Organizational identity describes how members of an organization think about ‘who we are.’ But how exactly does a multinational enterprise (MNE) form an identity revolving around its key feature – that it is a globally operating organization with subsidiaries across several countries? Tracing the evolution of AutoCorp, a German MNE, over almost 30 years, I develop theory on how an MNE identity is formed over the course of internationalization. Focusing on the relational evolvement of the pair comprising headquarters and the first major foreign subsidiary, my data reveal how the formation process of an MNE identity involves awareness, aspiration, and assimilation as key steps, and sensemaking, storytelling, and standardizing as process mechanisms. I unpack how the process of MNE identity formation unfolds along a set of discrete events, which constitute inflection points marking the transition from one stage to the next: from multiple identities via identity reflection and identity envisioning to an MNE identity. By introducing the notion of an MNE identity, this paper enriches the way international business scholars think about classic questions around the coordination and organization of MNEs.

组织身份描述了组织成员如何思考“我们是谁”。但是，跨国企业（MNE）究竟如何围绕其关键特征形成一个身份-它是一个在多个国家设有子公司的全球运营组织？追溯近30年来德国跨国公司AutoCorp的发展，我提出了有关在国际化过程中如何形成跨国公司身份的理论。我的数据集中于总部和第一家主要外国子公司之间的关系演变，我的数据揭示了跨国公司身份的形成过程是如何将意识，渴望和同化作为关键步骤，以及感官，讲故事和标准化作为过程机制。我将解开MNE身份形成过程是如何随着一系列离散事件而展开的，它们构成了指示从一个阶段到下一个阶段的转变的拐点：从多个身份通过身份反射和身份设想到一个MNE身份。通过介绍MNE身份的概念，本文丰富了国际商务学者对围绕MNE的协调和组织的经典问题的思考方式。