TY - JOUR

T1 - No longer second-class citizens

T2 - Redefining organizational identity as a response to digitalization in accounting shared services

AU - Klimkeit, Dirk

AU - Reihlen, Markus

PY - 2022/2/23

Y1 - 2022/2/23

N2 - New technologies can become an identity-challenging threat for organizations. While there is a growing literature on how new technologies challenge fundamental questions of organizational existence such as 'who are we?', 'what do we do?', and 'what do we want to be?', this literature has largely overlooked how new technologies can become drivers of organizational identity change. In this article, we investigate the impact of digitalization, especially Robotic Process Automation, on organizational identity. Drawing on the analysis of shared service centers in Asia and Eastern Europe, we explored how these organizations respond to identity-challenging technologies. While traditionally, work in shared services has been characterized by a combination of standardization, controlling the labor process, and deskilling, we found in this study that shared service organizations are responding to the digital challenges by moving up the value chain to more complex, knowledge-intensive work. As a result, shared service organizations in our study began to redefine their organizational identity by, among others, professionalizing their workforce.

AB - New technologies can become an identity-challenging threat for organizations. While there is a growing literature on how new technologies challenge fundamental questions of organizational existence such as 'who are we?', 'what do we do?', and 'what do we want to be?', this literature has largely overlooked how new technologies can become drivers of organizational identity change. In this article, we investigate the impact of digitalization, especially Robotic Process Automation, on organizational identity. Drawing on the analysis of shared service centers in Asia and Eastern Europe, we explored how these organizations respond to identity-challenging technologies. While traditionally, work in shared services has been characterized by a combination of standardization, controlling the labor process, and deskilling, we found in this study that shared service organizations are responding to the digital challenges by moving up the value chain to more complex, knowledge-intensive work. As a result, shared service organizations in our study began to redefine their organizational identity by, among others, professionalizing their workforce.

KW - case study

KW - digitalization

KW - multinational corporation

KW - organizational identity

KW - shared service center

KW - Management studies

KW - Entrepreneurship

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126370176&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/5acb80f7-e1f2-3975-b301-c0868a0c97b9/

U2 - 10.1093/jpo/joac003

DO - 10.1093/jpo/joac003

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85126370176

VL - 9

SP - 115

EP - 138

JO - Journal of Professions and Organization

JF - Journal of Professions and Organization

SN - 2051-8803

IS - 1

ER -