Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T19:49:30.128Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Shared fate and social comparison: Identity work in the context of a stigmatized occupation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2015

Mark van Vuuren ,
Jacqueline Teurlings  and
Ernst T Bohlmeijer
Mark van Vuuren
Affiliation:
Department of Communication, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
Jacqueline Teurlings
Affiliation:
Ogilvy Impact, Sydney, Australia
Ernst T Bohlmeijer
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Health & Technology, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Purpose:

People working in mines face the challenge to construct a positive self-image as society views their occupation as dirty and dangerous. The question was how these dirty workers used different normalizing strategies when specific contexts made a range of categories salient.

Methodology:

We used data from 32 semi-structured interviews with employees of South African gold mines, in which the participants told about the ways they dealt with taint.

Findings:

Miners were aware of stigmas. On the one hand, there was an awareness of the group's shared fate, in line with normalizing strategies found in other stigmatized occupations. On the other hand, we found several examples of social comparison within the group that challenged the expected strong group culture, i.e., supervisors distancing themselves from subordinates and men disparaging female miners.

Practical and research implications:

The nuances in our findings show the complexities of the ways people in stigmatized occupations deal with taint.

Originality/value:

In contrast to previous research, the miners did not only stress the group as a unity. It seems that the opposite processes of shared fate and downward comparison can emerge both, depending on self-categorization dynamics.

