Identities under scrutiny: How women leaders navigate feeling misidentified at work

The identities of women leaders can fall under intense scrutiny; they are often confronted with other's perceptions of them—perceptions that may not be wholly accurate. Through in-depth qualitative interviews of senior women leaders working in male-dominated industries, we explore how they experience and respond to feeling misidentified (internal identity asymmetry; Meister, Jehn, & Thatcher, 2014) throughout their careers. Employing grounded theory methods, we uncover how women are likely to experience asymmetry, and discover it becomes most salient during personal and professional identity transitions. We build theory with respect to how women leaders navigate feeling misidentified, and find with time and power the experience becomes less salient. Our study draws together and contributes to both the identity and leadership literatures by exploring an important identity challenge facing women leaders in industries that are striving for a greater gender-balance in senior positions.     

The ebb and flow of identity: How sustainable entrepreneurs deal with their hybridity

The identity of sustainable entrepreneurs progresses and is primed by certain identity dimensions, including society, community, or competition as their frames of references, their social motivation, and their self-evaluation. Because sustainable entrepreneurs aim to achieve the goals of generating profit and create social and/or ecological value at the same time, they experience two types of tensions: one that concerns social and ecological and the other with an extension of economic aspects. To leverage these, we find identity shifts dependent on the tension sustainable entrepreneurs’ experience, activating a certain combination of identity dimension. Building on 29 case studies with European sustainable entrepreneurs, the study investigates the dynamic role of entrepreneurial identity, thereby informing about fluid hybrid identity conflict management strategies. This adds to theory on entrepreneurial identity that has widely found multiple, yet coherent entrepreneurial identities and conflict management strategies.     

Betwixt and between identities: Liminal experience in contemporary careers

Liminality, defined as a state of being betwixt and between social roles and/or identities, is the hallmark of an increasingly precarious and fluctuating career landscape. The generative potential of the liminality construct, however, has been restricted by six key assumptions stemming from the highly institutionalized nature of the rites of passage originally studied. As originally construed, liminality (1) implied both an objective state and the subjective experience of feeling betwixt and between, and was (2) temporary, (3) obligatory, (4) guided by elders and/or supported by a community of fellow liminars, (5) rooted in culturally legitimate narratives, (6) and led to a progressive outcome, i.e., the next logical step in a role hierarchy. By recasting these assumptions as variables, we improve the construct’s clarity, precision, and applicability to contemporary liminal experiences that are increasingly under-institutionalized. We illustrate the utility of our updated conceptualization by arguing that under-institutionalized liminality is both more difficult to endure and more fertile for identity growth than the highly institutionalized experiences that gave rise to the original notion. Drawing from adult development theory, we further propose that for under-institutionalized experiences to foster identity growth, the identity processes involved need to be more akin to identity play than identity work. We discuss the theoretical implications of our ideas for research on liminality, identity, and careers.     

Identities and Identity Work in Organizations

Identities, people's subjectively construed understandings of who they were, are and desire to become, are implicated in, and thus key to understanding and explaining, almost everything that happens in and around organizations. The research contribution that this review paper makes is threefold. First, it analyses the often employed but rarely systematically explored concept ‘identity work’, and argues that it is one metaphor among many that may be useful in the analysis of professional and more generally work identities. Second, it focuses on five fundamental, interconnected debates in contemporary identities research centred on notions of choice, stability, coherence, positivity and authenticity. Third, it outlines the roles that the concept ‘identity work’ may play in bridging levels of analysis and disciplinary boundaries, and sketches some possible future identities‐focused ideas for further research. Under‐specification has meant that ‘identity’ has not always fulfilled its analytical promise in either theoretical explorations of identities issues or in empirical studies of identities in practice; and it is to these ends that this paper seeks to contribute.     

My network,my self: A social network approach to work-based identity

As the organizational landscape becomes increasingly turbulent and the gig economy grows, the conventional anchors for a work-based sense of identity – a relatively stable organization, workgroup, and occupation – are losing relevance. We argue that a “network identity,” defined as the core, distinctive, and more or less enduring character of a set of social ties (e.g., “we are high-achievers”), helps fill this growing void because individuals’ networks often reflect agency and have more or less fluid boundaries and portability. These attributes enable individuals to develop or join networks that may transcend specific contexts and adapt to change. An individual’s network identity simultaneously implicates all three levels of self – individual, relational, and collective – such that it is a potentially very powerful means for realizing his or her identity motives. Crossing the dimensions of network boundary strength and network density, we offer a 2 × 2 typology of networks and discuss their implications for members’ network identities and what kinds of individuals might prefer each network.     

