Search results

Based on identity theory, identity represents a set of meanings individuals hold for themselves based on their role in the society. Hence, they often engage in the process of verifying their role, seeking for the compatibility between these meanings and those perceived in a specific lived situation. If this compatibility is not perceived, this is likely to generate negative emotions. that could compromise their mental health. This paper examines the contribution of a weak verification of role identity in the explanation of managers ‘burnout. It aims at integrating identity theory into occupational stress research by analysing the proposition that a low level of verification of a salient role-identity will be associated with a high level of burnout. Hence, we consider identity salience as a moderating variable.

Cross-sectional data of 314 Canadian managers employed in 56 Quebec firms. Multilevel regression analyses were performed to analyse the data.

Low levels of verification of some standards of managers' role identity, mainly work demands and recognition which encompasses (monetary and non-monetary recognition, career prospects and job security) are significantly associated with managers' burnout. Furthermore, as predicted, results show that identity salience plays a moderating role on the relation between a weak verification of some standards of managers' role identity and burnout, mainly work demands, superior support and recognition.

This study proposes a relatively unexplored approach for the study of managers' burnout. It broadens the scope of research on workplace mental health issues, by the integration of the identity theory.

What happens to nonelite workers’ meaning, belonging, and identity when work is “on-demand”? On-demand organizations, such as Uber and TaskRabbit, have ambiguous boundaries and locations of workers. This qualitative study investigated how organizational and societal boundary discourse and the organization of the work itself, constructed sometimes conflicting worker roles that influenced how ride-hailing workers understood the boundaries of the on-demand organization and their location with respect to it. The roles of app–user and driver–partner constructed ride-hailing workers as outside the boundaries of the organization, while the driver–bot role constructed them as (nonhuman) elements of organizational technology. While the driver–partner role had positive and empowering identity, meaning, and belongingness associations, its conflict with the other roles blocked these positive associations, and led to cynicism and fatalism. We reflect on the possible impacts of the on-demand economy on society, workers, and the practice of work, particularly for nonelite workers.

We advance theory of how founder identity affects business model (BM) design during new venture creation and contribute to the cognitive perspective on BMs. We look at BM design as a longitudinal process involving a variety of cognitive work that is co-shaped by the founder identity work. Based on an in-depth nine-year process study of a single venture managed by three founders, we observed that a novelty-centered BM design resulted from cognitive work co-shaped by founder identity construction and verification processes. Yet, more remarkably, we noted that founder identity verification decreased over time and observed a process that we labeled “identity-business model decoupling.” It meant that the founders did not alter their founder identity but, over time, attentively grew self-aware and mindfully disengaged negative identity effects to design an effective BM. Our results provide a dynamic view on founder identity imprinting on ventures’ BMs and contribute to the identity, BM, and entrepreneurship literatures.

In this paper we build upon previous research that examines how workers in devalued occupations transform structural conditions that threaten their dignity into resources with which to protect themselves. Through in-depth interviews and fieldwork with early childhood educators (ECE), we examine the work experiences of teachers in four distinct work contexts: daycare centers and within elementary schools, each in either the public or private sector. We find that these different school organizational contexts shape what kinds of identity challenges early childhood teachers experience. Different organizational contexts not only subject teachers to different threats to their work-related identity but also have different potential identity resources embedded within them that teachers can use on their own behalf. Thus, while all the early childhood educators in our sample struggle with being employed within a devalued occupation, the identity strategies they have developed to protect their self-worth vary across employment contexts. We show that the strategies these interactive service workers use to solve identity-related problems of dignity at work involve the creative conversion of constraints they face at work into resources that help them achieve valued work identities.

This paper describes the author's lived experiences as a marginalised professional. It offers a nuanced understanding of the author's career development journey to an authentic work identity.

This analytic autoethnography, situated in multicultural, democratic South Africa, describes how historic moments in the country's political evolution influenced the author personally: the author’s sense of belonging and the author’s various roles socially, as well as at work.

The paper tracks selected stories in the author's professional career journey to an authentic work identity, as indexed by the themes: I am a Black South African; I am a gay professional and so, who am I at work? On reflection, the author realised how the bounded nature of authenticity allowed psychological safety while exploring congruency between the author’s multiple work identities.

The autoethnography demonstrates how multiple accounts by the same author may be a valuable way of contributing to the literature on authentic work identity. This autoethnographic work extends the authentic identity literature of marginalised professionals beyond the narrow authenticity–inauthenticity binary of most organisational studies. The paper introduces limited authentic work identity as an ameliorative self-concept in organisations.

