Work-related Identities Research Articles

Undoing Gendered Identities? Centrality and Meanings of Parental and Work Identities in Semi-Traditional, Equal-Sharing and Role-Reversed Couples

This mixed-methods study explored the centrality and meanings of men’s and women’s parental and work-related identities by comparing semi-traditional, equal-sharing, and role-reversed couples. Quantitative analysis involved 2,813 British parents (1,380 men, 1,433 women) who were primary caregivers, primary breadwinners, or equal sharers with at least one child aged 11 or under. Qualitative analysis drew on 60 in-depth interviews with 10 couples from each of the three groups. Results indicated that the centrality of parental and work identities varied by role rather than gender, as both male and female caregivers reported less central work identities and more central parental identities compared to breadwinners and equal-sharers. Equal-sharers and role-reversers were characterized by women’s central work identity and men’s low centrality of work identity. In these couples, a `half and half` parenting ideology underlined the construction of mothering and fathering as equivalent interchangeable identities, each forming only one half of a child’s parenting. Intertwining their maternal identity with an equivalent construction of their partners’ identity allowed women to reconcile a good mother ideal with central work identities, by redefining mothering as a responsibility for only half of the caregiving.

Impact of internal identity asymmetry on employee's behaviors and feelings: A mediating role of psychological distress

Individuals may experience internal identity asymmetry when they feel misidentified and believe their colleagues do not recognize their work-related identities. This research examines the impact of internal identity asymmetry on their behavior and emotional outcomes at the workplace in Pakistan. Data was collected through a survey and received responses from 393 participants at different levels of management in various sectors of Pakistan. A partial least square-based structural equation modeling technique has been used to validate the proposed research model and develop hypotheses. The findings indicate that psychological distress has a positive indirect effect on both outcomes, such as individual work performance and well-being during personal and professional base asymmetries time. The result indicates that employees face psychological distress while experiencing internal identity asymmetries, which may decrease the performance and well-being of the employees. Findings highlight the importance of coping strategies in improving the performance and well-being of employees. Managers can be supportive in maintaining a positive workplace environment where individuals can have a more accurate self-perception and a better understanding of their colleagues' perspectives. This, in turn, enables them to adopt appropriate coping strategies to enhance both performance and well-being.

Parental and work-related identities among primary caregiving and primary breadwinning mothers and fathers

This study draws on identity theory to explore parental and work-related identities by comparing primary caregivers and breadwinners. It examined how the salience and centrality of identities vary by gender and family role, and the relationships between identities and individuals’ involvement in paid work and childcare. A sample of 236 parents with young children completed extensive questionnaires. As hypothesised, primary breadwinners had more salient and central work identities than primary caregivers. However, there was no difference in parental identities, and within each role category, women had more salient and central work identities than men. Finally, the salience and centrality of parents’ work-related identities were positively related to time investment in paid work and negatively related to hours of childcare. These findings shed light on the complex relationships between family roles, gender and identities and emphasise the importance of distinguishing between identity salience and centrality as two components of self-structure.

Political and Social Consequences of Qualification Mismatches: A Bounding Approach to Status Inconsistency

Abstract Many employees work in jobs that do not match their level of formal education. Status inconsistency theory (SIT) argues that such mismatches result in stress, dissatisfaction, political alienation, and social withdrawal. Status inconsistency may, therefore, pose a threat to social cohesion. However, extant SIT scholarship does not fully appreciate the consequences of an identification problem due to the perfect collinearity among the effects of occupation, education, and their mismatch. I review the literature and show that prior findings depend on implicit theoretical assumptions that are often implausible once spelled out. To overcome this problem, I propose a new approach to the study of mismatches that builds on recent advances in the modeling of age, period, and cohort effects. I demonstrate how a set of relatively weak assumptions that are transparently grounded in sociological theory allows for (partial) identification of mismatch effects. The empirical analysis draws on comparable large-scale survey data from the United Kingdom (UKLHS) and Germany (GSOEP), two countries with a very different institutional organization of education to job matching. Compared with previous research, I use theoretically justified identifying assumptions and provide more rigorous evidence by addressing non-random selection into mismatch. Constrained regression models show mismatch effects on work-related identities, satisfaction, and organizational integration. Contra SIT, my results suggest that the effects of mismatches do not arise from cognitive dissonance but from an expectation formation mechanism. I find only weak evidence that mismatch effects spill over into the political domain. Despite large institutional differences, the results are similar across countries.

