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Affect control theory describes a process in which individuals work to maintain existing situated identities. In this paper, we extend affect control theory to explain selective identity preferences in occupational settings. We argue that individuals form preferences about potential future identities with an eye to maintaining consistency between their potential experiences and their existing biographical identities. In particular, we suggest that occupational identity preferences reflect work-specific biographical identities called worker identities. We then predict that individuals who are seeking alternative or additional occupational identities will prefer those that evoke sentiments that are similar to those evoked by their worker identities. We find that current worker sentiments predict reports of desired and undesired future occupational identities, to include generalized military identities, to a remarkable degree. We discuss the implications for research on occupational mobility, work, and life course, as well as for existing identity theories.

Purpose – While important changes have been made in the American workplace, gender inequality persists. Contemporary analyses of occupational segregation suggest that gendered roles and identities may be playing a role, yet few studies explicitly tackle the effects of occupational identity on female disadvantage at work. Moreover, most previous research ignores the structured, multidimensionality of occupational identity focusing on more overt one-dimensional forms of status differentiation. Using sociological work as a case, these analyses delineate how occupational identities contribute to and differentiate publication success – and thus status hierarchies – for men and women in the sociological field.Findings – Net of human capital, results demonstrate the pronounced effect of the structure of occupational identity on publication: An often hidden form of job-queuing, occupational identities are gendered and influence the publication process. Differential rewards based on subtly gendered distinctions prove an important source of persistent inequalities.Social implications – While gender alone may not directly influence publication in premier research journals for more recent cohorts of sociologists, the gendered nature of research specialization and the distribution of rewards based, in part, on specialization present a troubling, more subtle stratifying mechanism.Originality/value of the chapter – This chapter contributes to our understanding of the puzzling pertinence of gender inequality in the academy by pinpointing how the organization of research into specialties is gendered and how this gendering of research affects important outcomes, such as publication. The paper also contributes to our broader understanding of inequality at work as an example of how occupational identity is multidimensional and networked.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature, transition and formation of occupational identity for those in recovery from eating disorders (EDs).

Semi-structured “episodic” interviews were carried out with six women, self-identifying in recovery from an ED. Narrative-type-analysis produced a distilled narrative of participants’ accounts, before use of thematic analysis compared and extracted pertinent themes.

During recovery from an ED, significant shifts occurred in occupational identities, moving from sole identification with the ED, to a greater understanding of self; facilitated by increased engagement in meaningful occupations, adapting occupational meaning, connecting with self and others and the importance of becoming and belonging.

This is the first known piece of research exploring occupational identity in relation to EDs. The findings are applicable to occupational therapists and add to the growing body of qualitative research into EDs.

The purpose of this study is to conceptualise how the occupational identity and culture of chefs is constructed and maintained through both work and social interaction.

The study follows a qualitative interpretivist approach; in total, 54 unstructured, in-depth, face-to-face interviews were conducted with Michelin-starred chefs in Great Britain and Ireland.

Drawing upon the fieldwork, fresh insights into the social structures and processes which underpin the creation and maintenance of the occupational identity and culture of chefs are revealed in the chefs’ own words.

This study generates empirical data that inform contemporary debates about the role of work in identity formation with particular emphasis on the induction–socialisation process. In addition, the findings of this study suggest that identity and culture are interrelated in the sense that the cultural components of an occupational culture operate to reinforce a sense of identity among its occupational members.

The findings suggest that Michelin-starred chefs have a strong occupational identity and culture. Strict rules and discipline are often used in kitchen brigades as a means of monitoring quality and maintaining the high standards of performance. The occupational socialisation of new members is a long and painful process that very often exceeds the limits of banter, and it is analogous to the military induction. The phenomenon of bullying and violence in commercial kitchens is identified as an unacceptable behaviour that needs to be eliminated. This can be achieved with changes in the education and training of the young chefs and the strict enforcement of the anti-bullying policies.

The understanding of chefs’ occupational identity and culture is critical for successful hospitality operations; nevertheless, this is an under-researched area. This study is unique in terms of scale and depth; it is expected to provide useful insights in both theoretical and practical perspective, regarding the formation of chefs’ identity and culture in organisational settings.

The high turnover rate among interns exacerbates the shortage of human resources in the hospitality industry. This study is based on previous concerns about the impact of occupational stigma and internship on turnover intention. This study aims to explore how the career adaptability of interns influences their perception of occupational stigma and occupational identity.

By using stratified sampling, semistructured interviews were conducted with 34 respondents who had academic and vocational education backgrounds. The data analysis was performed using the thematic analysis method.

