Intergroup Collaboration: An Examination through the Lenses of Identity and IT Affordances (original) (raw)
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European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2018
Inter-organizational collaboration (IOC) research considers the achievement of a collaborative identity as a key enabler of a successful collaboration. As a result, little has been said about the interactions between collaborative and non-collaborative identities. We build on narrative identity work and positioning theory, to explore how collaboration partners engage in identity work positioning to manage the interactions of the multiple identities emerging through the process of collaboration as they try to accomplish collaborative work. We illustrate this process through a qualitative longitudinal study of an educational partnership in Greece. Our analysis shows how IOC partners manage the interactions between collaborative and non-collaborative identities by positioning themselves, and others, in narratives of collaboration as part of their daily identity work when responding to emerging collaborative needs. Our research extends our current understanding of identity work processes in IOCs by demonstrating the paradoxical nature of the collaboration, which requires relying on both collaborative and non-collaborative identities for the successful achievement of aims. We therefore suggest that identity tensions should not be resolved but rather managed, since they enable partners to respond creatively to contextual organizational changes and make sense of the collaboration as it happens.
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M ost research on organization-based identities focuses on a single level of analysis, typically the individual, group, or organization. As a spur to more cross-level identity research, we offer speculative discussions on two issues concerning nested identities. First, regarding the processes through which identities become linked across levels, we explore how identities at one level of analysis enable and constrain identities at other levels. We argue that, for a collective identity, intrasubjective understanding ("I think") fosters intersubjective understanding ("we think") through interaction, which in turn fosters generic understanding-a sense of the collective that transcends individuals ("it is"). Second, regarding the content of linked identities, we suggest that identities are relatively isomorphic across levels because organizational goals require some internal coherence. However, for various intended and unintended reasons, isomorphism is often impeded across levels, and identities tend to become somewhat differentiated.
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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.
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While organizational scholars are increasingly interested in issues of identity, identity work, and identification, in-depth empirical studies analyzing the process of identity creation have lagged behind, particularly when such process is triggered by the digitization of a work environment. In this longitudinal case study, we take a social constructionist perspective to investigate the identity creation process of a group of librarians in charge of a new information commons library. We call attention to the dialectic forces underlying this process, emphasizing how the librarians' image, as reflected by the patrons, led the librarians to try multiple provisional identities, which were supported by liminal actions reminiscent of either "who they were" and/or "who they could be." We also consider how technology was appropriated throughout this dynamic and suggest a technology identification process model that parallels the group identity creation process.