Abstract
The global rise of nationalism has distorted the neoliberal vision of a borderless world where the nationality of businesses would be rendered obsolete. While nationalism can promote solidarity and progress, it also has the potential to deepen social divisions and fuel conflict-realities that organizations cannot ignore. In this paper, we propose a theory of organizational nationalism, which positions organizations not merely as passive responders to nationalist institutional pressures or geopolitical risks but as active agents in shaping nationalistic beliefs, values, and policies. Through theorizing how organizational nationalism manifests and functions, we offer insights into how organizations harness nationalism to motivate employees, cultivate consumer loyalty, and secure sociopolitical legitimacy, and how such engagement may eventually become an organizational commitment that shapes its nationalist character. This perspective fills a critical void in nationalism research by emphasizing the intermediary role played by organizations between the state and individual levels of nationalism. It also offers a unifying framework for the fragmented literature on nationalism in business, which spans topics from state influence on organizational forms to managing "foreignness" in multinational corporations. We conclude by outlining a research roadmap and promising research methodologies in this area.