Identities and Identity Work in Organizations

Andrew D. Brown

This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Brown, A.D. (2014). Identities and Identity Work in Organizations, International Journal of Management Reviews [in press] which has been published online at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ijmr.12035/abstract

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Identities and Identity Work in Organizations

AbstractIdentities, 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.

Key WordsIdentity, identity work, identity construction, self, review

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Introduction

Identities in organizations are hailed increasingly as central to understanding processes of

organizing (Brown 2001; Lok 2010; Ybema et al. 2009). Indeed, it is more than a decade

since Sveningsson and Alvesson (2003, p.1163) described identity as being among ‘…the

most popular topics in contemporary organization studies’. Recent special issues of European

journals such as Organization (2008), Human Relations (2009) and Scandinavian Journal of

Management (2012), focused on identities, both symptomize and have helped to consolidate

this interest. Identities, the practices and strategies associated with their crafting, and their

implications for groups and institutions are also ‘…at the heart of a burgeoning stream of

research’ in US journals (Ibarra and Barbulescu 2010, p.135; Pratt, Rockmann, and

Kaufmann 2006). Scholars have delighted in exploring a concept, identity, which ‘neither

imprisons…nor detaches…persons from their social and symbolic universes’ (Davis 1991,

p.105), and so encourages sophisticated, nuanced and contextual analyses of people-in-action.

This has led to some bold claims, not least that studies of identities may inspire ‘…

significant theoretical and practical advances in the study of almost every aspect of

organizational life’ (Haslam and Reicher 2006, p.135).

Yet, it is also sometimes noted that identity is not just ‘crucial’ but also ‘problematic’, and

that there is a continuing need for identity dynamics to be better understood (Alvesson and

Willmott 2002). The contribution that this paper makes is threefold. First, it focuses attention

on the often employed but under-surveyed concept identity work which features in a

considerable number of studies of individual agency and its limits (Casey 1995; Fleming and

Spicer 2003; Grey 1994). Identity work, I argue, is the most significant metaphor (cf.

Morgan, 1980; Tsoukas, 1991) among many that may be useful in the analysis of identities in

and around organizationsi. Second, it identifies five key debates in contemporary identities

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research centred on notions of choice (Watson 2008), stability (Marcus and Wurf 1987),

coherence (Clarke, Brown, and Hope Hailey 2009), positivity (Roberts and Dutton 2009), and

authenticity (Tracy 2005). While each of these has received largely separate prior attention

from scholars there is utility, I maintain, in considering them collectively as aspects of what

are broadly the ‘same’ continuing identities dialogues. Third, it outlines the possible role that

identity work may play in bridging levels of analysis and disciplinary boundaries, and

sketches some future identities-focused ideas for further research. This project has utility in a

context where, arguably, lack of consensus on key terms and issues has sometimes blunted

the contribution of explorations of identities in practice.

The aim of this review is to analyse a specific key concept, identity work, and to embed its

consideration in related identities debates, in order to ‘maximise what we see’ rather ‘than to

summarise what we have already seen’ (Weick 1987, p.122). Identities research is, of course,

far too substantial for any single paper to do full justice, spanning not just the Social Sciences

but Philosophy, the Arts and the Humanities, and it is important to note at the outset some

limitations. My primary interest is specifically in subjective identities as construed through

discourse and other symbolic means (Ainsworth and Hardy 2004; Altheide 2000). However,

‘essentialist’ and notionally ‘objective’ approaches to identities, especially those framed

under the influence of Social Identity Theory (SIT) and the closely related Self

Categorization Theory (SCT), have had profound influence, and are also drawn on (Turner, et

al. 1987). There exist already multiple reviews of the general sociological and social

psychological literatures on identity (e.g., Callero 2003; Cerulo 1997; Howard 2000), and the

focus here is (complementarily) on identities as they are conceived and researched by

scholars principally (though not exclusively) in management and organization studies.

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My primary focus is individual (rather than group, organizational or other forms of

collective) identities. In the main, I have concentrated on those studies, both conceptual and

empirical, which make either implicit or explicit reference to the notion of identity work or

cognates such as identity construction processes. Although increasing attention is being

devoted to identity work in the majority of the material on which I draw the concept is only

referred to tacitly or indirectly. In addition to identity work, the two terms that feature most

frequently are identity and self. Unless otherwise stated, I use the term identity to refer to the

meanings that individuals attach reflexively to their selves as they seek to answer questions

such as: ‘how shall I relate to others?’; ‘what shall I strive to become?’; and ‘how will I make

the basic decisions required to guide my life?’ (Baumeister 1986). The contested term self

(Olson 1999) I employ to describe a capacity for reflexive thinking, Mead’s (1934) ‘I’ as

opposed to the ‘me’, an experiencing, self-consciousness (Giddens 1991).

This paper is structured into five major sections. First, I explain how I identified and analysed

material for this review. Second, I provide a brief introduction to the concept of identity and

the sociological and social psychological streams of research which have contributed to its

emergence as a focal topic within organization and management studies. Third, identity work

is defined and explored, and some alternative metaphors for analysing the extent of agency

inherent in processes of identity formation considered. Fourth, motivated by Alvesson,

Ashcraft, and Thomas’s (2008 p.9) insight that identities work in organization studies is

‘largely disconnected’ and that there is a need for ‘a more engaged conversation across

metatheoretical lenses’, I focus on how identities are best theorized, and identity work

accomplished practically, through reference to five seemingly intractable debates under the

subtitles ‘agency and structure’, ‘stability and fluidity’, ‘coherence and fragmentation’,

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‘positive and negative identities’, and ‘authenticity and identities’. Finally, I discuss some of

the implications of this theorizing.

Methodology

In order to identify relevant published output I combined a protocol-driven methodology with

a ‘snowballing’ technique (Greenhalgh and Peacock 2005). First, Thompson Reuters Web of

Knowledge was used to identify all those papers published in business and management

journals that used the terms ‘identity’ or ‘identities’ in their title (1129 articles). Those

articles which dealt with individual-level identity in organizational contexts were added to

my database. Second, Web of Knowledge was then used to identify all those papers published

in the Social Sciences that used the phrase ‘identity work’ in their title (114 articles). This

permitted the identification of those papers that were both well cited and made a general

contribution to the identities literature. Specific attention was given to those articles on

identity work that had appeared in business and management journals (31 articles). The lists

of references in key articles were then used to identify books and book chapters that were

evidently important additions to the management literature on identities and identity work or

significant resources for it. Ultimately, more than 300 works were drawn on in writing this

review, most of which are cited here.

This library was then analysed systematically. Each work was read, often several times, over

a period of approximately eighteen months and extensive preliminary notes taken. Two

primary forms of coding were undertaken. First, material associated with identity work and

its cognates (such as identity construction) was extracted and logged under relevant category

headings (e.g., definitions, processes, contexts, resources, time scales). Second, key debates

in which the concept of identity work was embedded were identified and material relevant to

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each of them (e.g., significant authors, quotations, themes) was divided into (somewhat

overlapping) sections. These activities resulted in a substantial number of lengthy Word files.

Over time, this inchoate morass of ideas was gradually modified, refined and interlinked as it

became clear what was more (and less) significant. While it was always the intention to focus

on aspects of identity work, it should be observed that the five debates emphasized in this

paper emerged from processes of analysis and are the most prominent, though not exhaustive,

of those which feature in the field.

