referenceto partners and rivals. Employees undertake iden-tity construction work not only for its own sake,but also to legitimize and support the organization’sgoals and actions (Gioia et al., 2010).

To understand the process of identity formation, weneed to understand the issue of coping with iden-tity ambiguity and deciding who and what the or-ganization wants to be in its competitive domain.The identity-formation process is likely to involveattempts to attain legitimacy though mimetic pro-cesses and to construct some dimensions of distinc-tiveness within the organizational field.

Employees undertake identity construction work notonly for its own sake, but also to legitimize andsupport the organization’s goals and actions.

People and groups identify themselves according tocategory membership and by comparing themselveswith other organizations. An identity claim gainslegitimacy when that claim agrees with the widercontext (Dutton, Roberts, & Bednar, 2010). Adapt-ing to external forces is an important influence onidentity change. Both internal and external imagesof the organization matter in prompting attempts tochange identity, especially when there are discrep-ancies between those images. These are particularlyimportant in prompting attempts to change iden-tity. Iterations back and forth between insiders andoutsiders affect organizational identity (Gioia et al.,2010). Employees form identities by learning, viaiteration, to see themselves as others do.

At the individual level, the identity-formation pro-cess answers such questions as “What does the orga-nization want from me?” and “What do I want to bein the future?” The first question relates to people’sidentity in the organization, while the second relatesto their own personal identity. As they interact and

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negotiate with themselves, their colleagues, and theirenvironment employees are involved in identity-formation processes that help them understand whothey are.

The organization in this study was recently formed.Therefore, both the employees and the project werein a stage of development, making it difficult to de-termine what should be emulated as best practice.In addition, because of the groundbreaking natureof the project, employees were limited in the degreeto which they could base their identity on existinginstitutional models. In the beginning, they had toexplain and describe who they were to themselvesand to others, thereby establishing contrasting ex-ternal referents to serve as exclusionary boundariesthat defined what Agence ITER France and the ITERproject were and what they were not. Defining them-selves by exclusion provided employees with tem-porary reference points against which they couldcompare themselves as they worked to form an iden-tity that could be expressed in positive rather thannegative terms.

The Problems With Identity Formation in ITERThere are three broad types of employees withinthe ITER project: scientists, who work on the re-search elements of the project; engineers, who buildthe machine; and administrative support staff. Be-cause recruitment is largely drawn from the part-ner nations, an informal and formal categorizationof employees by both their general work functionand their nationality developed. Management’s in-tention was to integrate employees and their familiesinto the culture of the ITER project and that of thelocal community. This process, however, was beingmanaged by categorizing employees by their workfunction and by their national culture. Employeeswere angry at being categorized in this way and feltmisunderstood. Of the 15 employees who were in-terviewed, six had life partners who were of anothernationality and most had traveled and worked inother cultural settings. Therefore, the classification

of these employees as “British” not only resulted ina bias in the research project’s sample, but also wasindicative of the overarching culture.

Because recruitment is largely drawn from the part-ner nations, an informal and formal categorizationof employees by both their general work function andtheir nationality developed. Management’s intentionwas to integrate employees and their families intothe culture of the ITER project and that of the localcommunity.

The cultural awareness program and the CEA hu-man resource policies assumed that new employeeswere coming to the ITER project in France fromtheir country of origin, that their partners and chil-dren were of the same cultural origin, and that theyintended to return to their country of origin whentheir ITER contract expired. The human resource re-cruitment policies were French (although all writtencommunications were in English). There were dif-ferences in recruitment policies used within Francewhen compared to the international recruitment po-lices of the partner nations, and these were at timesconfusing for the recruits. In addition, many employ-ees underestimated the difficulties that they wouldexperience in finding employment for partners andhousing, as well as in integrating their children intoschool life.

All the participants who worked in the scientific cat-egory or engineering departments were highly en-gaged with their work and their workgroups. Theyexpressed concerns about their families’ integra-tion into the community or the decision to relo-cate without their family, but the job function tookprecedence over family issues. They did not discussproblems associated with understanding the cultureor issues of disengagement. Communication toolswere not mentioned.


In contrast, employees recruited to perform supportroles—that is, roles that were not ITER project–specific—did feel disengaged with the organizationalculture and formed discreet local workplace identi-ties. Using the communication tools as a referencepoint, they perceived a contrast between how theorganization was portraying itself and their ownexperience. This resulted in identity inertia. Theyreported dissatisfaction with their workplace anddid not feel integrated into their environment. Theywere very concerned for their families and discussedcultural misunderstandings and lack of integrationinto the local community. They all related these feel-ings directly to the lack of clarity in communicationtools, which they believed were designed to give theimpression of a multinational corporation that wasdedicated to the needs of a multicultural staff—animpression that was contrary to their experience.

