Lok & Willmott, 2013 Journal of Management Inquiry (original) (raw)
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Nuova Atlantide - Aracne - ISSN 2037-7034-12002, 2012
In business organizations people are often engaged in groups within which they are solicited to identify themselves, stressing similarities with in-group members, in opposition with other groups with different traits, implementing a divide between people involved in different identifications. Power, control and conflict dynamics between social groups are widespread in our business organizations; a growing interest is witnessed in studying these dynamics from a Critical Management Studies (CMS) perspective. These studies are unified by an anti-performative stance, and a commitment to reflexivity; according to these stance and commitment, our aim in this paper is to start a critical reflection in organizational and management studies upon the business widespread practice of identity regulation and identification. Identity and identification are basically considered in organizational studies as interchangeable concepts belonging to the same conceptual domain: identification with a group or, in general, with the organization tends to be a form of ‘reification’ of the social group and of the firm itself, considering them as real entities. Groups and organizations are somewhat crystallized by their topic elements, thus the necessity to stress similarities and sharpen others’ differences, creating boundaries to separate one from the other and trying to idealize one’s membership as a way of self-enhancement. Our claim is that identification boosts conflicts, and we suggest to address identities dynamics from a complex perspective, focusing on the processes instead of the entities, allowing ‘relational identities’ to emerge from interactions of the agents involved in the organization. We start focusing on identification and identity issues in business organizations and their general application in management practices; in the second part of the paper, we explore from a critical perspective the implications deriving from these managerial practices and how these practices may foster conflicting relations with their inclination towards a positivist and reductionist approach. Finally, we consider what constitutes a new approach, founded on addressing power, control and conflict dynamics from a complex perspective to overcome possible conflicts between groups and generations in business organizations.
The Oxford Handbook of Identities in Organizations, 2020
Conceived as the meanings that individuals attach to their selves, a substantial stockpile of identities-related theorizing, accumulated across the arts, social sciences and humanities over many decades, continues to nourish contemporary research on self-identities in organizations. Moreover, in times which are more reflexive, narcissistic and liquid the identities of participants in organizations are increasingly less fixed, less secure and less certain, making identities issues both more salient and more interesting. Particular attention has focused on processes of identity construction (often styled ‘identity work’), how, why and when such processes occur, and their implications for organizing and individual, group and organizational outcomes. Seemingly intractable debates centred on the nature of identities – their relative stability/fluidity, whether they are best regarded as coherent or fractured, positive (or not) and how they are fabricated within relations of power – combined with other conceptual issues, continue to invigorate the field, but have led also to some scepticism regarding the future potential of identities research. As the chapters in this handbook demonstrate, however, there are considerable grounds for optimism that identity, as root metaphor, nexus concept and means to bridge levels of analysis, has significant generative utility for multiple streams of theorizing in organization and management studies.
Organizational identity negotiations through dominant and counter narratives
2014
In this paper, we see the organization as a polyphonic, storytelling community and study the role of dominant and counter narratives in organizational identity formation processes as a web of stories performed and negotiated by organizational members and external stakeholders. Based on a case study of a highly contested organization, E-rail, we examine ticket inspectors’ story work to demonstrate how counter-narratives make room for multiple – and sometimes even opposing understandings of organizational identity to co-exist. Our analysis shows that ticket inspectors in their story work draw explicitly on the media’s as well as management’s dominating narratives in constructing counter-narratives and creating shared understandings of who they are and what they do. These multiple understandings of organizational identity make it possible for organizational members to perform and pursue different storylines, while simultaneously establishing and maintaining a sense of continuity and st...
2009
This paper uses Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis to examine how hegemony maintains its power and influence in the life of the individual. The analysis reveals that the power of hegemony lies in the construction of particular identities that shape our interactions and limit our imagined futures. The social justice tradition of adult education has long sought to understand how hegemony works, the means of counteracting its influence, and the role of adult education in this process. The increased interest in identity as a political position for challenging systemic oppression (Hall, 1997), as a means for understanding and engaging learners (Sheared, 1999), and as a product of hegemonic forces (Butler, 1988) suggests the need to better understand how individuals and social structures are intertwined, especially in the perpetuation and contestation of hegemony. As Brookfield (2005) notes, “hegemony saturates all aspects of life and is constantly learned and relearned throughout life. If ...
Identities in organizations: some concluding thoughts
The Oxford Handbook of Identities in Organizations, 2020
The future of research on identities in and around organizations is ours to make. Sifting through the chapters of this handbook gives indications of what the immediate future may look like and the issues that might figure large in identities theorizing. Substantial attention is paid by contributors to: (i) our changing times and their implications for identities; (ii) the increasingly less definite and less assured nature of identities; (iii) the scope for generating new metaphors for understanding identities and their utility; (iv) the possible benefits of focusing not merely on discursively construed identities but their performed, embodied and emotional characteristics; (v) the contextual and relational dynamics of identities formation; (vi) issues of temporality and spatiality; (vii) discourses of authenticity, real and fake selves; (viii) the need for intersectional approaches to identities research; and (ix) the desirability for identities scholars to be reflexive in the conduct and write-up of their research.
Organizational Membership and the Formation of Dissonant Identities
2020
The purpose of this research is to explore the processes and strategies through which members of a group or organization use their organizational identity to make salient a normatively dissonant identity. Using both the functionalist perspectives of social identity theory and the existing narrative literature on identity formation in organizations, a conceptual process model of identity formation is created that integrates the identification process with the interaction of multiple identities, including the identity as members of an organization, a normatively dissonant identity, and other salient preexisting identities such as race and gender. This research also examined part of this conceptual model empirically, using members of a national running organization for Black women, Black Girls Run!, using a mixed-methods design including interviews and surveys of participants. Distance running, as a form of physical activity, is not a normative identity for Black women in the United St...
Identity dynamics and the emergence of new organizational arrangements: A multi-level study
2014
Organizational and institutional scholars have advocated the need to examine how processes originating at an individual level can change organizations or even create new organizational arrangements able to affect institutional dynamics (Chreim et al., 2007; Powell & Colyvas, 2008; Smets et al., 2012). Conversely, research on identity work has mainly investigated the different ways individuals can modify the boundaries of their work in actual occupations, thus paying particular attention to ‘internal’ self-crafting (e.g. Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Drawing from literatures on possible and alternative self and on positive organizational scholarship (e.g., Obodaru, 2012; Roberts & Dutton, 2009), my argument is that individuals’ identity work can go well beyond the boundaries of internal self-crafting to the creation of new organizational arrangements. In this contribution I analyze, through multiple case studies, healthcare professionals who spontaneously participated in the creation...