Doing Organizational Identity: Earnings Surprises and the Performative Atypicality Premium

How do organizations reconcile the cross-pressures of conformity and differentiation? Existing research predominantly conceptualizes identity as something an organization has by virtue products or services it offers. Drawing on constructivist theories, we argue that organizational members’ interactions with external audiences also dynamically produce identity. We call extent to which such diverge from audience expectations performative atypicality. Applying a novel deep-learning method conversational text in over 90,000 earnings calls, find atypicality leads evaluation premium securities analysts, paradoxically resulting negative surprise. Moreover, performances correspond those celebrated innovators are received higher enthusiasm. Our findings suggest firms conform categorical while being performatively atypical can navigate conflicting demands similarity uniqueness, especially if they hew popular notions different.