This study demonstrates that a high level of career adaptability helps to reduce interns’ perception of occupational stigma and strengthen their occupational identity. Students from academic and vocational schools display different levels of career adaptability in terms of job matching and career promotion. In addition, the long-term influence on occupational identity is more significant from professional development potential compared to job adaptation.

This study provides valuable insights into the complex relationship between occupational stigma and occupational identity from the perspective of career adaptability. Moreover, it highlights the importance of job adaption, matching, promotion and professional development in retaining talent within the hospitality industry.

This study innovatively focuses on job matching and career promotion for coping with occupational stigma. It also considers interns’ educational backgrounds, facilitating further understanding of occupational identity under the influence of stigma. A fresh perspective on talent adaptation and retention in the hospitality industry is provided.

实习生的高流动率加剧了酒店业人力资源的短缺。本研究在职业污名与实习对离职倾向影响的研究基础上, 主要探讨了实习生的职业适应如何影响其职业污名感知和职业认同。

研究采用分层抽样的方法, 对34名拥有学术和职业教育背景的受访者进行半结构访谈, 并采用主题分析法进行数据分析。

研究发现, 良好的职业适应有助于减少实习生的职业污名感知, 并增强其职业认同。学术学校和职业学校的学生在工作匹配和职业晋升方面表现出不同程度的职业适应。此外, 职业发展潜力对职业认同的影响比工作适应更加长远。

本研究从职业适应的角度对职业污名与职业认同之间的复杂关系提供了有价值的见解。此外, 它还强调了工作适应、匹配、晋升和专业发展在酒店业人才保留方面的重要性。

本研究创新地关注了职业匹配与职业晋升对应对职业污名和提升职业认同的影响。研究还考虑了实习生教育背景的差异性, 进一步深化对污名影响下的职业认同的理解, 为酒店行业的人才适应和保留提供了一个新的研究视角。

La elevada tasa de rotación entre los trabajadores en prácticas agrava la escasez de recursos humanos en el sector de la hostelería. Este estudio se basa en preocupaciones previas sobre el impacto del estigma ocupacional y las prácticas en la intención de rotación. Explora principalmente cómo influye la adaptabilidad profesional de los becarios en su percepción del estigma ocupacional y la identidad ocupacional.

Mediante un muestreo estratificado, se realizaron entrevistas semiestructuradas a 34 encuestados con formación académica y profesional. El análisis de los datos se realizó mediante el método de análisis temático.

Este estudio demuestra que un alto nivel de adaptabilidad profesional contribuye a reducir la percepción de estigma ocupacional de los estudiantes en prácticas y a reforzar su identidad ocupacional. Los estudiantes de escuelas académicas y de formación profesional muestran diferentes niveles de adaptabilidad profesional en términos de adecuación al puesto de trabajo y promoción profesional. Además, la influencia a largo plazo sobre la identidad ocupacional es más significativa del potencial de desarrollo profesional en comparación con la adaptación laboral.

El estudio aporta información valiosa sobre la compleja relación entre el estigma ocupacional y la identidad ocupacional desde la perspectiva de la adaptabilidad profesional. Además, pone de relieve la importancia de la adaptación del puesto de trabajo, el emparejamiento, la promoción y el desarrollo profesional para retener el talento dentro de la industria de la hostelería.

Este estudio se centra de forma innovadora en la adecuación al puesto de trabajo y la promoción profesional para hacer frente al estigma laboral. También tiene en cuenta los antecedentes educativos de los becarios, lo que facilita una mayor comprensión de la identidad ocupacional bajo la influencia del estigma. Se aporta una nueva perspectiva sobre la adaptación y la retención del talento en la industria de la hostelería.

The purpose of this paper is to examine restaurant employees’ engagement in identity work to manage occupational stigma consciousness.

Research methods included ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews.

Widespread societal stigma attached to food service work disturbed participants’ sense of coherence. Therefore, they undertook harmonizing their present and envisioned selves with “forever talk,” a form of identity work whereby people discursively construct desired, favorable and positive identities and self-concepts by discussing what they view themselves engaged and not engaged in forever. Participants employed three forever talk strategies: conceptualizing work durations, framing legitimate careers and managing feelings about employment. Consequently, their talk simultaneously resisted and reproduced restaurant work stigmatization. Findings elucidated occupational stigma consciousness, ambivalence about jobs considered “bad,” “dirty” and “not real,” discursive tools for negotiating laudable identities, and costs of equivocal work appraisals.