Identities in and Around Organizations

Historically informed discussions of identity and the self begin most often with Plato; yet, it

is clear that concern with identity issues have for nearly 3000 years been an aspect of systems

of thought and religious philosophies, such as Buddhism, and that these ideas still have

contemporary resonance (Leary and Tangney 2003, p.4). Modern Western debates focus

generally on Enlightenment philosophers such as Locke, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Descartes,

Hume and Kant. For example, Baumeister’s (1986) exegesis commences with Descartes’

proposition, cogito, ergo sum, and references both Hume’s insight that identities are mutable

fictions and Kant’s suggestion that apparently unified identities are in fact stitched together

out of series of momentary glimpses of self-awareness. Systematic psychological interest in

the self began with James (1890) and was then taken in a different direction by Freud whose

work has been the inspiration for increasingly mainstream cognitive psychology identities-

oriented research (McCall and Simmons 1966; Stryker 1980). Modern sociological theorizing

on matters of the self and identity is associated with such disparate thinkers as Marx (1972),

Cooley (1902) and Mead (1934). Nowadays, management and organization scholars with a

psychology orientation cite as their inspiration scholars ranging from Adler and Allport to

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Rogers and Maslow; sociologists of various hues reference a multitude of diverse thinkers

including Bourdieu, Dilthey, Foucault, Giddens, Heidegger, and Marcuse.

While notions of the self and identity have a lengthy heritage, and have been popular terms in

the social sciences since the 1950s, the last three decades have witnessed them move

increasingly to the centre of intellectual debates. Identity in particular is now ‘a critical

cornerstone’ (Cerulo 1997, p.385) in contemporary sociological and social psychological

theorizing (Elliot 2001; Gleason 1983). One stream of sociological thought suggests that

rising interest in identity is symptomatic of societal changes which have dissolved traditional

structures and intensified existential anxieties leading to increased pressures on individuals to

construct ‘liquidly modern’ selves (Bauman 2000). Baumeister (1986), for example, has

argued persuasively that since medieval times traditional means of self-definition - such as

gender, social rank and religious affiliation - have diminished in importance, providing

people with more scope for identity choices which are often problematic. For Lasch (1979),

concern with identities is symptomatic of a culture which is narcissistic, self-regarding and

introspective; and for Rose (1991) it is a manifestation of a culturally specific desire for

individual autonomy (freedom) not just financial/economic but more profoundly,

psychological. A complementary perspective is that scholarly attention has turned

pragmatically to identity as it has become clear that identities are implicated in a broad range

of substantive research issues (Callero 2003).

Within organization and management studies debates centred on identities and identity

processes are among the most prominent, generative and contested (Alvesson, Ashcraft, and

Thomas 2008; Coupland and Brown 2012; Ybema, et al. 2009). There is a burgeoning stream

of research centred on the practices and strategies by which people construct and negotiate

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professional, work and organization-based identities (Coupland 2001; Ibarra 1999; Watson

2009). Making coherent sense of this increasingly vast, heterogeneous and fragmented

literature is a daunting task. Notions such as identity and self lack the substantiality and

discreteness of conventional objects rendering them difficult to describe and explain (Dunne

1996, p.143). Another confounding issue is that there are multiple distinct perspectives on

identity. For sociologists identity is often ‘a kind of interface or conceptual bridge’ between

the individual and society (Snow and Anderson 1987, p.1338; Webb 2006, p.10); whereas for

social psychologists it is more usually bound-up with needs for social validation and

individuation (Brewer 1991, p.477). What this suggests, inter alia, is that there is a

continuing need for informed conversations across field and paradigmatic boundaries.

There is an emergent consensus that identity refers to the meanings that individuals attach

reflexively to themselves, and developed and sustained through processes of social

interaction as they seek to address the question ‘who am I?’ (Cerulo 1997; Gergen and

Gergen 1988). Most often, these meanings are described as derived from available discourses

and as taking the form of narratives (Giddens 1991), dialogues (Beech 2008) or other

symbolic or dramaturgical performances (Goffman 1967). Further distinctions are sometimes

drawn between social identities (e.g., gender, nationality), personal identities (e.g., height,

intelligence), and role identities (e.g., mother, professor). Others differentiate between the

identities that are self-assigned, and those attributed by others, with the self conceived

generally as a form of compromise between preferred and imputed designations (Snow and

Anderson 1987). For sociologists, identities are often avowed by the self, a personal

awareness of a continuity of being, fuelled by the identities it feeds on (Giddens 1991;

MacIntyre 1981). Social psychologists refer instead to a self-concept, a dynamic system of

affective-cognitive structures which consists of, and organizes a person’s identities

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(Baumeister 1998; Gecas 1982). Sociologists and social psychologists alike regard identities

as enacted in the ‘now’ through language and action. That is, identity does not (necessarily)

signal a stable core self; rather, identities are ad hoc and positionalii.

Currently, dominant streams of identity theorizing in organizations are associated with social

cognition (Ashforth and Mael 1989; Haslam 2004; Hogg and Terry 2000), symbolic

interaction (Blumer 1969; Goffman 1990 [1959]; Strauss 1969), post-structuralism and power

(Alvesson and Willmott 2002; Hall 1996) and the psychoanalytic work of Lacan (Driver

2009; Harding 2007) and Freud (Gabriel 2000; Petriglieri and Stein 2012). While

characterized by distinctive ontological and epistemological assumptions and often diverse

methodological preferences, these streams are not hermetically sealed. Rather, there are

patches of agreement, some shared interests, and on-going cross-border exchanges of ideas.

Identity scholars of different kinds deal often with related theoretical and applied issues,

notably the extent to which identities are chosen or ascribed, stable or dynamic, coherent or

fragmented, and motivated by desires for positive meaning and authenticity. Interest in

identity narratives is shared by scholars working primarily within social cognition (McAdams

1993), psychodynamic (Gabriel 2000) and postmodern traditions (Alvesson and Willmott

2002). Much sophisticated scholarship has drawn eclectically from multiple sources in its

characterization of possible (Markus and Nurius 1986), ideal and ought (Higgins 1987),

provisional (Ibarra 1999), aspirational (Thornborrrow and Brown 2009) and alternate

(Obodaru 2012) selves/identities.

Identity Work

With the rise to prominence of identities has come an interest in processes of their formation,

and in particular the agency that actors exercise in their conduct of identity work (Alvesson

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and Willmott 2002; Schwalbe and Mason-Schrock 1996). Of the many articulations of the

concept, the most long-standing is probably Snow and Anderson’s (1987, p.1348) conception

of it as …the range of activities individuals engage in to create, present, and sustain personal

identities that are congruent with and supportive of the self-concept’. Building on this, and

perhaps the most widely cited formulation, is that devised by Sveningsson and Alvesson

(2003, p.1165) who suggest that ‘...identity work refers to people being engaged in forming,

repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a

sense of coherence and distinctiveness’. Seeking to account more fully for its ‘external’

aspects, Watson (2008, p.129) has argued that ‘Identity work involves the mutually

constitutive processes whereby people strive to shape a relatively coherent and distinctive

notion of personal self-identity and struggle to come to terms with and, within limits, to

influence the various social-identities which pertain to them in the various milieu in which

they live their lives’ [italics in original]. Other recent definitions of the concept do not differ

substantially from these versions (eg., Down and Reveley 2009, p.383; Petriglieri and

Petriglieri 2010, p.45).

