Abstract
‘‘[t]hemetaphorofsocialconstructiononcehadexcellentshockvalue,butnowithasbecometired’’ ( Hacking,2000,p. 35).The original call for this special issue on identities andorganizations focused on processes and outcomes, both ofwhich deserve more sustained investigation and offer thepotential to revitalize scholarship pertaining to identitystudies (Ainsworth & Hardy, 2004; Alvesson & Willmott,2002; Cornelissen, Haslam, & Balmer, 2007). A focus onprocesses encourages us to return to the original metaphorunderpinning social construction and such a move is impor-tant for enriching our understanding of identities, organiza-tions and the relationships between them. A focus onoutcomes requires us to think concertedly about the rele-vanceofidentityandourownresearchandscholarship inthearea—whatdifferencedoesitmakeandcoulditmakewithinorganizations? The five papers that appear in this specialissue all provide different insights on these two interrelatedissues and we are delighted to have been asked to commenton them by the special issue guest editors. Combined, thesepapers have prompted us to reflect more critically on thevalue, to the fields of management and organization studies,of social constructionist approaches to studying identity.
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