Fracturing the Real-Self?Fake-Self Dichotomy: Moving Toward "Crystallized" Organizational Discourses and Identities

Abstract

This article begins with the following question: Why, even with the proliferation of poststructuralist theoretical understandings of identity, do people routinely talk in terms of "real" and "fake" selves? Through an analysis of critical empirical studies of identity-construction processes at work, this article makes the case that the real-self↔fake-self dichotomy is created and maintained through organizational talk and practices and, in turn, serves as a constitutive discourse that produces four subject positions with both symbolic and material consequences: strategized self-subordination, perpetually deferred identities, "autodressage," and the production of "good little copers." The article challenges scholars to reflexively consider the ways they may perpetuate the dichotomy in their own academic practices. Furthermore, the authors present the metaphor of the "crystallized self" as an alternative to the real-self↔fake-self dichotomy and suggest that communication scholars are well-poised to develop alternative vocabularies, theories, and understandings of identity within the popular imagination.

Corporate culture change: adaptive culture structuration and negotiated practice

“…Employees respond, say Dutton et al (1994, p. 239) to organizational images, thus enhancing self-esteem and making them voluntary members of, and contributors to, the organization's symbolic order. This is consistent with the agility and complexity of individual identity found in Tracy and Trethewey (2005) who use the crystal metaphor to convey identity's inaccessible but multifaceted nature.…”

“…Similarly, JWL 25,7 Driver (2009) and others (Costas and Fleming, 2009;Tracy and Trethewey, 2005) propose that individual identity is not as malleable to functional requirements as organizations might assume, notwithstanding Pratt et al (2006) who suggest that appropriate choice of management responses help managers to achieve organizational/individual synergy. Driver (2009, p. 55) comments, "there continues to be vibrant dialog about what organizational identity is or should be .…”

Becoming an HR strategic partner: tales of transition

“…It is this latter conception that provides the theoretical framing for my empirical investigation as I examine how individuals engage with and enact (Weick, 1995) their strategic partner identity and consider how this is embedded in both the local organisational and broader occupational context (Thomas and Davies, 2002; Tracy and Trethewey, 2005; Watson, 2008). The notion of ‘identity work’ (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002) highlights the active aspect of engagement with this process in which ‘people are continuously engaged in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a precarious sense of coherence and distinctiveness’ (p. 626).…”

Refining a Summer Biomedical Research Training Program for American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Students

“…We were inspired by crystalized identity (Forin, Adams, & Hatten, 2012; Tracy & Trethewey, 2005)—the notion that every individual has multiple facets to their identities. Rather than engage in practices that encourage AIAN peoples to shed, hide, or replace certain facets of their identity, we sought to design practices that can support them and add new facets while sustaining existing ones.…”