There have been multiple attempts to specify ‘generic’ processes of identity work, though

there is little consensus on these, including ‘claiming’, ‘affirming’, ‘accepting’, ‘complying’,

‘resisting’, ‘separating’, ‘joining’, ‘defining’, ‘limiting’, ‘bounding’, ‘stabilizing’,

‘sensemaking’, ‘reconciling’, ‘stabilizing’, and ‘restructuring’, and to differentiate between

work that is ‘active’ and ‘passive’ and that which is ‘conscious’ and ‘sub-conscious’

(Alvesson and Willmott 2002; Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006; Petriglieri 2011).

Narrative researchers emphasize that identity work is bound-up with processes of identifying

archetypal characters, turning points, literary genres and outcomes such as ‘redemption’ and

‘contamination’ (Gabriel 2000; McAdams 1993). Others have argued that identity work

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processes involve not just ‘talk’, but also work on physical appearance and the selective

association with other individuals and groups (Snow and Anderson 1987), and the mounting

of credible dramaturgical performances (Down and Reveley 2009); research on stigma

management strategies, for instance, has uncovered forms of identity work including feigning

normalcy, retreating from society, and managing information disclosure (Goffman 1963).

Moreover, there is growing realization that identities and identity work are far from discrete

phenomena, and may have profound individual, and collective (group, organization)

implications. At the level of the individual, the kinds of identities that people work on have

consequences for their everyday decision-making in organizations (Alvesson and Willmott

2002) and their careers (Ibarra and Barbulescu 2010). Identity work is a crucial aspect of

processes of socialization (Ibarra 1999) and integral to any complete explanation of why and

how people engage in entrepreneurship (Fauchart and Gruber 2011). Processes of identity

work, in the form of grants and claims, are one means by which ‘leader’ and ‘follower’

identities are established and maintained (DeRue and Ashford 2010). The construction and

performance of identities is sometimes one means by which the legitimacy of organizations

may be constructed (Brown and Toyoki 2013), and often a significant form of ‘institutional

work’ (Creed, DeJordy, and Lok 2010). Attention has focused also on how in authoring and

enacting identities actors devise accounts that reproduce, translate, accommodate and resist

new institutional logics (Lok 2010). Indeed, some have suggested that identities and identity

work are connected to nearly every topic in organization and management studies from

politics and mergers to emotions and project teams (Alvesson, Ashcraft, and Thomas 2008,

p.5).

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Efforts to broaden and deepen our understanding of identity work have led scholars to pursue

diverse avenues. Recognizing that the accounts of their selves individuals construct are

profoundly social, researchers have analysed the available ‘cultural resources’ (Czarniawska

1997), sometimes referred to as ‘cultural toolkits’ (Swidler 1986), ‘cultural frames’ (Callero

2003) and ‘cultural vocabularies’ (Weick 1995), that fuel and guide identity work (Appiah

and Gates 1995; Sennett and Cobb 1977). Researchers have focused on the strategies and

tactics of identity work associated with different groups of people in particular organizations

such as priests (Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep 2006), correctional officers (Tracy 2004) and

lawyers (Brown and Lewis 2011), and in circumstances ranging from the homeless (Snow

and Anderson 1987) to those responding to workplace bullying (Lutgen-Sanvik 2008). Others

have emphasized that identity work takes place in the present but must be understood in the

context of the entire life course of individuals, and that identity crafting in the ‘now’ is

connected strongly to past remembered and future projected selves (McAdams 1993; Ricoeur

1984). The result is an inchoate literature characterized by a rich diversity of approaches,

findings and theorization, but also fragmentation.

One focal area of contention is the importance of the identity work that occurs more-or-less

continuously in the course of organizational life, triggered by run-of-the-mill events. So

prevalent and pervasive are these processes of identity work for some theorists that we lead

much of our lives in a liminal state characterized by in-between-ness and ambiguity as we

transition between less and more context-appropriate or desired selves (Beech 2011; Gergen

1991). Other researchers play-down the significance of this ‘mundane’ identity work,

referring to it as automatic and instinctual (Giddens 1991), effortless and unselfconscious

(Alvesson and Willmott 2002), and as involving only minor tweaks and edits (McAdams

1993). Most scholars have preferred to attend to the identity work that occurs in particularly

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demanding situations or at times of significant transition. Much attention has been devoted to

the identity work that occurs when individuals move into new professional roles (Ibarra

1999) or organizations (Beyer and Hannah 2002), exit a role (Ebaugh 1988), respond to

workplace bullying and stigma (Kaufman and Johnson 2004; Lutgen-Sandvik 2008), and

experience identity threat (Collinson 2003; Petriglieri 2011). Identity work, it seems, is more

necessary, frequent and intense in situations where strains, tensions and surprises are

prevalent, as these prompt feelings of confusion, contradiction and self-doubt which in turn

tend to lead to examination of the self.

Although identity work is the (contemporarily) dominant metaphor, theorists have sometimes

dealt also with complementary, or possibly alternative, options such as identity jujitsu

(Kreiner and Sheep 2009) and identity practicing (Pratt 2012). Arguably, the most interesting

of these possibilities is that of identity play. While work is often associated with compliance,

rationality, logic and a means-ends orientation, play implicates a different set of potentially

generative ideas relating to enjoyment, discovery, intuition, imagined others, spontaneity, and

fantasy (Ibarra and Petriglieri 2010; Pratt 2012). The notion of play may be particularly

attractive to those working from postmodern perspectives, for whom ‘The various

multiplicities that constitute the self at a given time are involved in play and dance with each

other’ (Hollinger 1994, p.113). Identity bricolage offers another alternative casting people as

identity bricoleurs, who flexibly and responsively piece together versions of their selves from

readily available materials to create improvised selves (Boxenbaum and Rouleau 2011; Levi-

Strauss 1966). This leads to an understanding of identity-related processes as heterogeneous,

fluid transformations, and identities as ‘cobbled together’ assemblages (Beck 1997). The

critical issue here is that our theorizing is still at a relatively early stage, and while I focus on

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identity work, it is not my intention to foreclose other options, and further research is

required to consider the implications of other metaphors in addition to that of identity workiii.

Analysing Identities in Organizations

There are intense and continuing intertwined debates regarding how identities should be

theorized and researched to which the concept identity work is key. Of these, currently, some

of the most significant are disputes centred on: the extent to which identities are (i) chosen by

or ascribed to individuals; (ii) generally stable, evolutionally adaptive or fluid; (iii) unified

and coherent or fragmented and possibly contradictory; (iv) motivated (or not) by a need for

positive meaning; and (v) framed (or not) by a desire for authenticity. While each of these

sets of issues has received substantial attention, it is less common for them to be considered

collectively as strands of the same set of on-going conversations about identities in and

around organizations; this, though, is important for a rich and nuanced appreciation of the

multiple, interleaved debates in this field. That is, by bracketing them together for

concomitant consideration we can gain what Alvesson (2010, p.195) refers to as ‘a more fine-

tuned overview’ of both the kinds of choices that people make in the conduct of their identity

work and those made by scholars in their efforts to study and to theorize them.

