Narrative Start-up Identity Construction as Strategic Communication

ABSTRACT In this qualitative case study, positioning itself within the social constructionist approach, we aimed to investigate and interpret identity narration and organizational identity in strategic external and internal communication at the health technology startup company Naava Group Oy. By analyzing three different datasets (Twitter, blog posts, and interviews), we examined how organizational identity was emerged and which way it was strategic in storytelling and narratives. The results indicate that the startup's strategic social media identity storytelling seemed strategically crafted, as various voices were detected to narrate the same stories that repeated the same narrative content. The study also interestingly reveals that the four identities emerging from narrative storytelling were interpermeable and strongly connected to the narratives’ content. The social media narratives and identities varied slightly during the 8-year period that the datasets, in total, covered. However, the identities communicated on social media were more coherent than the internal identities expressed by employees. The findings suggest that, in strong startup identity creation, the cohesiveness of the identity storytelling, the voices that narrate the identity construction, and the content and temporal dimensions of the narrated stories are strategic key factors.