CULTURALLY PREDISPOSED MOTIVATION THROUGH IDENTITIES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MULTICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

In this paper authors argue the impact of culture on motivational processes through various identities. The paper combines the most recent findings from cultural, identity and motivation theories in order to determine cultural impact on each of the elements of motivational cycle. By analyzing each theory, applicable analogous similarities are compiled to distinguish important factors and determine psychological processes that are relevant for understanding cultural impact on human motivation and behavior. Results derived from compilation are used to create implications for multicultural organizational environment. This paper concludes that among others, culture has substantial impact on individual's motivation and behavior which creates specific psychological and cognitive patterns that serve as guidance in future situations that individual encounters. Such patterns become integrated in individual and applied to various social groups and environment. Furthermore, paper provides implications stressing the importance of implementation of organizational identity, comprehensive and transparent communication and verification of social, work-related and personal identities of employees. This paper has limitations due to its theoretical framework. Since this topic implies broad interdisciplinary research, additional theoretical and empirical contributions are required in order to provide more detailed insight and implications. However, this paper contributes to the existing theories by providing compilation of their common elements from motivational perspective and arguments for stated implications

Enhancing End-User Roles in Information Security: Exploring the Setting, Situation, and Identity

Managing employee behaviors is a continuous quest for management. The quest is even more intense in the information security space, where a seemingly unintentional activity could have a consequential effect on an organization's security. The information security literature has used many theoretical approaches to explain how to regulate employee security behaviors, including protection motivation and deterrence. However, a theoretical approach that has captured the focus in organizational literature for behavioral regulation and yet to be realized in the information security domain is work-related identities. Work-related identity regulation depends on settings and situations in which the individual is embedded. This study draws from the identity theory and information security literature to explore how factors in the information security setting (security threats, security policy, and organizational support) help foment work-related information security identity and security behaviors. Our findings show that these factors significantly increase the user's identification in their roles in information security, and in turn, security behaviors. This research has implications for research and practice.

Work Identity Pause and Reactivation: A Study of Cross-Domain Identity Transitions of Trailing Wives in Dubai

This study takes a cross-domain identity transition perspective to explore the development of work-related identities by trailing wives in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Biographical-narrative interviews with 28 expatriate wives were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. The findings indicated that these women approached their cross-domain identity transition sequentially through a process of work identity pause and reactivation. Gendered family demands and contextual constraints led them to temporarily pause their work identity while adjusting to non-work domain changes. The reactivation of the work identity domain prompted them to redevelop a work identity aligned to their new reality. Four manifestations of identity redevelopment status emerged: hobbyists, adaptors, explorers and re-inventors. For some women, their emerging work identity was just a way to escape the ‘expat wife’ stigma, for others it was an opportunity to develop a new career. This article introduces the concepts of identity pause and reactivation.

Constructing a positive identity as a disabled worker through social comparison: The role of stigma and disability characteristics

Drawing on 36 semi-structured in-depth interviews with individuals with a variety of disabilities who are active in the labor force, we examine how such individuals construct positive work-related identities at work. The findings show how disabled workers use downward social comparison as a stigma identity management strategy, to compare themselves with individuals with disabilities that they perceive to be more stigmatizing, and how this affects their ability to construct a positive work-related identity. This perception of stigma is influenced by four disability characteristics: its visibility, severity, controllability and whether the disability needs workplace adaptations. Moreover, a range of contextual factors were identified to impact their capacity to construct a positive work-related identity. The disabled workers in this study tend to compare themselves with other disabled workers with disabilities that are more severe, more visible, less controllable and present more constraints for employers. Interestingly, they use the characteristics of one's disability as resources to construct a positive work-related identity, while those characteristics simultaneously stigmatize them as a social group. However, disabled individuals who cannot engage in downward social comparison are put in a marginalized position and struggle to construct positive social identities.