Purpose- This study aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between waiters’ professional identity and its antecedents such as work interaction, identity interferences, stigma, standardisation brand, authenticity, extroversion and education. “Salience” will be used as a moderator of this relationship to explain the prominence of the stimuli. The consequences of professional identity on passion and turnover intention will be analysed.

This study used a qualitative methodology, which encompassed 3 focus group discussions (18 participants) and 11 in-depth interviews. Participants will be based on Michelin-starred restaurants in London. Founded on analysis of the qualitative data, the antecedents and consequences of professional identity were formulated.

Findings demonstrate that the main factors of the formation of waiters’ professional identity are work interaction, identity interferences, stigma, standardisation brand, authenticity, extroversion and education, its consequences (passion and turnover intention) and salience as a moderator of this relationship to clarify the relevance of the stimuli. These factors have been demonstrated to have an effect on the formation of professional identity.

This study is relevant because the repercussion of perceptions, such as identity and identification for emerging exclusive job roles, is still under-examined in certain conditions. Restaurateurs need to work with and comprehend the quality individual framework of waiters in job roles because these have a stimulus on the fundamental interests, such as passion for work and turnover of the waiting workforce. Moreover, within the hospitality industry, there has been a predisposition to prominence more on chefs than waiting staff.

The paradigmatic separation of the strategy and identity literatures constitutes an ongoing problem for the extension of either into more global contexts. The theorization proposed in this chapter presents rhetoric as the means by which the ‘strategy work’ of reimagining future options and the ‘identity work’ of reformulating the meaning of past actions may be integrated in the present moment. By locating both strategy work and identity work within the continuity of experience, we suggest that scholars will be better able to develop theoretically integrated, empirically grounded and globally relevant studies of strategy.

Work has historically been an important basis of identity, but the sharp decline in the availability of stable attachments to jobs, organizations, or occupations jeopardizes paid work’s capacity to sustain identity. If available work opportunities are increasingly precarious and short-term, can the same be said for identities? Analysis of the efforts of members of an unusual occupational group – stage actors – to support an identity based on unstable work provides insights into the variability and indeterminacy of responses to structural employment uncertainty. Despite manifold identity threats, actors struggle to maintain identity as actors both in others’ eyes and in their own.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of professional and leader identity and the maintenance of identity, through identity work as IT professionals transitioned to a permanent hybrid role. This study therefore contributes to the under-researched area of permanent transition to a hybrid role in the context of IT, where there is a requirement to enact both the professional and leader roles together.

The study utilised a longitudinal design and two qualitative methods (interviews and reflective diaries) to gather data from 17 IT professionals transitioning to hybrid roles.

The study findings reveal that IT professionals engage in an ongoing process of reconciliation of professional and leader identity as they transition to a permanent hybrid role, and they construct hybrid professional–leader identities while continuing to value their professional identity. They experience professional–leader identity conflict resulting from reluctance to reconcile both professional and leader identities. They used both integration and differentiation identity work tactics to ameliorate these tensions.

The longitudinal study design, the qualitative approaches used and the unique context of the participants provide a dynamic and deep understanding of the challenges involved in performing hybrid roles in the context of IT.

This study aims to review how the mental ill-health of academic staff is regarded in higher education institutions (HEIs) and explore the decision to disclose (or not) a mental health condition whilst working in this sector.

The choice to disclose is explored by using duoethnography undertaken by two female academics working in this context who both experience mental ill-health. Both authors recorded their experiences, which were then shared with each other and analysed using thematic analysis.

The themes that emerged from the authors’ reflections comprise: a discussion of the connection between work-life identities and the impact of mental ill-health in the workplace; a consideration of the elements that influence our decision to disclose (or not) mental health diagnoses within HEI; and an examination of the additional burden of identity work for those who experience mental ill-health.

The study contributes to this evidence base by exploring the choice to disclose a mental health diagnosis in HEIs. It investigates this highly personal decision and suggests that this choice depends on the context in which we are located and how we experience our different identities in the workplace. Furthermore, it highlights the importance for HEIs to develop positive employment practices to support academic staff with mental ill-health to disclose a mental health condition and to achieve a good workplace environment whilst emphasising the need for more empirical work to explore the decision to disclose (or not) in this sector.