Keywords

dirty workidentity worksocial comparisonminingstigma
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , March 2012 , pp. 263 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alvesson, M., Ashcraft, K. L., & Thomas, R. (2008). Identity matters: Reflections on the construction of identity scholarship in organization studies. Organization, 15, 5–28.Google Scholar
Ashforth, B. E., Harrison, S. H., & Corley, K. G. (2008). Identification in organizations: An examination of four fundamental questions. Journal of Management, 34, 325–374.Google Scholar
Ashforth, B. E., & Kreiner, G. E. (1999). How can you do it? Dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity. Academy of Management Review, 24, 413–434.Google Scholar
Ashforth, B. E., & Kreiner, G. E. (2002). Normalizing emotion in organizations: Making the extraordinary appear ordinary. Human Resource Management Review, 12, 215–235.Google Scholar
Ashforth, B. E., Kreiner, G. E., Clark, M. A., & Fugate, M. (2007). Normalizing dirty work: Managerial tactics for countering occupational taint. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 149–174.Google Scholar
Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14, 20–39.Google Scholar
Brewer, M. B. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 475–482.Google Scholar
Brewer, M. B., & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this ‘we’? Levels of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83–93.Google Scholar
Britton, D. (1997). Gendered organizational logic: Policy and practice in men's and women's prisons. Gender and Society, 11, 796–818.Google Scholar
Chamber of Mines South Africa. (2007). The story of gold in South Africa. Retrieved December 19, 2011, from http://www.bullion.org.za/content/?pid=84&pagename=GoldGoogle Scholar
Cooren, F. (2010). Action and agency in dialogue: Passion, incarnation and ventriloquism. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Crocker, J., & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 26, 608–630.Google Scholar
Dick, P. (2005). Dirty work designations: How police officers account for their use of coercive force. Human Relations, 58, 1363–1390.Google Scholar
Doosje, B., Ellemers, N., & Spears, R. (1995). Perceived intragroup variability as a function of group status and identification. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 31, 410–436.Google Scholar
Ellemers, N., & van Rijswijk, W. (1997). Identity needs versus social opportunities: The use of group-level and individual-level identity management strategies. Social Psychology Quarterly, 60, 52–65.Google Scholar
Gardner, W. L., Gabriel, S., & Lee, A. Y. (1999). ‘I’ value freedom but ‘we’ value relationships: Self-construal priming mirrors cultural differences in judgment. Psychological Science, 10, 321–326.Google Scholar
Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology's program: Working out Durkheim's aphorism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gibbons, F. X., & Gerrard, M. (1991). Downward comparison and coping with threat. In Suls, J. M., & Wills, T. A. (Eds.), Social comparison: Contemporary theory and research (pp. 317–345). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Gioia, D. A., & Thomas, J. B. (1996). Identity, image, and issue interpretation: Sensemaking during strategic change in academia. Administrative Science Quarterly, 41, 370–403.Google Scholar
Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Hinkle, S., & Brown, R. (1990). Intergroup comparisons and social identity: Some links and lacunae. In Abrams, D. & Hogg, M. A. (Eds.), Social identity theory: Constructive and critical advances (pp. 48–70). New York, NY: Harvester-Wheatsheaf.Google Scholar
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hogg, M. A., & Terry, D. J. (2000). Social identity and self-categorization processes in organizational contexts. Academy of Management Review, 25, 121–140.Google Scholar
Howard, E. S., Gardner, W. L., & Thompson, L. (2007). The role of the self-concept and the social context in determining the behavior of power holders: Self-construal in intergroup versus dyadic dispute resolution negotiations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 614–631.Google Scholar
Kreiner, G. E., Ashforth, B. E., & Sluss, D. M. (2006). Identity dynamics in occupational dirty work: Integrating social identity and system justification perspectives. Organization Science, 17, 619–636.Google Scholar
Ludwig, A. M. (1997). How do we know who we are? A biography of the self. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Maitlis, S. (2005). The social processes of organizational sensemaking. Academy of Management Journal, 48, 21–49.Google Scholar
Meisenbach, R. J. (2010). Stigma management communication: A theory and agenda for applied research on how individuals manage moments of stigmatized identity. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 38, 268–292.Google Scholar
Mogotsi, L. (2005). Challenges facing the South African gold mining industry. Alchemist, 38, 15–17.Google Scholar
Oliver, T. (1902). Gold miners' phthisis and some of the dangers to health incidental to gold mining in the Transvaal. The Lancet, 159, 1677–1679.Google Scholar
Pratt, M. G., Rockmann, K., & Kaufmann, J. (2006). Constructing professional identity: The role of work and identity learning cycles in the customization of identity among medical residents. Academy of Management Journal, 49(2), 235–262.Google Scholar
Sukhai, A., Jones, A. P., Love, B. S., & Haynes, R. (2011). Temporal variations in road traffic fatalities in South Africa. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 43, 421–428.Google Scholar
Svenningsson, S., & Alvesson, M. (2003). Managing managerial identities: Organizational fragmentation, discourse, and identity struggle. Human Relations, 56, 1163–1193.Google Scholar
Sykes, G., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralization: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22, 664–670.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In Austin, W. G., & Worchel, S. (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.Google Scholar
Tracy, S. J., Myers, K. K., & Scott, C. W. (2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs, 73, 283–308.Google Scholar
Turner, J. C., Oakes, P. J., Haslam, S. A., & McGarty, C. (1994). Self and collective: Cognition and social context. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 20, 454–463.Google Scholar
Ullrich, J., Wieseke, J., & Van Dick, R. (2005). Continuity and change in mergers and acquisitions: A social identity case study of a German industrial merger. Journal of Management Studies, 42, 1549–1569.Google Scholar
Van Vuuren, M., Beelen, P., & De Jong, M. (2010). Speaking of dominance, status differences, and identification: Making sense of a merger. Journal of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, 83, 627–643.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Weick, K. E., Sutcliffe, K. M., & Obstfeld, D. (2005). Organizing and the process of sensemaking. Organization Science, 16, 409–421.Google Scholar
Wiekens, C. J., & Stapel, D. A. (2008). The mirror and I: When private opinions are in conflict with public norms. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 1160–1166.Google Scholar
Wills, T. A. (1981). Downward comparison principles in social psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 245–271.Google Scholar
Wrzesniewski, A., Dutton, J. E., & Debebe, G. (2003). Interpersonal sensemaking and the meaning of work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 25, 93–135.Google Scholar