This study provides a valuable conceptual and theoretical contribution by developing a more comprehensive understanding of occupational stigma consciousness. Moreover, an identity work framework helps explain how and why people shape identities congruent with and supportive of self-concepts. Forever talk operates as a temporal “protect and preserve” reconciliation tool whereby people are able to construct positive self-concepts while holding marginalized, stereotyped and stigmatized jobs. This paper offers a unique empirical case of the ways in which people talk about possible future selves when their employment runs counter to professions normatively evaluated as esteemed and lifelong. Notably, research findings are germane for analyzing any identities (work and non-work related) that pose incoherence between extant and desired selves.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the occupational identity of management accountants working in the public sector is influenced by a change in management accounting and control systems as well as the underlying management agenda.

From interviews with management accountants and their associates in five public hospitals, the paper illustrates how a change in new public management (NPM)‐related managerial agendas interacts with how the management accountants perceive their professional roles.

It is argued that the focus of the NPM agenda in Finnish public health care has shifted from a “down grid agenda”, emphasising private sector accounting and control methods, to a “down group agenda” that emphasises accountability, visibility and comparability. This change in agendas has materialised in the implementation of the diagnosis‐related groups (DRG) system, and the resultant abandoning of activity‐based costing (ABC) systems. Health care management accountants who rely on private sector ideals for constructing their occupational identity may resist the implementation of DRG if they interpret it as a shift in managerial discourse.

The paper links two different and sometimes contradictory agendas within the NPM framework with the occupational identity of management accountants. The observed reaction to the shifting agendas has implications for understanding why some accounting systems carry more appeal than others.

Data science promises new opportunities for organizational decision-making. Data scientists arguably play an important role in this regard and one can even observe a certain “buzz” around this nascent occupation. This paper enquires into how data scientists construct their occupational identity and the challenges they experience when enacting it.

Based on semi-structured interviews with data scientists working in different industries, the authors explore how these actors draw on their educational background, work experiences and perception of the contemporary digitalization discourse to craft their occupational identities.

The authors identify three main components of data scientists’ occupational identity: a scientific mindset, an interest in sophisticated forms of data work and a problem-solving attitude. The authors demonstrate how enacting this identity is sometimes challenged through what data scientists perceive as either too low or too high expectations that managers form towards them. To address those expectations, they engage in outward-facing identity work by carrying out educational work within the organization and (paradoxically) stressing both prestigious and non-prestigious parts of their work to “tame” the ambiguity and hype they perceive in managers’ expectations. In addition, they act upon themselves to better appreciate managers’ perspectives and expectations.

This study contributes to research on data scientists as well as the accounting literature that often refers to data scientists as new competitors for accountants. It cautions scholars and practitioners alike to be careful when discussing the possibilities and limitations of data science concerning advancements in accounting and control.

Focusing on the individual unit of analysis, we explore how workplace identification can explain why individuals engage in unethical behavior that benefits an organization (unethical pro-organizational behavior; UPB). Social identity theory (SIT) stipulates that we want membership within high status organizations and, at extreme levels, may put the organization’s needs above all else. In taking a holistic approach to identification, we investigated how a strong occupational identification can mitigate this desire to unethically help an organization; occupations are a separate identity source and contain codes of conduct that guide ethical behavior. Utilizing a sample of 236 accountants and financial professionals, results indicated that organizational identification and occupational identification alone did not significantly predict UPB, however, the interaction of these identities did. More specifically, organizational identification significantly positively predicted UPB only when occupational identification was extremely low in strength. This effect was found after controlling for relevant personality and cognitive mechanisms related to unethical behavior. Implications for a multidimensional identification view of unethical behavior are discussed.

This study explores the role of previous occupational identity in the formation of the (new) teacher identity of vocational teachers. The focus is on how vocational teachers discover their teaching identity, how they describe the connection between their previous occupation and teacher identity and how they describe a competent member of the teaching community.

The theoretical approach is inspired by Communities of Practice (CoP) theory. More specifically, the realignment between socially demanded competence in the profession and personal experience as well as identification with the teaching community are discussed. The research material comes from 14 interviews with vocational teachers in different disciplines.

Findings indicate first that the process of professional identity (trans)formation was initiated by finding one's teaching self when the individuals became aware of their interest in teaching by discovering that they had already achieved some sort of teaching-related competence. Second, individuals had been connecting their professional identities – finding common competence between their previous occupation and the teaching role. Third, vocational teachers experienced legitimising their competence and their new identity with reference to what their new CoP instructed as important competence (regime of competence).

While teachers' vocational competence is not scrutinised, their teaching competence needs to be constantly proved. This imbalance often leads to teachers returning to an aspect of their identity that is well established – their vocational competence. Looking back to their occupational competences constitutes a realignment backwards, when teachers attempt to serve their new professional goal by drawing on old competence.