Narrative, identity and change: a case study of Laskarina Holidays

Andrew D Brown,Paul M Gurney,Michael Humphreys

doi:10.1108/09534810510607029

Andrew D Brown, Paul M Gurney + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1108/09534810510607029

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Abstract

PurposeThis paper aims to contribute to the understanding of organizational identity through an analysis of shared identity narratives at the UK‐based specialist tour operator Laskarina Holidays.Design/methodology/approachPredicated on a view of organizations as linguistic constructs, it is argued that individual and collective identities are narrative accomplishments, and that organizations tend often to be characterised by identity multiplicity.FindingsA case study is presented featuring three distinctive but interwoven collective identity narratives (which are labelled “utilitarian”, “normative” and “hedonic”), and these are contrasted with some “dissonant” voices. It is argued that change in organizations is, at least in part, constituted by alterations in people's understandings, encoded in narratives, and shared in conversations.Originality/valueThe research contribution that this paper makes is twofold. First, it makes an argument for theorizing organizational identities as narratives, constituted within discursive regimes, and continuously changing as they are created and re‐created by all participants. Second, it suggests that the narratological approach to theorizing and researching organizational identities is important because it both assists one's efforts to analyze identities as the outcomes of processes of hegemonic imposition and resistance, and allows one to read polysemy back into ethnographic research.

Highlights

This paper contributes to our understanding and theorization of organizational identities as narrative constructs through an analysis of shared identity stories at a UK-based specialist tour operator (Laskarina Holidays)
We argue that change in organizations is, at least in part, constituted by alterations in peoples’ understandings, encoded in narratives, and shared in conversations
The principal arguments we make are that organizational identities are narrative accomplishments, that organizations may be characterised by multiple identity narratives, and that these narratives variously evolve, compete, overlap, intertwine, distance and often contest each others’ hegemonic reach

Summary

Introduction

This paper contributes to our understanding and theorization of organizational identities as narrative constructs through an analysis of shared identity stories at a UK-based specialist tour operator (Laskarina Holidays). Consonant with the linguistic ‘turn’ in the social sciences, we regard ‘organization’ as a discursive space constituted through language practices, and in particular the telling and re-telling of stories, some fully-drawn, others ‘terse’ or ‘fragmentary’ (Boje 1991; Gabriel 1999). The concept of hegemony has recently attracted considerable attention from scholars interested in how organizations and societies are constituted as regimes of power (Clegg 1989; Gramsci 1971). In this paper we contend that interpretive research, focused on processes of authorship and narrative can assist our efforts to theorise organizational identities both as linguistic constructs and as power effects

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