Structure and Agency

Considerable attention has focused on whether identities are chosen by resourceful and

autonomous beings or ascribed to individuals by historical forces and institutional structures

(Howard 2000; Jenkins 1996; Webb 2006). On the one hand, it has been argued that elites are

able to create and dismantle the identities of nations and their citizens (Hobsbawn and Ranger

1983; Zerubavel 1995), new social movements exercise a form of collective agency (Melucci

1996), and that even ethnic identity is a product of personal choice which can be adjusted at

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will (Waters 1990). Some postmodern ‘pick ’n mix’ theorizing proposes that people play

identity games and are able to recreate themselves perpetually, as fluctuations in networks of

relationships and expectations (Gergen 1991). On the other, drawing often on the early work

of Foucault (1972) a contrary strand of theorizing recognizes that identity work is imprisoned

in ‘spheres of prescribed action and expectation’ (Cerulo 1997, p.388 Deetz, 1992). This

theorizing describes employees’ identities as ‘manufactured’ (Burawoy 1979) or ‘regulated’

(Alvesson and Willmott 2002) through ‘concertive’ forms of control (Barker 1993) to

produce, for example, ‘engineered’ (Kunda 1992), ‘designer’ (Casey 1995) or ‘enterprise’ (du

Gay 1996) selves.

Most researchers, however, acknowledge that identities are neither simply chosen nor merely

allocated, but are instead the effects of identity work that occurs in the interstices between

domination and resistance (Mumby 1997; Trethewey 1999). Organizational members may

accommodate the identities on offer to them, but also modify and redefine them, distance

themselves from them through irony, humour and cynicism, or contest them (Fleming and

Spicer 2003). For the most part, people are not unthinkingly accepting ‘cultural dopes’, but

nor do they choose unconstrained the contexts in which their identity work takes place or the

influences and imperatives which shape their preferred self-understandings. Identities arise

in a continuing dialectic of ‘structure’ and ‘agency’, and are most reasonably described as

‘improvised’ or ‘crafted’ through identity work processes which are sometimes calculative

and pragmatic, often emotionally charged, and generally social. While the opportunities and

resources for identity work of certain organizational members such as prisoners (Toyoki and

Brown 2014) may partially be restricted, most conventional workers are able to manoeuvre

between, selectively appropriate from, and to customize highly individuated selves. Versions

of this position are articulated somewhat similarly, though also with notable differences of

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emphasis, by diverse scholars seeking to capture something of the complexity of the work

that constitutes identities (Callero 2003).

Empirical studies of employees engaged in identity work, often in demanding circumstances,

mirror theoretical agency/structure debates. Some of the most historically influential texts in

organizational sociology have demonstrated how organizations ‘usurp both freedom and

rationality from the little individual men caught in them’ (Mills 1956, p.xvii), and engage in a

‘practice of tyranny’ which imprisons men ‘in brotherhood’ (Whyte 1956, p.397). Schwartz’s

(1987) analysis of NASA shows how organizational totalitarianism can lead to identity work

that maintains narcissistic fantasies, sometimes with disastrous consequences. More recently,

scholars have shown how the identity work of employees as diverse as accountants

(Covaleski, Dirsmith, and Samuel 1998) and paratroopers (Thornborrow and Brown 2011)

can be co-opted, disciplined and controlled through insidious processes of organizing. Other

studies, however, emphasize the agency that is inherent in the identity work of young

professionals (Ibarra 1999), striking flight attendants (Dahler-Larsen’s 1997), US patrol

officers (Van Maanen 2009), concerned Catholics (Gutierrze, Howard-Grenville, and Scully

2010) and GLBT protestant ministers (Creed, DeJordy, and Lok 2010). Most research

suggests that the power dynamics that inhere in individuals’ identity work are often subtle,

always nuanced, and the results ambiguous and conflicted (Hochschild 1983). As Kunda’s

(1992, p.21) analysis of employees at Tech showed, people at different times ‘accept, deny,

react, reshape, rethink, acquiesce, rebel, conform, and define and redefine’ their identities in

work organizations.

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Stability and Fluidity

Debates continue on whether identities are stable, fixed and secure, or evolutionally adaptive,

malleable, or even perpetually fluid and shifting. Social psychologists suggest that people in

organizations require ‘a relatively secure and stable’ understanding of their selves in order to

function effectively (Ashforth and Kreiner 1999, p.417): ‘individuals are strongly motivated

to maintain and enact their identities in their current state in order to achieve a sense of

stability’ (Petriglieri 2011, p.644). Yet there is increasing recognition that while self-concepts

may exhibit continuity, there is scope also for flexibility provided by a suppler ‘working self-

concept’ which permits dynamic responses to changeable situations (Markus and Nurius

1986; Markus and Wurf 1987). For most social psychologists, selves are constructed from a

relatively stable set of meanings which change only gradually, but identities (work, role,

professional, familial etc.) can be acquired, lost, switched or modified much more quickly,

and perhaps instantaneously as contexts and preferences alter. Fundamental change in self-

concept is generally regarded as possible, but an evolutionary process that occurs gradually

through negotiated adaptation, such as in the case of career transitions (Pratt, Rockmann, and

Kaufmann 2006).

Not everyone concurs that identity change and stability are locked in ‘dynamic tension’

(Ibarra 1999, p.783) or exist in ‘quasi-stationary equilibrium’ (Kreiner, Hollensbe, and Sheep

2006, p.1050) brokered by identity work. For some, not only is identity work immediate and

(at least potentially) profound in its effects (Ashcraft and Mumby 2004), but, if there is a self-

concept, then it is either extremely or infinitely plastic (Gergen 1972; Tedeschi and Lindskold

1976). Discursive sociologists and those with postmodern inclinations in particular take issue

with the idea that people have an enduring, stable self-concept, which they regard as a

misleading fiction of popular thinking and academic social psychology. Psychoanalytic

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frames also sometimes emphasize the fluidity of identities due to the paradoxes,

contradictions and idiosyncrasies of the unconscious (Voronov and Vince 2012). In these

theorizations, selves and their constitutive identities are most appropriately conceived as

incessantly crafted or even kaleidoscopic processes of becoming: identities are projects not

achievements (Watson 2008). Scholars with postmodern inclinations suggest that, rather than

a core self, there are only identities and these are merely subject positions which are

continuously reassembled through discourse (Webb 2006). From this perspective, the

appearance of stability is merely momentary as selves/identities are always provisional,

temporary, negotiated and contested in on-going internal soliloquies and social interactions

(Alvesson, Ashcraft, and Thomas 2008).

Most empirical research has focused on role transitions and suggests that processes of

identity adaptation are measured, occur incrementally, and involve considerable work. The

substantial literature on socialization in organizations demonstrates that incomers are able to

flex, modify and adapt existing identities in order to survive, and how these self-evolutionary

processes are shaped by socialization tactics (Van Maanen and Schein 1979) and processes of

conversion (Kanter 1972) often over periods of many months or years. This gradualist view

on identity work informs Kreiner, Hollensbe and Sheep’s (2006) analysis of Episcopal priests

and Ibarra’s (1999) study of young professionals; identities are said to adjust and evolve, but

only to find and maintain an optimum balance or equilibrium position. In contrast, other,

mostly European research has shown how identity work is always or often on-going, and that

identities are inherently dynamic constructions. In their analysis of policing identities in the

UK, Thomas and Davies (2003) emphasize their continually crafted nature. Other scholars

have shown that the identities of hospital clinicians (Doolin 2002), nurses (Currie, Finn, and

Martin 2010), and first-line supervisors (Down and Reveley 2009) are perpetually open and

19

available to be (re)-negotiated. While many scholars are, nevertheless, reluctant to theorize

identities as being in a permanent state of flux; yet, spurred in part by research on identity

work, there is increasing recognition that identities are rarely continuous (Baumeister 1986),

often unstable (Collinson 2003) and sometimes liquid (Bauman 2000).