These employees included those recruited from theirhome country and those who had been recruited af-ter substantial experience working abroad. They allexpressed the opinion that they came to ITER for thelevel of salary, which is high in comparison to theEuropean average. They were also comparing work-ing conditions and styles of communication withtheir previous positions. Partly due to difficulties inunderstanding the French language, these employeeswere heavily dependent on the internal communica-tion tools, which were in English. They said thattheir motivation was waning and many were con-sidering leaving the organization. This was differentfrom employees within the scientific or engineeringproject groups, who hardly used the internal com-munication tools but relied on external communica-tion with the other nation partners.

Results from the first stage of research suggestedthat there were different rates of identify formationand resulting engagement with the project amongthe different groups, and it became clear that theways in which the communication tools were be-ing used had an effect on this. Within all the broadwork roles, the employees discussed high levels of

engagement with parts of the organization while be-ing disengaged with other parts. The researchers’ in-vestigation of the three main workgroups revealedthat a change in the management of the commu-nication tools, and the subsequent emergence ofa transitional identity—an interim sense held byemployees about what their organization was andwas becoming (Clark, Gioia, Ketchen, & Thomas,2010)—was critical in moving the identify forma-tion process forward.

Results from the first stage of research suggestedthat there were different rates of identify formationand resulting engagement with the project amongthe different groups, and it became clear that theways in which the communication tools were beingused had an effect on this.

What Happened?At the start of the ITER project research (June2010), there was no genuine identity among thethree groups of employees. There was a period oftime when employees were not sure what the orga-nization was and what their identity was within that,resulting in a void of meaning. A process of under-standing began through the negotiation of identityclaims. The employees went on to engage in con-trasting interpretation of the communication tools.As employees worked to develop claims consistentwith the organization’s vision, they had to deal withthe ambiguity and confusion created by the differ-ing styles and content of the various communicationtools. Although the support staff group experienceda meanings void, the scientific group workers didnot; rather, they relied on previously formed (withinpreceding projects) competing identities. This meantthat although employees had a general sense of whatthe organization was intended to be, they needed toconstruct meanings linked to who they were try-ing to become because the character of the project


was in a state of flux. It was, in consequence, eas-ier for the support staff to decide what the projectwas not before agreeing on what it was. In this way,they worked toward differentiating themselves fromother organizations and worked toward a distinctivedefinition of who they were, thereby filling the voidof meaning with identity content and processes.

Analysis of the collected data showed a certainamount of disconnect between the strategic direc-tion in which the organization was moving andthe experience felt or lived by the employees. Itwas almost as though the organization were goingthrough a transformation while its employees werefeeling left behind. There were various reasons forthis.

The newly created project groups in the support staffsector lacked a strong identity and, therefore, wentabout their business without benefit of it. The term“stuck” was commonly used, intimating that themembers of the project groups operated indepen-dently and territorially. This contradicted the ethosof the organization, which called for an organiza-tion composed of interconnected and interdepen-dent project groups.

In the scientific project groups, several employ-ees who previously had worked together on otherprojects that preceded the ITER appeared to mourna loss of identity. There was also some commentabout the way that the organization was becoming“unclassified,” and that its original identity of being“important and secret” had eroded. There were alsoissues surrounding the way that the project groupsidentified with the organization.

The strong identification within some scientific andengineering project groups gave employees a sense ofmeaning and security that ensured their engagementand identification in a way that the organizationalculture was unable to create. For example, employ-ees gained status and legitimacy by drawing on theirinvolvement in the preceding international projects

and their status as their own secure points of refer-ence. This localized form of identity construction re-sulted in greater engagement and identification withclose colleagues and local managers. This simul-taneously enabled them to disengage from the at-tempt to move people toward a more unified sharedorganizational identity through the communicationtools. Despite systems and structural change overtwo years, the employees continued to identifywith their subcultures at the expense of subscrib-ing to the idealized notion of a more unified cultureat the organizational level.

The strong identification within some scientific andengineering project groups gave employees a senseof meaning and security that ensured their engage-ment and identification in a way that the organiza-tional culture was unable to create.

The results showed that there were two sources ofidentity inertia that stalled identity formation. Thesewere local identification, as described above, andsense making via image comparison using the com-munication tools, as described in the case of thesupport group. Employees in this group were evalu-ating the image of ITER among external stakehold-ers through press reports and media. Because of themismatch between what was presented internation-ally and projected via internal communication, theybecame unsure of themselves, and this impeded theprocess of identity formation.

The results also showed that sense making via imagemanagement enabled identity change. This followeda change in the management of communication toolsto enable an image in the media and the intranet toevolve. Collective identification then started to form,and employees began engaging in an identificationprocess that spanned the three workgroups, result-ing in the beginning of a shared identity. In thiscontext, the communication tools were designed to


embed new values and behavior across groups andbeyond.

