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Managing Identity: Identity Work, Personal Predicaments and Structural Circumstances

University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK, tony.watson{at}nottingham.ac.uk

Social science research can play a valuable role in enabling people to understand how their personal predicaments relate to the broader structures and historical circumstances in which they arise. This was argued by Wright Mills (1970, originally 1959) with his concept of the sociological imagination, a notion of considerable relevance to the identity issues which arise in relation to organizational involvement. Using a rare combination of ethnographic, autobiographical and interview research material, a close examination is made of two managers' identity work and the part played in this by their involvement in one specific organization in particular structural and historical circumstances. In the course of carrying out this study the concept of `identity work' has been developed and refined. This incorporates a clear analytical distinction between internal personal `self-identities' and external discursive `social-identities' with social-identities being seen as a link or bridge between socially available discourses and self-identities. `Managerial identities' take their place among the multiplicity of social-identities to which any particular manager may relate in both their `inward facing' and their `outward facing' identity work.

Key Words: case-study • ethnography • identity work • managerial identity • self-identity • social-identity • sociological imagination

Organization, Vol. 15, No. 1, 121-143 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1350508407084488


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