Coherence and Fragmentation

Controversy centres on the extent to which selves are more appropriately theorized as either

unified (though not necessarily unitary) and coherent, or fragmented and (possibly)

contradictory. It is often pointed out that people in organizations talk about their

identities/selves as coherent entities, and that traditionally mainstream Western thinking and

some streams of social psychology (e.g. Erikson 1959) have emphasized the coherence of

individual personalities, characters, selves, and identities (Ybema et al. 2009). From this

perspective, identity work is undertaken in pursuit of coherent identities, where ‘coherence’

refers variously to individuals’ sense of their own continuity over time, clarity in awareness

of the connections between their multiple identities, a sense of completeness or wholeness,

and embrace of the essentially integrated nature of their selves. Those focused on identity

narratives are particularly inclined to emphasize that identity-stories must plausibly hang

together, for example by integrating meaningfully protagonists, actions, motives, scenes and

plots (Ricoeur 1984). Even some theorists who accept to some degree identities are

fragmented, may nevertheless maintain that, usually, ‘successful’ identity work functions to

increase coherence (Sveningsson and Alvesson 2003, p.1187), and that faced with competing

demands people are motivated to reduce identity contradictions and inconsistencies (Down

and Revely 2009; Taylor 2005).

20

Alternative theorizing highlights that identities are rarely fully coherent or integrated (Nkomo

and Cox 1998), but instead incorporate ambiguity or ‘meaning-giving tensions’ (Beech 2008,

p.71): self-doubt, insecurity, fragility, and inconsistency are, after all, aspects of the human

condition (Roseneil and Seymour 1999; Sarup 1996). Indeed, for some the terms ‘identity’

and ‘self’ are unhelpfully suggestive of coherence that our actual cracked and fissured

identities do not exhibit (Lawler 2008, p.145). Others have commented on how hybrid, (Lok

2010), hypocritical (Brunsson 1989), and antagonistic (Clarke, Brown, and Hope Hailey

2009) identities may in fact be long-term solutions which enable people to cope effectively

with ambiguous and inconsistent demands. Leader identities, it has been argued, are

‘ambiguous, with no clear definition…dynamic and contextual’ (DeRue and Ashford 2010,

p.630). A recognition that people are able to deploy contradictory identities in the same social

interaction (Potter and Wetherell 1987; Shotter and Gergen 1989) has led to considerable

discussion of the incidence, impact, and management of role identity conflicts, such as those

between professional and organization-based and between work and non-work identities

(Ashforth, Harrison, and Corley 2008; Greenhaus and Beutell 1985). For most, tenuous,

fragile, and elastic identities/selves are not, though, necessarily inherently problematic,

(although they can be), as people are recognized to be sufficiently sophisticatedly reflexive

and psychically robust to adapt creatively to circumstance (Freitas et al., 1997; Hall 1996).

In terms of empirical research, scholars who focus on people’s life and specifically work-

related narratives, while they may note the diverse discourses on which their respondents

draw, tend generally to emphasize the intrinsic biographical coherence of the identity stories

on which individuals work (Lieblich and Josselson 1997; Reedy 2009). As Lutgen-Sandvik

(2008, p.114), commenting on an analysis of how people respond to workplace bullying

observes: ‘…humans seek existential, self-narrative constancy in the face of competing

21

discourses and paradoxical experiences’. Other studies of aero engineers (Clarke, Brown, and

Hope Hailey 2009), academics (Learmonth and Humphreys 2012) and architects (Brown et

al. 2010) have surfaced and analysed the dislocated, tensional nature of identities and

accompanying identity work and helped to shift attention toward a more complex, encrusted,

and uncertain view on identities and their construction. An increasingly dominant stream of

research has pointed out that our identities stories are often challenged, denied or ignored by

others (Gabriel 2000; Roberts 2005), and that people in organizations mostly author a

plurality of diverse and even contradictory identities (Humphreys and Brown 2002a,b). Thus

have identities studies moved progressively towards an understanding of identity work as

leading to blurred (Crisp and Hewstone 2006), and divided identities ‘…bursting with

complexities and deeply felt, nuanced and often contradictory elements’ (Ford 2006, p.96).

Positive and Negative Identities

A substantial portion of the identity literature is predicated on an assumption that people’s

identity work is motivated by a desire for positive meaning (Gecas 1982). Positive identities

are commonly defined as those which are valuable, good or beneficial (Dutton, Roberts, and

Bednar 2010), promote favourable self-views (Roberts, et al. 2009), and are associated with

characteristics such as competence, resilience, and transcendence (Kreiner and Sheep 2009).

This is held to be true even of those who engage in ‘dirty work’, work that is perceived as

degrading, disgusting or demeaning to those performing it (Hughes 1951), and who recognize

that they are holders of stigmatized (spoiled, blemished or flawed) identities (Goffman 1963).

Social identity theorists, for example, maintain that those members of tainted groups unable

to leave often engage in work to change others’ perceptions of them, reject negative

assessments, and/or insist on using criteria for self-evaluation that flatter them (Hogg 2003;

Tajfel and Turner 1986). Through, for instance, the establishment of a protective ideology,

22

and the use of behavioural and cognitive defence tactics such as humour, and ambivalence,

stigmatized workers are able to reframe, recalibrate and refocus understandings of their

selves and thus secure positive self-meanings (Breakwell 1986; Kreiner, Ashforth, and Sluss

2006).

For others, the assumption that people in organizations work only on achieving or preserving

positive identities is a professional blind spot in the identity work literature. As Learmonth

and Humphreys (2011, p.425) assert, dirty work is in fact ‘experienced by most people, in

large measure, as degrading and exploitative’. One aspect of this argument is that

individualistic values such as ‘the success ethic’ (Luckmann and Berger 1964) and the

‘achievement principle’ (Offe 1976) are considered highly threatening by many workers. For

professionals caught in ever more intense competitive work situations, and low status manual

workers seeking validation in the face of debilitating self-doubt, insecurities about the self are

an omnipresent and sometimes all-consuming aspect of their identity work (Collinson 2003;

Sennett and Cobb 1977). Scholars across the humanities and social sciences have long

theorized that individuals’ identity work is an often precarious struggle and sometimes losing

battle against alienation (Marx and Engels 1988[1844]), anomie (Durkheim 1997 [1951]),

dread of death (Freud 1922), fear of freedom (Fromm 1942) and other existential insecurities

(Sartre 1958). From this vantage, the modernist quest for a positive identity is a narcissistic

fantasy in which individuals are victims of an obsession with the pursuit of illusory fetishized

end-states such as self-knowledge and self-esteem (Lacan 1977a,b; Lasch 1979).