National Identity,Globalization and the Discursive Construction of Organizational Identity*

This paper pursues two goals. First, it explores the connections between national identity and organizational globalization within the context of three British organizations' attempts to synchronize their corporate and organizational identities through diversity management initiatives. Second, it teases out the implications of these connections for current theorizing on organizational identity, looking in particular to extend Hatch and Schultz's (Human Relations, 55 (2002) , pp. 989–1018) processual model of image– culture dynamics. Based on a Foucauldian theoretical frame, and a data set comprising 36 in‐depth interviews, we show the complex and highly particular relationships between articulations of Britishness, and corporate, organizational and personal identities. Such complexity is suggestive of the contradictory connections between national and organizational identities, and of the disjointed, discursive and affective characteristics of organizational identity. Our contribution to the study of organizational identity lies in both an illumination of the local discursive dynamics of identity construction at the individual and collective levels, and an assertion of the ontological role of discourse(s) in structuring understandings and expressions of organizational identity.     

Religious Social Identities in the Hybrid Self‐presentations of Sikh Businesspeople

This paper explores the identity work practices of Thai Sikh businesspeople. The paper focuses on two important social identities in participants’ self‐presentations – those derived from religious (Sikh) and western business discourses – and identifies powerful tensions in their hybrid identity work. Conducting discourse analysis on identity work practices within interview settings, the authors explore how participants resolve, accommodate or reject these discursive tensions while attempting stable and coherent hybrid self‐presentations. They identify several different forms of hybridity, including what they term ‘equipollence’, which occurs when two equally powerful, contradictory discourses are incorporated in self‐presentations, producing potentially irresolvable intersections and leading to a lack of coherence. Contributions are made to the literatures on religion and work, hybrid identity work processes and social identities.     

Gay Male Academics in UK Business and Management Schools: Negotiating Heteronormativities in Everyday Work Life

This paper contributes to a neglected topic area about lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people's employment experiences in UK business and management schools. Drawing on queer theory to problematize essentialist notions of sexuality, we explore how gay male academics negotiate and challenge discourses of heteronormativity within different work contexts. Using in‐depth interview data, the paper shows that gay male academics are continually constrained by heteronormativity in constructing viable subject positions as ‘normal’, often having to reproduce heteronormative values that squeeze opportunities for generating non‐heteronormative ‘queer’ sexualities, identities and selves. Constructing a presence as an openly gay academic can invoke another binary through which identities are (re)constructed: as either ‘gay’ (a cleaned up version of gay male sexuality that sustains a heteronormative moral order) or ‘queer’ (cast as radical, disruptive and sexually promiscuous). Data also reveal how gay men challenge organizational heteronormativities through teaching and research activities, producing reverse discourses and creating alternative knowledge/power regimes, despite institutional barriers and risks of perpetuating heteronormative binaries and constructs. Study findings call for pedagogical and research practices that ‘queer’ (rupture, destabilize, disrupt) management knowledge and the heterosexual/homosexual binary, enabling non‐heteronormative voices, perspectives, identities and ways of relating to emerge in queer(er) business and management schools.     

Globalization, Social Identities and Employment

On the basis of social identity theory, we predict various outcomes of current reactions against globalization which have important implications for the management of employees. Globalization and its associated developments have added impetus to two social trends: increases in inequality and in individualism. Inequalities have increased both between and within nations, whilst individualism is increasingly apparent in social life in general, and in organizational life in particular. It is argued that individualism has led to a preference for personal identities over social identities, but that these are not always satisfying because they are often based upon consumerist values. Moreover, inequalities have resulted in feelings of injustice. Consequently certain social movements have increased in popularity. The most important of these are religious fundamentalism, nationalism and single–issue politics.
Increasing numbers of employees have at least one of these social identities central to their selves. Social identity and self–categorization theory suggest certain hypotheses about the likely implications for employment. First, to the extent that these social identities are salient for employees in the work situation, they will maintain the beliefs, values and norms associated with their identity at the expense of organizational beliefs, values or norms which are incompatible. Second, they will further the interests of their own category at the expense of other social categories of employee. Third, they will fail to differentiate between individuals within their own category, and between individuals within other categories. The implications of these hypotheses, if supported, for organizations are then explored. Finally, certain preventative strategies, also based upon social identity theory, are described.     

