Embodying Organizational Memory: Community Memory as a Pillar of Organizational Identity Formation and Stability

Organizational memory is usually conceived as a repository of knowledge and more recently of material traces from the past. We argue that because memory has deep relation with identity, organizational memory needs theoretical expansion. We report existing subjective, objective and collective approaches of memory and history across disciplines and conclude that memory needs to be embodied by a community to have strong organizational implications. Memory is not a recollection of inert external traces but an active distention of the mind between the past and the future. By applying this rationale on an organizational level, we frame a dialectic between an organizational and a community dimension of memory. Community memory is a set of real or imagined elements that are embodied that is, widely and actively remembered and orally conveyed by an enduring work community. It allows internal and emergent organizational identity formation. This model is important because it specifies why, and not only how, are organizational memory and identity deeply connected. We explain why community memory is inherently collective and resistant to change. Besides contributing to research on organizational identity and identification, our dialectical model provides new heuristics and insights for theoretical and practical exploration and managerial action.