Organizational Identity Work in Response to a Category-Wide Issue

This paper addresses the interface of research on organizational identity work and strategic categorization. We investigate how producers proceed within their own organization to simultaneously enhance their category identity and their organizational identity in response to an issue that threatens the legitimacy of their core product category. Our empirical study addresses the product category of beer and the issue of ‘alcohol-related harm’ that threatens the legitimacy of this product. We investigate how organizational actors in Carlsberg Group, a large beer producer, engage in organizational identity work to handle this issue, thereby enhancing the product category’s legitimacy and the organization’s position within the beer industry. The organization’s identity work paved the way for new, differentiated identity claims that selectively targeted distinct audience groups to improve the legitimacy of the beer category and the organization’s position within the industry.