Who is it That Would Make Business Schools More Critical? Critical Reflections on Critical Management Studies

We suggest in this paper that whilst exploring how to make business schools more critical we must also turn a critical and reflexive lens upon ourselves, critical management thinkers. Our endeavour is outlined here as a 'reflexive journey' in which we turn upon ourselves, academics who identify as 'critical' thinkers, the theories we use to analyse others. Our focus is upon critical management education. We use three vignettes drawn from our previous research. One is of graduands from the postgraduate programmes on which two of us teach, the second an analysis of knowledge transfer programmes in which we have participated, and the third a study of the construction of academic identities. The first study shows the academic teacher may become an internalized, judgemental gaze, the second that what we see as a critical approach may be construed by our students as another 'truth' that fails to encompass the complexities of organizations and management, and the third encourages us to ask some questions about our own positions. This causes us to ask some uncomfortable questions about our own positions as critical management scholars and the ways in which we conceptualize business schools and our colleagues who work in them.     

European management and European business schools: Insights from the history of business schools

This article looks at the history of business schools and identifies specific characteristics that are common to European management schools. On the basis of these characteristics, European management is subsequently defined as a cross-cultural, societal management approach based on interdisciplinary principles. In a final step, a closer look is taken at how European business schools should prepare their students for the unique European management context. It is suggested that such schools should provide courses on cross-cultural management and courses explaining the interdependencies between the private and public sector, offer students opportunities to experience other cultures over the course of their studies, and teach management from an interdisciplinary and practically-oriented perspective.     

Benchmarking of secondary schools based on Students’ results in higher education

The performance of secondary schools is usually assessed based on students’ results on national exams at the end of secondary education. This research uses data on academic achievements by first-year university students to benchmark secondary schools on their ability to lead students to success in higher education. The analysis is conducted using data of University of Porto and Catholic University of Porto, Portugal, for a three-year period, corresponding to more than 10.000 students from 65 degrees, for which the school of origin is known. A number of variables representing students’ success in Higher education were constructed for each school in our sample and aggregated through a Benefit of the Doubt indicator. Results suggest that the schools’ ranking based on schools’ ability to prepare students for university success is quite different from the ranking based on results on national exams. Given these findings, we propose complementing schools’ performance assessments (traditionally based on national exam results or indicators of value added) with indicators that account for the preparation of students for success in future challenges, which is indisputably a key objective of secondary education. We propose a composite indicator for the analysis of these complementary aims as well, and results show that frontier units indeed exhibit trade offs between traditional measures of performance and our new measure of performance.     

Getting that Certain Feeling: The Role of Emotions in the Meaning,Construction and Enactment of Doctor Managers' Identities

Although identity research in organizations has increased in recent years, none of the current perspectives has examined the role of emotion for understanding how individuals construct and enact professional identity. In this paper we examine how emotions affect the development, conduct and meanings of professional identity among a sample of 20 doctor managers from two Spanish hospitals. While not excluding other approaches, we found that a social identity approach was especially useful. The contribution of this paper is threefold. First, our results provide new insights about how, in a work setting, emotions prioritize awareness of identity issues that need attention. Second, we discuss the role of emotions for understanding complex role identities by reference to the enactment of different sides of doctor managers' identities. Third, we show how our analysis of the findings may be used to embellish the social identity approach.     

