Identities in and around organizations: Towards an identity work perspective

Abstract

There is an emergent identity work perspective that draws on multiple intertwined streams of established identities and other related theorizing. 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 paper is to provide a baseline for identity work scholars, and to promote collective critical reflection on identities in and around organizations.

Managing Leader Identity at Work: A Practice-Oriented Approach

“…This article provides a practitioner perspective on how to manage leader identity at work drawing from my own work as well as from a multitude of conceptual and empirical evidence surrounding the study of identities. This practice-oriented perspective connects with Brown's recent review of identity related theories/research and to his call for additional scholarship which cuts across identity related topics to stimulate critical reflection relating to studying identities in organizational settings (Brown, 2021). The current work contributes to advancing a practice-oriented identity work perspective relating to the study and practice of managing leader identity in workplace settings.…”

“…Ferris et al (2018) remind us that the topic of "the self" and related subject areas are pervasive in workplace settings. Organizational studies and applications relating to the self address such areas as positive leadership, self-control depletion and organizational-relational identification (Brown, 2021;Hannah et al, 2009;Koopman et al, 2016). The work relating to leader self-view systems and leader development across the lifespan are particularly relevant to managing leader identity (Liu et al, 2020).…”

Migrant Visibility, Agency, and Identity Work in Hospitality Enterprises

“…Identity is viewed here as performative, and therefore tied to embodied, representational, sociomaterial, and sociotechnological practices. Conceived as "identity work, " this approach stresses ongoing evolving processes of investment and negotiation (Brown 2022;Daley and Singo 2018). Importantly, this negotiation is relational and can be viewed as being entangled in broader processes of organizing.…”

Learning from difference and similarity: Identities and relational reflexive learning

“…Mostly under the umbrella concepts 'identity work' and 'identity construction' considerable attention has focused on those processes -discursive, dramaturgical, socio-cognitive, symbolic and psychodynamic -by which identities are constructed (Brown, 2017). Initially defined by Snow andAnderson (1987: 1348) 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', identity work has subsequently been re-imagined as a construct, metaphor and the inspiration for a nascent perspective (Brown, 2021;Caza et al, 2018;Watson, 2008).…”