Identities and Categories: Reflections, Integration, and Future Directions

Research on identity has thrived in the fields of organizational behavior, organization theory, and strategy. Issues related to categories and categorization have also received tremendous amount of attention, evolving into a robust research stream since Zuckerman's (1999) seminal work. Yet, while these two concepts are intricately intertwined, the literature on identity and on categorization has mostly been developed as separate research streams. With burgeoning interest in category and identity studies, this symposium is proposed with three broad agendas in mind: (1) to further promote the connection between research on categories/categorization and literature on identities; (2) to explicitly consider the implications of moving across levels of analysis; (3) to open up new research directions in the realm of category and identity studies. Given that both category and identity are fundamental concepts, or “master constructsx, that not only shapes our understanding of the world but also may facilitat...