“Nobody Really Knows What We Do”: Exploring the Organizational and Occupational Identification of Academic Librarians

Ishii, Kumi; Markman, Kris M.; Arnow, Hannah; Carr, Sabrina

doi:10.1080/10510974.2021.1975146

Cited by 3 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Our second contribution is empirically differentiating two facets of occupational identity and illustrating how they generate different mechanisms that shape identification. Due to the dominance of social identity theory in identity research, organizational scholars have often conceptualized occupation as a collective (Ashforth et al, 2013; Hekman et al, 2016; Ishii et al, 2021). This approach corresponds to our finding of a group identity-based occupational lens.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We thus hope future research to expand upon the theory we developed. One approach would be to compare our findings with how individuals with the same occupation but working in different organizations (e.g., Ishii et al, 2021) engage in sensemaking about the organization-occupation relationship and construct identification.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sensemaking About the Organization–Occupation Relationship in Constructing Identification at Work: A Cross-Occupational Approach

Lee

Paik

2023

Sage Open

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Departing from the prior assumption that identification with organization and identification with occupation are constructed separately, we explore how employee identifications with these multiple targets are co-constructed at work, using a grounded-theory approach. An analysis of interview data collected from members of three occupations (engineers, human resource [HR] staff, and marketers) in a large global company reveals that organizational identity’s impact on employee identification is not independent of but significantly influenced by occupational identity; specifically, occupational identity provides a lens through which individuals actively interpret the organizational identity. Using the occupational lens, individuals engage in sensemaking about the alignment between organization and occupation and, based on this sensemaking, construct their identification with both targets. We identify four types of identification configurations constructed under the nexus of these organizational and occupational identity inputs: holistic, prioritized, parallel, and conditional identification, which vary systematically across occupations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensemaking About the Organization–Occupation Relationship in Constructing Identification at Work: A Cross-Occupational Approach

Lee

Paik

2023

Sage Open

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“…Similarly, workers may view their occupational identification as their primary identification, over their organization. Ishii et al [ 36 ]’s study of librarians discovered participants understood who they are as “librarians” as their primary identification, which changed in its specificity of sub-areas of their occupation depending on their communication partners. Ishii et al [ 36 ] also examined how librarians challenged occupational stereotypes.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ishii et al [ 36 ]’s study of librarians discovered participants understood who they are as “librarians” as their primary identification, which changed in its specificity of sub-areas of their occupation depending on their communication partners. Ishii et al [ 36 ] also examined how librarians challenged occupational stereotypes. Their research may be extended to consider how workers may combat occupational stereotypes through their occupational identification.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, much work-life and organizational communication research focuses on corporate or white-collar organizations (e.g., [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]) and rarely situates scholarship in blue-collar or service work (see [ 30 , 36 ], for recent exceptions). Researchers may also avoid studying a specific occupation, often to increase generalizability of the findings.…”

Section: Contributions and Future Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Creating and Sustaining Service Industry Relationships and Families: Theorizing How Personal Workplace Relationships Both Build Community and Perpetuate Organizational Violence

Eger

Pollard

Jones

et al. 2022

Behavioral Sciences

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Service industry workers experience challenging labor conditions in the United States, including pay below the minimum wage, expected emotional labor, and harassment. Additionally, in part because they work long shifts in high stress environments in restaurants and bars, many build and form personal workplace relationships (PWRs). In 2021, we interviewed 38 service industry workers and managers during the COVID-19 pandemic where we examined occupational challenges they faced in the state of Texas, USA. Through our interpretive research, this essay showcases our inductive findings on how service industry workers and managers utilize communication to create and sustain PWRs. We identified how some PWRs are sustained through a unique form of occupational identification that cultivates a “service industry family”, which we term familial personal workplace relationships (familial PWRs). This extends past organizational communication scholarship on family to consider occupational identification. Furthermore, our research reveals that while PWRs may build communities through care and support, they also perpetuate organizational violence, like sexual harassment and bullying.

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The Information Literacy Class as Theatrical Performance: A Qualitative Study of Academic Librarians’ Understanding of Their Teacher Identity

Polger

2024

Journal of Education for Library and Information Science

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This qualitative study examines how academic librarians understand, conceptualize, and describe their teacher identity. The role of the academic librarian has greatly changed due to the advent of information technology. Traditionally, they were generalists, who were responsible for selecting and maintaining library collections. Academic librarian roles have evolved into web developers, information literacy (IL) instructors, emerging technology innovators, marketing and outreach coordinators, open education resources (OER) advocates, and scholarly communication experts. This research investigates the academic librarian as teacher phenomenon, how they describe their professional identity as teachers, the skills, knowledge, and competencies they teach, and their beliefs of how they are perceived by faculty. The author conducted interviews with six participants via Zoom. Using in vivo and descriptive coding, the author analyzed the interview data and three broad themes emerged: philosophy, identity, and perception. This study contributes to the literature of the importance of IL as a key facet of academic librarians’ professional identity, their instructional role on campus, the increase in their teaching responsibilities, and how they describe their professional identity as teachers. Further, this research contributes to academic librarians’ teaching practices and may inform LIS program administrators to update their curriculum and offer more courses on instruction, pedagogy, and learning theories. The study also illustrates a disconnect between academic librarians’ lack of instructional preparedness and an increased demand for teaching among academic librarians.

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“Nobody Really Knows What We Do”: Exploring the Organizational and Occupational Identification of Academic Librarians

Cited by 3 publications

References 48 publications

Sensemaking About the Organization–Occupation Relationship in Constructing Identification at Work: A Cross-Occupational Approach

Sensemaking About the Organization–Occupation Relationship in Constructing Identification at Work: A Cross-Occupational Approach

Creating and Sustaining Service Industry Relationships and Families: Theorizing How Personal Workplace Relationships Both Build Community and Perpetuate Organizational Violence

The Information Literacy Class as Theatrical Performance: A Qualitative Study of Academic Librarians’ Understanding of Their Teacher Identity

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