Examining the role of Donald Trump and his supporters in the 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol: A dual-agency model of identity leadership and engaged followership

This article develops a dual-agency model of leadership which treats collective phenomena as a co-production involving both leaders and followers who identify with the same social group. The model integrates work on identity leadership and engaged followership derived from the social identity approach in social psychology. In contrast to binary models which view either leaders or followers as having agency, this work argues that leaders gain influence by defining the parameters of action in ways that frame the agency of their followers but leave space for creativity in how collective goals are accomplished. Followers in turn, exhibit their loyalty and attachment to the leader by striving to be effective in advancing these goals, thereby empowering and giving agency to the leader. We illustrate the model primarily through the events of 6th January 2021 when Donald Trump’s exhortations to his supporters that they should ‘fight’ to ‘stop the steal’ of the 2020 election was followed by an attack on the United States’ Capitol. We argue that it is Trump’s willing participation in this mutual process of identity enactment, rather than any instructions contained in his speech, that should be the basis for assessing his influence on, and responsibility for, the assault.     

Gender in Management: Theorizing Gender as Heterogender

Research on gendered identities in management has exploded over the past three decades. The focus on gender obscures the place of sexuality in gendered theory. In this article theories of gender as ‘object’, ‘subject’ and as social processes are used as interpretative frames to explore the ways in which gender and sexuality are enacted by lesbian managers. Their narratives demonstrate that managing gender was experienced primarily as managing heterosexuality. Disjunctions in identity positions revealed that heterosexual assumptions provide the foundation of gender. Reframing gender as ‘heterogender’ foregrounds heterosexuality and gender as intertwined and provides another layer to understanding how gender is ‘done’ in management.     

“Seeing to be seen”: The manager’s political economy of visibility in new ways of working

Recent changes in the world of work have modified the conditions of the exercise of management in ways that challenge managers’ traditional authority and identity, both symbolically and physically. In this context, we analyse the “visibilizing process” of managers, through which they attempt to make themselves more visible, in ways that reaffirm their authority and restore their identity as managers. To that end, we develop a Foucauldian framework on power and visibility, which sheds light on the “political economy of visibility” of the manager. We apply this framework to a case study that encouraged a re-spatialization of remote work in coworking spaces. The findings show how the manager in our case study staged his own visibility, by enhancing managerial control, to manage his invisibility and shape his intertwined identities. Through the visibilizing process, the manager legitimated his role, materialized his function, and restored his authority.     

What Influences Business Academics’ Use of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) List? Evidence From a Survey of UK Academics

The development of the Association of Business Schools (ABS) list in 2007 and its rapid adoption by UK business schools has had a profound effect on the nature of business and management academics’ ways of working. Using a large‐scale survey of UK business academics, we assess the extent to which individuals use the Academic Journal Guide (AJG/ABS) list in their day‐to‐day professional activities. In particular, we explore how their perceptions of the list, the academic influence of their research, academic rank and organizational context drive the varied use. Building on prior research on the importance of univalent attitudes in predicting behaviour, we find those who have either strong positive or negative views of the list are more extensive users than those who are ambivalent. We also find that the extent of use of the AJG/ABS list is greatest among those academics who have lower academic influence, in the middle or junior ranks within business schools and in middle and low‐status universities. We explore the implications of these findings for the value of journal rankings and for the management of business schools.     

Reconciling identity leadership and leader identity: A dual-identity framework

Research exploring the powerful links between leadership and identity has burgeoned in recent years but cohered around two distinct approaches. Research on identity leadership, the main focus of this special issue, sees leadership as a group process that centers on leaders’ ability to represent, advance, create and embed a social identity that they share with the collectives they lead—a sense of “us as a group”. Research on leader identity sees leadership as a process that is advanced by individuals who have a well-developed personal understanding of themselves as leaders—a sense of “me as a leader”. This article explores the nature and implications of these divergent approaches, focusing on their specification of profiles, processes, pathways, products, and philosophies that have distinct implications for theory and practice. We formalize our observations in a series of propositions and also outline a dual-identity framework with the potential to integrate the two approaches.     

Supervision in der Ausbildung von Musikerzieher/innen

Supervision in education of music teachers Supervision can make an essential contribution to the teacher training in both phases. The students can consider themselves critically in a censorship free space, and basing on a criticalhermeneutic analysis of their choice of career, they can find their strong and weak points and thus set their main emphasis during their studies. Especially when starting in their job supervision can be helpful to develop their professional identity. Additionally students get to know a model of life-long learning in order to manage 40 years of professional life.