Exploring identity construction from a critical management perspective: a research agenda

Abstract

Available online on the publisher's website: http://www.management-aims.com/PapersMgmt/154Bardon.pdfInternational audienceIn contemporary western society, questions of identity concerning "who am I?" and "how should I act?" (Alvesson, 2000: 1105) are now a central concern in people's lives. Indeed, the western, liquidly modern context (Bauman 2000; 2001; 2003; 2005; Bauman & Haugaard 2008; Bauman & Tester 2001) is characterized, precisely, by absences: the loss of traditional sources of authority, such as family, union, or religion, foundations that used to provide individuals with a collective sense of belonging around commonly taken-for-granted bases of identification (Collinson, 2003). The absent spaces are now occupied by a multitude of ephemeral bases of identification that blur old dualisms such as capital and labour, man and woman, married or single. Culturally tribal fashionable codes of speaking, dressing, playing, and so forth, mostly grounded in consumption rather than production, increasingly provide experiences of belonging. In such a fragmented context, constructing a distinctive identity becomes a constantly shifting project (Knights & Willmott, 1989; Giddens, 1991; McAdams, 1996). Consequently, individuals tend now to problematize identity through projects of the self more likely undertaken at an individual or group level rather than as a part of an organized collective process that is automatically reproduced. Slowly, management research has been coming to terms with liquid modernity (Clegg and Baumeler, 2010). Critical post-structuralist perspectives are among the several approaches that are engaged in this process, and provide insight into the question of identity. The goal of this Unplugged is thus to provide our views about the past, present and future of studies about identity from a critical post-structuralist perspective

“I Am My Body”. Physical Selves of Police Officers in a Changing Institution

“…However, relatively little has been written about the physical processes through which workers defend, assert, or construct their identities. Indeed, bodily aspects of identity work have been largely ignored in the literature (Bardon et al, 2012;Creed et al, 2010;Iedema, 2007). With a few exceptions (Elsbach, 2003;Glaeser, 1998;Petriglieri and Petriglieri, 2010;Symon and Pritchard, 2015;Tyler, 2011), research rarely highlights how bodies can serve as the fulcrum of identity work in certain occupational contexts.…”

Body Breakdowns as Politics: Identity regulation in a high-commitment activist organization

“…Casey, 1996; Covaleski, Dirsmith, Heian, & Samuel, 1998; Michel, 2011; Paring et al, 2017). Still, many identity scholars emphasize the lack of consideration for the material actualization of identity regulation (Bardon, Clegg, & Josserand, 2012; Iedema, 2007) – particularly its corporeal side (Paring et al, 2017). While the interest in subjective identities as a ‘disembodied phenomenon’ (Knights & Clarke, 2017, p. 340), ‘construed through discourse and other symbolic means’ (Brown, 2015, p. 21) has been dominant among organizational scholars, emergent research on the body-identity nexus has been challenging the underlying assumption separating body and mind (Knights & Clarke, 2017, p. 351).…”

Family Business Identity as Source of Performance, Efficiency and Competitive Advantage

“…This individual identity is untainted by social or organizational expectations, discourses and constraints. Instead of ephemeral bases of identification, such as culturally tribal fashionable codes of speaking, dressing, playing -mostly grounded in consumption rather than production (Bardon, Clegg, & Josserand, 2012), founders use a traditional source of authority (the family) to provide them with a collective sense of belonging around commonly taken for granted bases of identification.…”