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26 - Organizational Psychology: When, Why, and How Is Identity Work (Less) Important in Organizational Life?

from Part IV - Current Domains

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2021

By
Stefan Sveningsson ,
Susann Gjerde  and
Mats Alvesson
Edited by
Michael Bamberg ,
Carolin Demuth  and
Meike Watzlawik
Michael Bamberg
Affiliation:
Clark University, Massachusetts
Carolin Demuth
Affiliation:
Aalborg University, Denmark
Meike Watzlawik
Affiliation:
Sigmund Freud University, Berlin
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Summary

Identity is often viewed as one of the most important concepts to help understand life in contemporary organizations among organizational scholars. For example, studies of identity among organizational members in roles such as manager, professional, consultant, and priest have provided valuable insights around managerial and professional work, motivation, change, leadership, control, and gender (Alvesson, Ashcraft, & Thomas 2008; Brown 2019). While drawing on many of these studies, this chapter offers a somewhat contrasting view. We examine if identity is as important as is often claimed, and as a consequence, when and why concerns of identity are triggered in working life, and we do so through a constructionist identity perspective. In the chapter, we argue that many people do not necessarily engage with their identities most of the time (Alvesson & Robertson 2016) and explore why they do in certain kinds of jobs and in particular situations while in others identity is neither present nor salient, at least not as a major issue. The chapter aims to cut down the identity concept in size and suggests that a more focused view on identity may help us come to better grips with what on one level is of great societal concern: identity-related struggle, tension, and confusion in people’s working lives; without adding too much to another concern: a (re)production of unwanted narcissism in our already narcissistic time of age (Foley, 2010; Lasch, 1978).

Keywords

Identity workorganizational psychologyworking lifeconstructionist approachidentity
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Identity , pp. 586 - 603
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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