A number of studies support Ashforth and Kreiner’s (1999 p.418) assertion that even dirty

workers ‘...generally do not appear to suffer from existential doubt, anomie, or angst’. For

example, research suggests that in their identity work many occupational members emphasize

23

the positive: dog catchers console themselves that they help prevent the spread of rabies

(Palmer 1978), gravediggers highlight the joys of being outdoors (Petrillo 1989-90), and

truckers compare themselves favourably to factory workers (Ouellet 1994). This stance jars

with a psychologically-driven stream of research which notes that not everyone is able to

maintain a robust identity, and that many people suffer identity crises characterized by either

‘deficits’ or ‘conflicts’ (Baumeister 1986; Marcia 1966). Other, sociologically-informed

studies are also highly suggestive that while those with self-defined tainted identities engage

in many and varied coping strategies, they nevertheless have negative conceptions of their

organizational selves (Costas and Fleming 2009; Dovidio, Kaeakami, and Gaertner 2000).

Sociologists such as Sennett (1998) and labour process researchers tend particularly to

accentuate the negative aspects of demeaned worker identities forged in (putatively)

degrading conditions (e.g., Braverman 1974; Burawoy 1979; Sewell 2005). Recently, Gabriel

(2012) has used the concept of ‘miasma’ to analyse how employees may come to regard

themselves with a profound sense of loss, and suffer guilt, shame and feelings of inadequacy

to the point where ‘…people lose their confidence and self-esteem, moral integrity

evaporates’ (p.1147).

Authenticity and Identities

Scholarship on identities work is often bound-up with societal debates on authenticity and

‘authentic selves’ (Trilling 1980). Howard (2000, p.386-7) notes an increasing concern with

deciphering ‘authentic’ identities which Erickson (1995) attributes to contemporary

challenges associated with reconciling simultaneously multiple identities and relationships.

Variously described as a set of character strengths or a moral virtue (George 2003; Peterson

and Seligman 2004), or an optimal psychological state (Goffee and Jones 2006), following

Heidegger (1962 p.117) authenticity is most usually defined as ‘the loyalty of one’s self to its

24

own past, heritage and ethos’. One argument for focusing on notionally ‘authentic’ identities

is that people tend to describe themselves as possessing ‘an inner, authentic core’ (Ybema et

al. 2009, p.305) and to account for their identity work as efforts to stay ‘true’ to their ‘real’

selves (Ibarra 1999). Generally, much contemporary theorizing assumes that individuals

possess ‘true’ identities, that authenticity is a measure of the concordance between this

essence and the talk and other behaviours they exhibit, and that while being ‘authentic’ is

healthy, ‘inauthenticity’ is associated with psychological stress and associated ills (Hewlin

2003; Ilies, Morgeson, and Nahrgang 2005; Shamir and Eilam 2005).

Others are more circumspect, and some are openly dismissive of the assumption that

identities are centred by a concern for authenticity. For Markus and Nurius (1986, p.965) a

preoccupation with authentic identities is unhelpful because it limits our scope for analysing

‘…the rich network of potential that surrounds individuals and that is important in identifying

and descriptive of them’. Goffman (1990 [1959] p.245), and those working from a

dramaturgical perspective, argue that there is no essence that exists inside a person, that the

self is ‘a performed character’, and that there are no ‘true’ or ‘false’ performances of the self,

only those which are more or less credible. Similarly antagonistic to notions of authentic

identities are those poststructuralist versions which deny there is an essential, true or pre-

social self, and which maintain instead that identities are constituted through discourse or

other performative acts (Butler 1994). Rather than perpetuate popularly made distinctions

between ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ and ‘fake’ or ‘false’ identities in scholarly discourse, these

scholars call for greater recognition that such simplistic dualities serve ideological functions,

often merely encouraging people to align with organizationally or societally prescribed selves

(Burawoy 1979; Deetz 1992; Tracy 2005). From this viewpoint, if ‘authenticity’ is to be an

important concept in analysing identity work, then it needs to be reconceived as a dialectical,

25

reflexive process, not a stable trait, in which temporary congruence between malleable self-

concepts and fleeting experiences emerge and diffuse (Roberts, et al. 2009).

A wealth of empirical studies imply that people have (or believe that they possess) authentic

‘inner’ selves consisting of ‘true’ or ‘preferred’ identities. For example, Creed, DeJordy and

Lok (2010, p.1353) reported that GLBT ministers understood their careers as being

fundamentally about how to respond authentically to ‘God’s call’. Watson’s (2009) analysis

of Leonard Hilton trades on this manager’s assumption that he has an inner, authentic core

which consists of a set of stable characteristics. Kreiner, Hollensbe and Sheep’s (2006)

analysis of Episcopal priests reveals that they sometimes felt their occupation could ask too

much of them and that their true or inner (authentic) selves were then intruded upon. Many

studies purport to show that people strive for authenticity, and that when discrepancies arise

between, for example, role obligations and authentic selves, role occupants engage in identity

work to suppress personal values (Roberts 2005) or manage or mitigate inconsistencies

(Rafaeli and Sutton 1987). Unlike some other analytical categories the converse of a focus on

‘authenticity’ is not ‘inauthenticity’ but to ignore these (and related) terms altogether.

Discursive, critical and post-structural studies of identity work, for example, tend to eschew

terms such as ‘authentic’ and ‘inauthentic’ entirely on the grounds that they lead to

misleading or impoverished results (Brown and Humphreys 2002; Kornberger and Brown

2007). These analyses of identity work argue that identities are constructed in situ, and that

while some versions of the self may be more preferred than others such preferences are often

unstable and ad hoc rendering notions of ‘authenticity’ otiose.

The issues raised by these continuing debates are not easily tractable, and there are few

convenient answers. Some (e.g., agency/structure issues) are symptomatic of ontological,

epistemological and ideological divisions that fracture scholarship on identities in

26

organizations; most cannot be resolved a priori; and while a few (such as those debates

centred on stability and coherence) invite empirical study, it seems likely that different

peoples, times and contexts will yield different results which are themselves prone to multiple

interpretations. It is not just that individuals in organizations have an increasing range of

identity options, but that identity scholars have an expanding repertoire of intellectual

resources for their analysis: liquid identities require less viscous theorization, greater

tolerance for ambiguity and multiplicity, and recognition that in identities research little is

known for certain and much that we think we know has constantly to be revised, discarded

and reformulated anew. Contemporary theorizing seeks the requisite variety to match the

complex and difficult questions posed by individuals’ identities conundrums; and like the

people we study scholars struggle, narrate, surf and self-doubt (Alvesson 2010) our way to

necessarily provisional answers.

Moreover, the contribution of the concept identity work in these debates is not neutral. In

inviting consideration of identity issues in terms of work processes it constitutes a framing

device (metaphor) that creates and patterns (not merely reflects) relationships and

understandings (Morgan 1980; Tsoukas 1991). While identity work encourages a broad and

nuanced appreciation of multiple interleaved aspects of identities, it also promotes a

particular set of views on them. For example, it (arguably) inspires a perspective on identities

as work-able, and thus always to some extent the subject of choice, fluid rather than rigidly

stable, and not fully coherent but also to a degree fragmented. Perhaps most noteworthy is

that the analytical advantages it offers in being able to straddle identity debates, which

accounts probably for its broad uptake, are matched (some might argue undermined) by its

tendency to stimulate bland analyses of identities around ‘midway’ positions: for instance, an

identity that is worked on has generally both positive and negative aspects, and can be

27

theorized as both more and less situationally authentic. I make these points not to denigrate or

to discourage use of the identity work metaphor, but to highlight, as Burke (1989, 1965, p.49)

notes, that our analytic vocabularies are ‘terministic screens’ and that ‘every way of seeing is

also a way of not seeing’.

