Inside Out? Organizational Membership, Ambiguity and the Ambivalent Identity of the Internal Consultant

Abstract

Changes in organizational structure, roles and technologies have led to an increasing appreciation of the complexities of organizational membership. While a growing literature has focused on this issue with regard to precarious and marginal employees, this paper explores how senior and middle managers in ambiguous roles make sense of their work identity and organizational membership. Based on extensive interviews with human resource and organizational development managers operating as ‘internal consultants’, it is argued that managers in such ambiguous roles seek to develop a preferred identity which balances both organizationally distinctive and inclusive elements. While potentially conflicting, this ambivalent position can also be a source of strength and differentiation, involving claims to structural autonomy and specialist expertise, aligned to an intimate understanding of organizational politics and personalities. Through analysis of the interview data, the paper highlights the boundary dimensions around which managers in internal consulting roles develop such an ambivalent organizational identification, the ways in which distinctive and inclusive aspects of identity are rationalized, and the constraints upon the achievement of a preferred identity as an internal consultant.