Struggling with Lack: A Lacanian Perspective on Organizational Identity

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on organizational identity by developing a psychoanalytic perspective. In particular, the author draws on Lacanian theorizing to explore how organizational identity discourse is informed by imaginary constructions of subjectivity. It is proposed that the collective construction of coherent, unitary, and definably organizational identity discourse is validated by and validates conscious but illusory constructions of the self. The resulting discourse is inevitably disrupted by unconscious subjectivity and invariably fails. Therefore, the collective construction of fragmented, dynamic, and emergent organizational identity discourse is equally inevitable. While such discourse can be illusory, it also contains the opportunity for engaging in liberating struggles with identity as lack. The implications of this perspective for the theory and practice of organizational identity are discussed.

Freedom through Work: The Psychosocial, Affect and Work

“…Roberts (2005) argues that "to document […] micro processes of self-preoccupation also offers sight of what such processes occlude or foreclose" (p. 638), suggesting thus that freedom lies in the failures inherent in identity. Similarly, Driver (2009a;2009b) proposes that if we recognize that identification processes in work organizations are inherently fragile and frequently disrupted, we can see how they can also create new possibilities for relating to others. By studying the gaps in workers' narratives, she shows how workers draw on the dominant imaginary 'stress' discourse to construct their identities, but also to "experience themselves as powerful and free" (Driver, 2012, p by an ethical logic, which "entails risking the loss of one's identity and moving away from trying to capture a lost or new paradise" (Glynos, 2008, p. 19).…”

‘Not even semblance’: exploring the interruption of identification with Lacan

“…The Imaginary, in Lacan's conception, is closely linked to the Symbolic and its corollary, the Real. In Driver (2009aDriver ( , 2009b, this link is underplayed and this presents difficulties for subsequent conceptualizations of resistance. I will argue in this article that resistance to identity ideals must be understood as a form of re-signification.…”

“…This supports Roberts' (2005) suggestion of an Imaginary turn in how organizational control is effected by managerial discourses, and underlines the need for understanding Imaginary constructions as enmeshed in the Symbolic order (cf. Driver, 2009aDriver, , 2009b.…”

The dream that caused reality: the place of the Lacanian subject of science in the field of organization theory

“…Morgan, 1988;van Maanen, 1995avan Maanen, , 1995b. Those theorists who took up Lacan to explain organizational phenomena and theorizing (Arnaud, 2002(Arnaud, , 2003Bloom and Cederström, 2009;Cederström and Grassman, 2008;Contu, 2008;Contu and Willmott, 2006;Driver, 2005Driver, , 2007Driver, , 2009aDriver, , 2009bDriver, , 2009cEssers et al, 2009;Fotaki, 2009;Harding, 2007;Hoedemaekers, 2008Hoedemaekers, , 2009Jones and Spicer, 2005;Kenny, 2009;Roberts, 2005;Styhre, 2008;Vanheule et al, 2003;Vidaillet, 2007) accepted their place in the intersubjective field of knowledge which has unfolded from the Burrell and Morgan taxonomycrisis by silently accepting the discourse which has made the concept of incommensurability a legitimate part of itself. In the same gesture they agreed to the exclusion of the scientific impossible which the concept concealed in the first place.…”

“…It necessarily involves accepting that it is not only the analysand (the person who undergoes psychoanalysis) or the researched who are subjects of the unconscious. The analyst or a researcher who applies psychoanalysis are also its subject and as such they become an effect of language, distinct from a biological individual (Lacan, 2006) Attempts at understanding the position of an organization theorist as a Lacanian subject of the unconscious have been undertaken in studies of discourses (Driver, 2005(Driver, , 2009a(Driver, , 2009cJones and Spicer, 2005) and in discussions around the process of manuscript review (Driver, 2007). An analysis of the researcher as a subject of the unconscious changes the coordinates of psychoanalytic organization theory as, rather than investigating organizational 'well-being', it embarks on the study of the 'well-said' (Glynos, 2002: 23) which in the Lacanian framework precedes the phase of the 'well-being' and can be conflated with the ethical dimension of the human condition.…”