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Current research focuses on the interaction between innovation and strategy process, but less is known about how identity influences innovation and the formation of strategy. The purpose of this paper is therefore to investigate the relationship between organizational identities and innovation with regards to strategy.

The paper is based on the current research stream on innovation and strategy process. The study is based on a longitudinal case study of strategy and innovation processes in a small Norwegian food producer. Through analyzing two different innovation and product development processes in a Norwegian food producer, one related to creative recombination and the other to reproduction of established practice, the paper illustrates how organizational identities influence sensemaking during strategy processes, and thus the inclusion of innovation in the strategy.

Identity can be used as an explanation for why some actions are deemed to be strategic while others are not, hence enforcing or limiting innovation. The paper finds that identity needs to be considered both as a “soft” and a “hard” concept in the process; providing stability while at the same time being up for re‐negotiation. By understanding strategizing and innovating as situated and heterogeneous processes, it identifies how identity becomes a stabilizer and an organizer during emergent strategy processes, and reveals tensions between creative recombination and conservative reproduction.

This paper provides a richer understanding of innovation and strategy formation by suggesting that construction of organizational identity is central to the strategy process.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a critical understanding of IT enhanced competence management and its promise to bridge operational and strategic functions with the aim of revealing potential hidden challenges.

Empirical data were gathered through interviews and observations during a longitudinal field study over a two year period in a large Norwegian IT consulting firm that has adopted a competence IT tool throughout the entire organisation. The investigation was conducted from a practice‐based approach to studying competence management.

It was found that IT enhanced competence management that aims to bridge the individual and organisational purposes, is mediated by a universal‐stock versus contextualist approach to competence development. This results in four possible alternatives to IT enhanced competence management. In this study the contextual competence assessment for individual purposes has been objectified for organisational purposes, causing confusion about the value of IT enhanced competence management.

This study has been conducted in only one large IT firm in Norway. Further research is needed to support the finding that it is beneficial to remain in either the contextual or the universal‐stock orientation to competence development when using the same assessments for individual‐operational and organisational‐strategic purposes.

The trickiness of IT enhanced competence management lies in the four hidden belief structures about competence that influence both the design and use of IT enhanced competence tools. Insight gained from this paper may help managers to reflect on their assumptions about competence and may contribute to successful IT enhanced competence management.

The research clarifies possible pitfalls when aiming to satisfy multiple purposes in the design and use of a competence IT tool.