This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Driver, M. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Encountering the Arugula Leaf: The Failure of the Imaginary and its Implications for Research on Identity in Organizations

Western State College of Colorado, Department of Business, Accounting and Economics, USA, mdriver{at}western.edu

The article reviews research on identity in organizations. It suggests that current research reiterates imaginary constructions of identity by which identity can be defined as coherent or fragmented. Based on a psychoanalytic understanding of subjectivity, it explores how articulating identity as lack may unsettle such imaginary constructions. The article develops the significant implications this has for how identity is conceptualized and researched and, importantly, how the failure of imaginary identity constructions relates to resistance and control in organizations. The article provides new directions for the study of identity in organizations particularly with respect to widening the discursive spaces in which creative identity struggles occur.

Key Words: discourse • identity • Lacan • organizations • psychoanalysis

Organization, Vol. 16, No. 4, 487-504 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1350508409104505


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?