It is now 35 years since the death of Professor Joan Woodward, one of the founding figures of organization studies. Professor Woodward died in 1971 at the age of 54 after a relatively brief but highly distinguished career as a management researcher and te.

The concept of collective identity has gained prominence within organizational theory as researchers have studied how it consequentially shapes organizational behavior. However, much less attention has been paid to the question of how nascent collective identities become legitimated. Although it...