Discussion and Conclusions

This paper has reviewed some of the principal debates on identities and identity work in and

around organizations. Building on this platform, in this section three distinct but related sets

of issues are considered: (i) some further empirical and theory-based research that might be

accomplished in order to enlarge and refine our understanding of identities and identity work

and the processes of organizing in which they are implicated; (ii) the limitations and possible

dangers inherent in over-reliance on the notion identity work; and (iii), some concluding

remarks regarding the utility of identity work as a bridging and integrating concept in

identities research.

Future Research on Identity Work

Of the many possible directions for future research focused on identity work for reasons of

space I will briefly consider just five of the most prominent: contexts, processes, temporality,

sensemaking and costs.

Contexts

There is much we still do not know about how contexts – particularly organizational and

national cultural settings - affect individuals’ identities and identity work. Studies on

organizations as ‘identity workspaces’ (Petriglieri and Petriglieri 2010) and ‘meaning arenas’

(Westenholz 2006) indicate that different organizational contexts vary in the scope, resources

28

and encouragement they offer people as they fashion their identities. Yet, we are almost

wholly ignorant regarding whether, for example, consonant identity work topics or strategies

are drawn on and shared generally by members of similar-type organizations, e.g.,

management consultancies or public sector institutions. Empirical research may also usefully

investigate how diverse organizations enable (facilitate) direct (usurp and control), partner

(share-in), and impede (actively hinder) their participants’ identity work (Anteby 2008;

Ashforth and Pratt 2003; Kreiner and Sheep 2009). Substantial research showing that there

are important shared differences between those socialized into different national cultural

systems (Srinivas 2013; Triandis 1972) suggests that attention may in addition be well

directed to the potentially different morphologies that identity work may take in diverse

cultures. For example, it may be that identity work occurs differently in cultures which vary

on indexes such as individualism/collectivism, power distance, and masculinity/femininity

(Hofstede 1991).

Processes

Further fine-grained research is needed also to appreciate nuances in how, why and with what

implications identity work is engaged in by people in organizations. Researchers have long

sought to uncover the identity work that accompanies, for instance, role transitions, but still

‘...the process by which identity evolves remains under explained’ (Ibarra 1999 p.765). There

is considerable scope for future research on how such processes are affected by factors

ranging from emotion (e.g., embarrassment, nostalgia), and cognition (e.g., values,

assumptions), to relations of power (e.g., the influence of charismatic leaders and ‘strong’

discourses), and psychodynamic processes (e.g., projection, denial). Personality psychologists

might explore gainfully the impact of individual differences (e.g., regarding optimism,

openness to learning) on how different personality types work on their identities. Relatedly,

29

research might examine usefully the importance and effects of people’s (possibly individually

and culturally variable) needs for self-coherence on processes of identity work. Gender may

also be an important factor, and further empirical studies are required to investigate claims

that for instance, ‘The task of identity formation is more complex for females than for males’

(Waterman 1993, p. 62; Ely and Meyerson 2010), and that while men tend to create

separated, bounded selves, women work on selves that are relational, contextual and have

more fluid interpersonal boundaries (Jordan 1997).

Temporality

It is well attested that although identity work has an important temporal dimension (Williams

2012), nevertheless any kind of explicit ‘theorizing about time in identity research is

relatively rare’ (Pratt 2012, p.28). This mirrors Goodman et al.’s (2001, p.507) general

observation that: ‘Given the different manifestations of time in organizational life, there is

surprisingly little research on time in this setting’. There is considerable posturing around the

notion that identities provide people with a sense of temporal coherence (Alvesson 2010), but

few scholars have ventured to build on this insight. Scholars note frequently that people work

on different identities at different times, but the temporal relationships between these

processes of identity work, and the trade-offs and sacrifices (e.g. grudging acceptance of one

identity in order to gain another that is highly valued) which may accompany these choices

are virtually unexplored. Future research could also examine Sennett’s (1998) contention that

in today’s world workers must become increasingly temporally flexible as well as spatially

mobile. Others might take Lutgen-Sandvik’s (2008) identification of different temporal

phases of identity work as a model in order to investigate whether such activities are usually

or often temporally patterned. Researchers could also attend valuably to the identity work that

30

connects past, present and projected future selves, to continuities and disjunctures between

them, and the historical context in which they are embedded (Baumeister 1986).

Sensemaking

Weick (1995, p .20) has long argued that sensemaking is grounded in identity construction,

and that ‘the sensemaker is himself or herself an ongoing puzzle undergoing continual

redefinition’. However, Weick’s primary interest, and that of the broader sensemaking

community, has been with the sense that people make of their external worlds rather than

themselves. There has been some research which regards identity work as a form of

sensemaking. For example, Gabriel, Gray and Goregaokar (2010) have explored three kinds

of sensemaking stories that unemployed older workers used to find consolation and sustain a

sense of self (Vough 2012). Other researchers have theorized the identity work associated

with organizational identification - the extent to which members define themselves in terms

of notionally organizational traits (Dutton, Dukerich, and Harquail 1994) - as forms (or

products) of sensemaking processes (Pratt 2000). However, there is much that still needs to

be done to understand in-depth how sensemaking connects to identities and the role of

identity work in processes of external interpretation and meaning making. Why in different

circumstances and at different times some people engage in identity work that leads to

positive identification and become zealots for it while others manifest dis-, schizo-, or

neutral- identification is still largely mysterious.

Costs

Further research may also focus helpfully on the costs to individuals of identity work. Many,

possibly most explorations of identity work in organizations have tended to represent it as

necessary, utilitarian, desirable or pleasurable without considering its potential dis-benefits.

31

Gergen’s (1991, p.150) concept of ‘multiphrenia’ – referring to a sense of guilt and

superficiality – is indicative of the kinds of issue that may accompany continuing needs to

‘work on’ contrived and whimsical identities. While the self is often conceived as a form of

compromise between preferred and imputed designations (Snow and Anderson 1987), what

happens when individuals’ subjective identity work clashes with others’ ascriptions of

identities to them? Divergent understandings of who we and others are may not be unusual,

and could have important implications for self-esteem, work relationships, and processes

associated with change, leadership, and organizational outcomes. When identity work is

undertaken only because it is sanctioned by social rituals and the identities one works on are

those authorized by the organization, what is left for the individual? Studies of identity

regulation in corporate settings show that coerced employees tend to respond not with

unthinking compliance, but sophisticated practices of irony, scepticism, cynicism and humour

etc. (Fleming and Spicer 2003). What, we may wonder, are the individual and collective

identity work processes that underpin these responses, and what are the immediate and

longer-term consequences for well-being associated with them?

Limitations and Dangers

Of the many objections to scholars placing heavy reliance on identity work that can be made,

perhaps the two most significant are: (i) that ‘identity’ is too limited in its scope to account

adequately for important aspects of people in organizations; and (ii) that there are moral

dangers attached to its use.

