Abstract
Research on green identity work has so far concentrated on sustainability managers and/or top-management actors. How lower-level green employees cope with identity tensions at work is, as yet, under-researched. The paper uses an identity work perspective and a qualitative empirical study to identify four strategies that lower-level employees use in negotiating and enacting their green identities at work. Contrary to expectations, lower-level green employees engage substantially in job crafting as a form of identity work despite their limited discretion. In addition, the study demonstrates that lower-level green employees make use of identity work strategies that uphold rather than diminish perceived misalignment between their green identities and their job context.
Highlights
Employees at lower levels in the corporate hierarchy have been recognized for playing a potentially pivotal role for the sustainable development of organizations [1]
Extending the identity work perspective on green identity misalignment to lower hierarchical levels, this paper addresses the following question: How do lower-level green employees cope with identity misalignment at work? We aim to contribute to the literature on green identity in three ways: First, we provide a typology of green identity work strategies of lower-level employees, a group of organizational actors as yet under-researched
The findings from our study contribute to the literature on identity tensions in two ways: First, we extend the research on identity work by identifying strategies employed by lower-level green employees
Summary
Employees at lower levels in the corporate hierarchy have been recognized for playing a potentially pivotal role for the sustainable development of organizations [1]. Research in the environmental psychology field provides some insights on the role of identity as an antecedent in spillover processes between green consumption at home and at work [9,10,11,12], but conceptualizes green identity largely as a fixed, essentialist construct. Authors in organization studies focus on the processes involved in constructing and maintaining one’s green identity with regard to competing or contradictory demands and discourses prevalent in the actor’s workplace context. Identity work strategies help actors cope with tensions between their self-identity as “green” and their workplace context. Whereas identity work strategies concern the narrative self-concept of green employees, job crafting relates to how actors see and constitute their job tasks. Incoherence, or asymmetry are considered to impede individual well-being and the experience of positive meaning at work [17,18,19,20,21,22]
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