In this systematic literature review, we analyze 203 articles on the topic of identity, identity work, or identification in the context of multinational corporations (MNCs) or MNC-related phenomena, published in major international business (IB), international management (IM), and management journals. The purpose of this review is to synthesize the literature and identify different conceptualizations of identity found in IB literature related to MNCs, and to further explore the phenomena covered, research methods used, and the epistemological assumptions employed in connection to these conceptualizations. Through a qualitative content analysis of the identified articles, we explicate four conceptualizations of identity in the context of MNCs: (1) identity as a static, pre-given or acquired individual or collective characteristic (essentialist conceptualization); (2) identity as identification with a group, unit, or organization (relational conceptualization); (3) identity as individual or collective identity work, doing identity, and resistance (discursive conceptualization); and (4) identity as regulation, subjugation, domination by others and/or the environment (e.g. ideology) (power-laden / ideological conceptualization). Based on an analysis of these conceptualizations, we put forward a future research agenda for identity research in and around MNCs.

Drawing on identity theory, we conceptualize repatriates’ knowledge provision as a means to enact their international employee identity. We expect that repatriates’ international identity strain makes them less likely to provide international knowledge to their colleagues, leading colleagues to consider this knowledge as less useful. Our study of 91 repatriates and 118 colleagues shows that knowledge provision mediates the negative relationship between repatriates’ identity strain and colleague perceptions of knowledge usefulness. Further, the negative consequences of identity strain persist at low levels of repatriates’ self-efficacy and colleagues’ trust in the repatriate but disappear at high levels of either moderator.

Previous research has thoroughly explored how informal networks contribute to creating and reinforcing gender inequality in the workplace. However, it has only begun to shed light on the micro-level processes that lead to gendered networks/networking. This paper employs a feminist constructionist perspective on gender and looks into how a social networking practice in China – cigarette smoking – was spatiolinguistically enacted and negotiated as a deeply masculine, legitimate organizational practice. Drawing on an ethnographic study in the Chinese R&D unit of a Finnish engineering multinational, this paper illustrates how the act of smoking, the smoking room, and the smoking circle collectively reinforce and perpetuate a societal-level ideology of masculinity, thereby contributing to the exclusion of women from core networks. Our paper not only shows informal networks (including guanxi) as emplaced, embodied, discursive practices that are simultaneously gendered and gendering, but also highlights their interaction with broader sociocultural contexts. This study contributes to the development of inclusive corporate policies, highlights the significance of informal spaces in perpetuating the gender order, and calls for a multidisciplinary agenda that could be potentially valuable for theorizing gender in management studies.