Concurring with Clark et al. (2010), this studyshowed that the transitional identity was effectivebecause it was ambiguous enough to allow multi-ple interpretations of what the organization wouldbecome and eventually gelled into a single mutualunderstanding.

Lessons Learned in the AnalysisThis case study provides lessons in engaging employ-ees in change and suggests that centralized culturalinitiatives, although seemingly necessary and desir-able, may prove to be counterproductive in creatinga unified identity. The role of communication tools isimportant in both identification processes and man-aging change, and this has practical implications formanagers and designers involved in making changesto an organization. Because image and identity areconstructs that employees hold in their minds, theyactively screen and interpret issues that are, in partat least, interpreted from the organization’s com-munication tools. In this way, the communicationtools can help explain how the individual can pushagainst or for these change processes. It is the in-consistency among various conditions—such as themismatch between managerial action, the commu-nication tools, and the organizational identity andimage—that can affect the individual’s workplaceidentity.

Because image and identity are constructs that em-ployees hold in their minds, they actively screen andinterpret issues that are, in part at least, interpretedfrom the organization’s communication tools.

This case study also illustrates the various dynam-ics that are played out in different sections of theorganization and explores the way that resources

for creating identity and meaning are based on mis-placed assumptions, they can hinder the creation ofa single, monolithic culture and lead to a fragmentedand contested culture. Although an organization canbe on the move for years, its workplace identity candevelop or change at a far slower pace.

As the researchers discovered at the ITER site,placing people in “national” groups did not workto help foster identity with the organization. Onthe contrary, it led employees to stay in their re-spective communities, which were further subdi-vided into scientific, and engineering, and supportgroups. These national categorizations do not reflectcultures and, perhaps in reaction to them, employeestended to form subgroups based on their more ac-curate job categorizations (scientists, engineers, orsupport staff). They felt they were misunderstoodand, consequently, turned to communication toolsto understand their place in the developing organi-zation. Only when sense giving occurred through amore coherently managed communication of imagedid it become an enabler of change.

In addition, the evidence suggests that organiza-tional identity—and, more specifically, a transitionalidentity—was not only prominent, but also was cen-tral to the process of development of the project.The process model proposed suggests that negotiat-ing identity claims at the start of the project was anecessary first step toward the creation of a sharedidentity.

There were also two important cognitive shifts fa-cilitated by transitional identity. These were:

� from local identification to collective identifica-tion and

� from sense making via communication tool com-parison to sense giving via communication toolmanagement.

These represented a progression from a source ofidentity inertia to an enabler of identity change.


There is a strong possibility that factors that inhibitidentity formation could work to prevent changeand that these factors have varying levels of strengthacross different change processes. In practical terms,the change occurred when there was a change inmanagement of the communication tools, and theimage created internally was more coherent withthat presented in external media. If Agence ITERFrance links its identity claims to identity-relevantactions, the organization will have its identity af-firmed by both internal and external stakeholders.

When sense-giving communication tools were pre-sented as part of a managed strategic process, theyenabled the formation of a transitional identity. Thisgave employees a sense of meaning and securitythat enabled them to create a shared identity withthose in their groups and ensured their engagementwithin their groundbreaking project. The findingsshow that social construction for sense making andsense giving using internal and external communi-cation tools, as well as micro and macro influences,affect the pace at which a new project will forge anorganizational identity. This has implications for themotivation and retention of employees.

The research presented here suggests that it is possi-ble to increase levels of support and, consequently,

identification with the organization by carefullymanaging the communication tools and represen-tations that employees have of the development of aproject.

ReferencesClark, S. M., Gioia, D. A., Ketchen, D. J., & Thomas, J.B. (2010). Transitional identity as a facilitator of organiza-tional identity change during a merger. Administrative Sci-ence Quarterly, 55, 397–438.

Dutton, J. E., Roberts, L. M., & Bednar, J. (2010). Pathwaysfor positive identity construction at work: Four types of posi-tive identity and the building of social resources. Academy ofManagement Review, 35, 265–293.

Gioia, D. A., Price, K. N., Hamilton, A. L., & Thomas, J.B. (2010). Forging an identity: An insider-outsider study ofprocesses involved in the formation of organizational identity.Administrative Science Quarterly, 55, 1–46.

An associate professor at Euromed Management in Marseille,France, Hilary Collins has a PhD in management from theUniversity of Strathclyde, United Kingdom, where her thesiswas on identity and interpretation of the built environment.She specializes in the field of design management and servesas a member of the European and British Academies of Man-agement. Her research is focused on the role of identity andorganizational culture within design.


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