Identity as a category of theory and practice

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.

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.

Human Relations, 2001

Edward Elgar Publishing eBooks, 2023

HOW THE HANDBOOK CAME ABOUT Handbooks, like other scientific publications, have their own history. Narrating the history of this Handbook, we want to share with you-the readers-the story behind its development. This includes information on how the idea for this Handbook came about and an illustration of the various decisions we had to make in the process of creating it. Handbooks, as we will explain later, are social creations and hence products of social interaction. Therefore, we believe it will be of value for you to gain some insight into why and how the Handbook came into being, how we came to identify as editors, and how we composed it together with the authors, the reviewers and the publisher. In this sense, the introduction provides information on the background, rationales, decisions we made, and also the obstacles we had to overcome. The motivation for the Handbook of Research Methods for Studying Identity In and Around Organizations emerged from a webinar entitled 'Identity inquiry: beyond the usual suspects', which was organized by the Special Interest Group (SIG) 'Identity' of the British Academy of Management (BAM). The event in June 2020 aimed to broaden the methodological focus of identity research in organizational contexts in accordance with the group's interdisciplinary focus. The webinar featured three speakers who introduced the repertory grid technique, characterization sketches and identity drawings, respectively, as innovative research methods for studying identity in and around organizations. After the webinar, the idea to deepen and broaden the discussion of research methods in identity studies gained momentum. In November 2020, the members of the SIG decided to develop an edited collection that would bring together some established and more innovative research methods that have been used to fruitfully study different levels and aspects of identity in and around organizations. Taking charge, Ingo Winkler formulated a call for papers that was distributed amongst the SIG members and the wider BAM community. The initial feedback was very positive, and various scholars indicated their interest in contributing to the collection. At that point, Rosalía Cascón-Pereira and Stefanie Reissner joined what would become the editorial team, enabling us to pool both our respective editorial experiences and methodological interests. We were very pleased to excite Francine O'Sullivan at Edward Elgar Publishing about our idea and contribute to their growing range of research methods handbooks. These were the initial steps of socially constructing this Handbook, and soon afterwards, authors, reviewers and editors contributed to co-creating it through their engagement with a wide range of research methods and approaches. Although you, the reader, now have the finished product in your hands or on screen, we hope the matter does not end here. Indeed, we hope that the Handbook contributes to the social construction of the field of identity research

Sa Journal of Industrial Psychology, 2006

During the past two decades a steady increase in scholarly contributions in the area of organisation identity have been observed-to the point that the phenomenon is now the subject of a sustainable discourse in several disciplines. Many theoretical and conceptual dilemmas however remain, largely as a result of the low incidence of empirical research in the area. This study reports the results of an exploratory investigation that adapted Schley and Wagenfield's (1979) concept of identity for use in an organisational setting. Interviews were conducted with 152 top managers representing 10 companies. The results indicate that organisational responses to the question "who am I?" elicit distinctive organisational self-descriptions and some awareness of identity issues.

International Journal of Management Reviews, 2015

Identities, people’s subjectively construed understandings of who they were, are, and desire to become, are implicated in, and thus key to understanding and explaining, almost everything that happens in and around organizations. The research contribution that this review paper makes is threefold. First, it analyses the often employed but rarely systematically explored concept identity work, and argues that it is one metaphor among many that may be useful in the analysis of professional and more generally work identities. Second, it focuses on five fundamental, inter-connected debates in contemporary identities research centred on notions of choice, stability, coherence, positivity, and authenticity. Third, it outlines the roles that the concept identity work may play in bridging levels of analysis and disciplinary boundaries, and sketches some possible future identities-focused ideas for further research. Under-specification has meant that ‘identity’ has not always fulfilled its analytical promise in either theoretical explorations of identities issues or in empirical studies of identities in practice; and it is to these ends that this paper seeks to contribute.

Identities scholarship, in particular that focused on self-identities, has burgeoned in recent years. With dozens of papers on identities in organizations published in this journal by a substantial community, doubtless with more to come, now is an appropriate juncture to reflect on extant scholarship and its future prospects. I highlight three key strands of self-identities research in Organization Studies with particular reference to six articles collected in the associated Perspectives issue of this journal. In reviewing the contribution that work published in Organization Studies has made to debates on the nature of identities, how identities are implicated in organizational processes and outcomes, and the micro-politics of identities formation, I seek also to contribute to ongoing deliberations and to raise issues and questions for further research. I conclude with a call for increased efforts to integrate self-identities issues into the research agendas of sub-fields within organization theory.

Human Relations, 2021

There is an emergent identity work perspective that draws on multiple intertwined streams of established identities theorizing and identities-related research. This perspective is characterized loosely by five broad sets of assumptions: (i) selves are reflexive and identities actively worked on, both in soliloquy and social interaction; (ii) identities are multiple, fluid and rarely fully coherent; (iii) identities are constructed within relations of power; (iv) identities are not helpfully described as either positive or authentic; and (v) identities are both interesting per se and integral to processes of organizing. Recognition of an emergent identity work perspective is valuable in part because this may act as a counterbalance to centrifugal tendencies – fed by myopia, insularity and ethnocentrism – which might otherwise lead to blinkered research and fragmentation. The contribution of this article is to provide a baseline for identity work scholars, and to promote collective cr...

Scandinavian Journal of Management

‘Identities’ (organizational managerial, professional and occupational) are currently a key focus for research in management and organization studies (Alvesson, Ashcraft & Thomas, 2008; Brown, 2001; Ybema et al., 2009). While the rise to prominence of identity has many antecedents, it has in part been associated with the metaphor of ‘liquid modernity’, which seeks to capture contemporary trends: in particular the fluidity, unpredictability and flexibility of a more transient and porous world (Bauman, 2000; Clegg & Baumeler, 2010). Today, organizations mutate more rapidly, commitment and loyalty are less evident and identities are less secure, more open and increasingly differentiated. That is, researchers have turned to identity as identities, and the contexts in which they are formed, have become more interesting.