Managing Legacy and Change

The book provides insights on managing legacy and change in organizations from some of the pioneering researchers in the field. It explores how past legacies both enable and restrict opportunities for organizational renewal, social change, and new forms of organizing. On the one hand, tangible and intangible legacies can be a source of authentication, legitimation, and strategy restoration; on the other hand, past legacies can restrict our imagination by enforcing path dependency.

Managing legacy is a vital process for both old and new organizations. Older organizations often find that their legacy is at odds with present realities or future directions. In contrast, newly formed organizations often feel they have a deficit in legacy compared with long-established organizations and seek to boost credibility by engaging in activities that can be retrospectively claimed as their legacy. In either case, when aspects of an organization’s raison d’être change, the organizational identity is threatened, and legacy can become an obstacle or an opportunity.

By bringing together varied perspectives on legacy, including heritage, collective memory, rhetorical history, storytelling, and imprinting theory, this volume contributes to a deeper understanding of the interplay of legacies and imagined futures as it pertains to organizational identity and change.