First, not everyone agrees that identity is the best starting point for analyses of people-related

processes as it is held often to refer only to certain aspects of selves. There is a socio-

anthropological tradition that suggests we should broaden the ‘target’ to ‘personhood’ to

32

clarify that who we are, even as subjectively understood, is not ‘closed in’ but has multiple

social dimensions – historical, economic, political, legal etc. (Weber 1930). This is consonant

with Elias’s (1968, p.261) understanding that we are dynamic, contingent networks of

interdependent human beings, Bourdieu’s (1977) argument that to understand the ‘trajectory’

of an individual it is necessary to have detailed knowledge of the field in which that trajectory

is accomplished, and Mauss’ (1973) view of ‘persons’ as products of contingent social and

historical processes. Still others favour a focus on ‘subjects’ and ‘subjectivity’ in order to

analyse how people relate to themselves as persons (Foucault 1972). There are multiple

complications, however, not least because terms are often used interchangeably, and agreed

definitions have proved elusive (Ashmore and Jussim 1997; Osborne 1996). Perhaps identity

work can assist in crystallizing these terminological and ideological conflicts by helping to

focus on people’s use of ‘I’ and ‘me’ in shifting contexts, this capacity for reflexivity being

‘characteristic of every known culture’ and ‘the most elemental feature of…personhood’

(Giddens 1991, p.53).

Second, it may be objected that identity work is an amoral concept or leads to an amoral

understanding of identities, and that who we were, are, and are in the process of becoming,

are fundamentally moral questions. What kinds of work are socially permissible or laudable

and what constitutes a technical breach of sociality, or indeed is wholly reprehensible? For

example, identities may in some ways be ‘made up’ in the sense of being ‘created’, and may

be attributed aesthetic qualities, but they are not usually regarded as (entirely) works of

fiction. Memories may be distorted, ‘facts’ reinterpreted or forgotten, gaps in meaning may

be filled by fantasy, and we can deceive ourselves and misapprehend our own motives. But in

matters of identity we assume normally that there will be some correspondence between

historical ‘fact’ and personal biography. If, like Wilkomirskiiv, organizational members work

33

on plausible accounts of their selves based on fictional histories, should this worry us if not as

analyzers of, commentators on and consultants to managers, then as their educators? What

are our obligations as scholars if we find that people in organizations who have benefitted

from processes of institutional change cast themselves as victims? Does it matter if this work

is ‘genuinely’ felt or strategic? All of which is to suggest that further research might focus

beneficially on the ethics of identity work, exploration of moral selves, and the rights and

duties that could or should guide our affirmations and rejections of self.

Concluding Remarks

This article has set out some of the scaffolding and tools for the further analysis of identity

work and identities and their role in processes of organizing. Although these concepts offer

fecund opportunities for theory building there remains considerable scope for research to

garner sophisticated appreciation of the relationships between (largely) self-consciously

constructed identities and social action. This said, our theorizing is inevitably a function of

historically contingent conditions, and current assumptions and research agendas regarding

identities and selves are of-the-moment and may have an end (Taylor 1989, p.1111).

Researchers have long described ‘identity’ as ‘problematic’ (Albert, Ashforth, and Dutton,

2000, p.14), complained that it has become a ‘cliché’ (Gleason 1983, p.931), and continue to

question whether ‘“Identity” has run out of steam’ (du Gay 2007, p.1). For every optimist

who proclaims that identity studies constitute ‘a field ripe for synthesis’ (Cerluo 1997, p.400)

there is a pessimist who maintains that making sense of the literatures on identities is

‘impossible’ (Howard 2000, p.387). Just as in working on our identities ‘we are plagued by a

sense of not quite getting it right’ (Lawler 2008, p.145), so it is with our attempts to

understand and to explain identity processes. Both, perhaps, are best regarded as in-progress

projects that can never be once-and-for-all satisfactorily completed.

34

One reason this theorizing is important is that notions of identity and the concept identity

work have largely unappreciated utility as a means of bridging levels of analysis in

organization studies research. The argument that identity is a multilevel concept with the

capacity to assist scholars’ explorations of relations between multiple research domains at

micro, meso, and macro levels is well established (Brown 2001; Ravasi and van Rekom

2003). Less common are empirical studies and theory pieces that investigate the relationships

between identities and their interactions between individuals, dyads, groups, organizations,

professions and communities. Among the reasons for this is that identity is often employed as

a descriptive category rather than as an analytical tool. This is limiting because, as Ashforth

(2009 p.182) argues, ‘…much of the “action” in organizations and many of the most

provocative and practically significant questions occur at the interface of multiple levels’.

Identity work, which implies agentic activity, is suited to the task of analyzing people and

events across levels of analysis and research foci because it helps fix attention on identities-

in-action and unpick processes of continuity and change, rather than apply labels to notional

end states. This is clear from the relatively few multi-level identity-focused studies that have

been conducted, which tend generally to make explicit or tacit reference to forms of identity

work in their analyses of, for instance, how actors’ identities are socially manipulated

(McKinlay 2013; Pratt 2000) and how organizations’ identities inter-relate with those of their

participants and are managed (Elsbach and Kramer 1996; Grey 1994).

Correspondingly, identity work may be a useful means of focusing and perhaps integrating

the research agendas of social science disciplines, and their sub-fields, which have an interest

in identities and organizations. Cote and Levine (2002 p.11), among others, have commented

on how the sociological and psychological literatures on identity have become increasingly

35

and unnecessarily isolated from one another resulting in a corpus which is ‘considerably

fragmented and suffers from the absence of a unifying taxonomy or common language’.

While it would be naïve to suggest that the varying assumptions and predilections of what are

distinct streams of theorizing are not significant, equally it seems perverse not to

acknowledge the potentially complementary light they may cast on identity processes.

Identity work, the shared territory between fields, could become a recognized site for

multidisciplinary research, and perhaps organization and management studies, with its more

porous disciplinary boundaries, delight in novelty, and tolerance of difference, may be the

locale where synthesis can take place.

36

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Notes

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i A metaphor is a figure of speech which typically involves the transfer of information from a more familiar source domain (in this case ‘work’) to a relatively less known target domain (here ‘identity’). ii This highly condensed snapshot of some of the key strands in identities debates is necessarily limited, and there are many other aspects, such as Hitlin’s (2003) attempts to develop notions of self and identity in relation to value structures, that are not adequately dealt with here. iii This admittedly very brief discussion of cognate metaphors related to identity work raises a number of tangential issues that are nevertheless worthy of note. First, identity work may be regarded as either a synonym for (my preferred use of the phrase in this paper), or descriptive of a specific sub-set of, identity construction processes. Second, some authors have employed ‘identity work’ using a realist ontology and regard it as an empirical ‘construct’ rather than as a linguistic metaphor. Third, my discussion of different identity work-related metaphors is a complement to Alvesson’s (2010) consideration of seven images of identity implicated by scholars: self-doubters, strugglers, surfers, storytellers, strategists, stencils and soldiers. iv Stefan Maechler (2001) revealed Wilkomirski’s autobiographical account of a Jewish child’s experiences in a Latvian ghetto and Nazi death camps, Fragments: Memories of a childhood, 1939-1948, to be a false memoir.