Living in Between: Organisational Identity in Relocated Russian Technology Companies After 2022

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the mobilisation announced in September 2022, many Russian technology companies relocated employees, established operations across multiple countries and continued operating under conditions of significant uncertainty. While much attention has been given to the logistical, legal and strategic challenges of relocation, less attention has been paid to its longer-term organisational and psychological consequences.

This paper explores how organisational identity is affected when companies undergo rapid relocation while simultaneously adapting to new environments, hiring across countries and maintaining business growth. Rather than focusing on relocation as a discrete event, the paper examines the organisational dynamics that continue to unfold several years later.

Drawing on an initial organisational case and the early stages of an exploratory study informed by organisational consulting observations and interviews with founders and HR leaders, the paper investigates how relocated Russian technology companies experience and respond to disruption following the events of 2022.

Early observations suggest that relocation may represent more than a geographical transition. It can disrupt established sources of organisational identity, including shared history, cultural practices, informal relationships and collective narratives. At the same time, organisations often remain under pressure to adapt, expand and continue operating, leaving limited space for collective reflection on what has been lost, preserved or transformed.

A number of themes are beginning to emerge in the study. These include fragmentation between established and newly hired employees, growing distance between leadership and teams, the redistribution of emotional containment towards founders and people functions and forms of organisational hyperactivity that support adaptation while potentially postponing engagement with questions of identity. In some cases, organisations also appear to assume responsibilities extending beyond traditional employment relationships, creating new patterns of loyalty, dependency and expectations.

The paper proposes that some relocated organisations may enter a prolonged state of “living in between” - no longer fully held by their previous identity while a new collective identity has yet to emerge. Rather than viewing relocation as a completed event, the paper considers it as an ongoing organisational process whose psychological consequences may continue long after operational adaptation has been achieved.

The paper discusses implications for organisational identity, leadership, containment and organisational adaptation in conditions of prolonged geopolitical turbulence.