Narrating rhetorical history to present an appearance of organizational authenticity

Organizational authenticity involves the rhetorical claim by an organization that its identity is true, genuine, real, etc. in reference to a standard of consistency, compliance, or connection that answers the question “the organization is an authentic what?” These claims can be employed to examine the rhetorical histories that an organization narrates to make its identity appear as authentic. An authenticity claim produces that appearance by locating the reference standard for identifying the organization as consistent with its own past and compliant with or connected to a past relevant to stakeholder audiences. Evidence from website-based self-presentations by two Canadian breweries illustrates these rhetorical claims and demonstrates the malleability of rhetorical history across target audiences and over time.