Date of Award

8-2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Management

Committee Chair/Advisor

Chad Navis

Committee Member

Amy Ingram

Committee Member

Dirk Roskam

Committee Member

Lori Trudell

Abstract

This dissertation examines how founder identity creates long-lasting imprints on organizations and the communities in which they operate by researching a historical case study in the U.S. textile industry.  This research responded to calls in the imprinting literature for greater attention to secondhand imprinting mechanisms, multiple sensitive periods, and durability of founder influence over time (Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013; Marquis & Qiao, 2025) and draws upon the theoretical lenses of founder identity theory (Fauchart & Gruber, 2011) and organizational imprinting theory (Stinchcombe, 1965; Marquis & Tilcsik, 2013).  The findings suggest that founder identity persistence is not solely a consequence of founding conditions but rather an ongoing process sustained through successor socialization, narrative reinforcement, and symbolic embedding. The resulting theoretical framework of communitarian imprinting explains how founder identity can persist across multiple succession events and sensitive periods while extending beyond the firm into the community through secondhand imprinting. This research contributes to founder identity theory, organizational imprinting theory, and emerging research on entrepreneurial legacy and secondhand imprinting through development of a process model that explains how communitarian founder identities become durable.  This process extends imprinting theory across multiple sensitive periods as an active multi-stage reimprinting process of successor socialization, narrative reinforcement, and symbolic embedding.  The findings suggest that adaptation is interpreted through a communitarian lens that emphasizes obligations to stakeholders beyond shareholders alone.

Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2599-0043

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