This paper examines how organizational members respond to events that threaten their perceptions of their organization's identity. Using qualitative, interview, and records data, the authors describe how members from eight top-20 business schools responded to the 1992 Business Week survey rankings of U.S. business schools. The analysis suggests that the rankings posed a two-pronged threat to many members' perceptions of their schools' identities by (1) calling into question their perceptions of highly valued, core identity attributes of their schools, and (2) challenging their beliefs about their schools' standing relative to other schools. In response, members made sense of these threats and affirmed positive perceptions of their school's identity by emphasizing and focusing on their school's membership in selective organizational categories that highlighted favorable identity dimensions and interorganizational comparisons not recognized by the rankings. Data suggest that members' use of these categorization tactics depended on the level of identity dissonance they felt following the rankings. The authors integrate these findings with insights from social identity, self-affirmation, and impression management theories to develop a new framework of organizational identity management. The Business Week rankings threatened many members' perceptions of their school's central and distinctive attributes, i.e., their school's identity. The rankings also challenged and in some instances outrightly repudiated members' prior claims about the relative standing or status of their school among U.S. business schools. The authors found that members used cognitive tactics to maintain both personal and external perceptions of what their organization is or stands for. These tactics included selective categorizations to highlight alternate identity attributes, selective categorizations to highlight alternate comparison groups, selective categorizations to excuse a ranking, and selective categorizations to justify a ranking. The authors also found that members used these tactics to affirm their perceptions of their organization's identity and to make sense of the rankings. The findings suggest that organizational identity threats can lead to cognitive dissonance and that members may use categorization strategies to respond to these threats. The authors conclude that their findings contribute to the understanding of how organizational members respond to identity-threatening events and provide a framework for organizational identity management.This paper examines how organizational members respond to events that threaten their perceptions of their organization's identity. Using qualitative, interview, and records data, the authors describe how members from eight top-20 business schools responded to the 1992 Business Week survey rankings of U.S. business schools. The analysis suggests that the rankings posed a two-pronged threat to many members' perceptions of their schools' identities by (1) calling into question their perceptions of highly valued, core identity attributes of their schools, and (2) challenging their beliefs about their schools' standing relative to other schools. In response, members made sense of these threats and affirmed positive perceptions of their school's identity by emphasizing and focusing on their school's membership in selective organizational categories that highlighted favorable identity dimensions and interorganizational comparisons not recognized by the rankings. Data suggest that members' use of these categorization tactics depended on the level of identity dissonance they felt following the rankings. The authors integrate these findings with insights from social identity, self-affirmation, and impression management theories to develop a new framework of organizational identity management. The Business Week rankings threatened many members' perceptions of their school's central and distinctive attributes, i.e., their school's identity. The rankings also challenged and in some instances outrightly repudiated members' prior claims about the relative standing or status of their school among U.S. business schools. The authors found that members used cognitive tactics to maintain both personal and external perceptions of what their organization is or stands for. These tactics included selective categorizations to highlight alternate identity attributes, selective categorizations to highlight alternate comparison groups, selective categorizations to excuse a ranking, and selective categorizations to justify a ranking. The authors also found that members used these tactics to affirm their perceptions of their organization's identity and to make sense of the rankings. The findings suggest that organizational identity threats can lead to cognitive dissonance and that members may use categorization strategies to respond to these threats. The authors conclude that their findings contribute to the understanding of how organizational members respond to identity-threatening events and provide a framework for organizational identity management.