The Intra-Action of Employees and Materiality in the Constitution of Work-Related Identity

Applying a sociomaterial view to the material and human agency in doing work, this study explores the interdependent role of material arrangements and people doing knowledge-work. Using a Nordic university organization as an example, the study specifically highlights how material-physical environment and its affordances, including spaces of work as well as “high technology” such as electronics and “low technology” such as furniture – gain agency and become significant in terms of work-related identity. We introduce three modes of work: cognitive-, embodied-, and emotional work, which describe cognitive, bodily, and emotional actions that are entangled in the expressions of knowledge workers’ work-related identities. Focusing on identity as an achievement in agentive “intra-action” between the human and the material, the article contributes to the research on the effects of material arrangements and technology in the activities that knowledge-work in a digitalized workplace in particular consists of. Keywords: work-related identity, sociomateriality, material agency

The Social Dynamics of Social Identity Transitions

The purpose of this symposium is to explore the social dynamics of social identity transitions. To this end, the symposium will include the presentation of four papers which illustrate how social mobility (Martin and Beetz), shifts in social expectations (Knowlton), and observer judgement (Levitt, Murphy, and Pratt) influence people’s work- related social identity transitions. Research on people’s efforts to revise, repair, reconstruct, reinforce, or navigate work-related identities, known as “identity work” (Brown, 2015), has typically focused on situations in which individuals move across static role/job boundaries, such as from one professional role into another (e.g. Pratt, Rockmann, and Kaufmann, 2006), or how individuals manage static occupations that, by their nature, induce intrapsychic tension regarding identity (e.g. Kreiner, Hollensbe, & Sheep, 2006). Social identity transitions can be highly socially dynamic, however, with people often engaging in identity work due to changes in other individuals, institutions, and/or broad social forces (Brown, 2015; Petriglieri, 2011; Petriglieri et al., 2019). In a world that is ever more socially connected, interdependent, and transparent, the potential for social actors or forces to spur individual-level identity work by affecting a social group’s boundaries or meaning is high. By featuring work that provides insight into the social dynamics of social identity transitions, this symposium draws attention to a topic that is key to understanding the inner experiences of much of the present and future workforce. Social Class Transition and Employee Voice Presenter: Sean Martin; U. of Virginia Cashing in or Selling Out? Identity Co-Optation and Authenticity in Craft Industries Presenter: Keith Norman Leavitt; Oregon State U. Presenter: Chad Benjamin Murphy; Oregon State U. Who Can Be an Entrepreneur? Entrepreneurial Support Organizations & Entrepreneur Identity Presenter: Karren Kimberly Knowlton; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Presenter: Banu Ozkazanc-Pan; Brown U. Presenter: Susan Clark Muntean; U. of North Carolina, Asheville My Class has Changed but My Upbringing Has Not: Identity Navigation & Upward Class Mobility Presenter: Arianna M. Beetz; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania

Who Am I? Who Are We? Exploring the Factors That Contribute to Work-Related Identities in Policing

AbstractUsing social identity theory, this study examines the conditions under which police officers become attached (or not) to their organization and to their work, and whether one’s sex influences these relationships. Through an analysis of secondary survey data collected from a large Canadian police organization, the study found that fair treatment and psychological safety were significantly related to officers’ identification with their organization, and in turn, their work. The findings also demonstrated that when officers perceived their workplace as a masculinity contest, they were less likely to identify with their organization. Additionally, perceptions of a masculinity contest were associated with a greater likelihood that officers reported lower levels of psychological safety, and this effect was more significant for female officers. While women overall were no less likely than men to be attached to their organization or their occupational role, women who perceived their workplace as psychologically less safe reported lower levels of identification. The study also found that race and level within the organization may have a greater effect than sex on work-related identification. Overall, the study makes a significant contribution to the nascent literature on work-related identification and policing, as well as to the body of research on women in policing.

Women leadership and their experience of internal identity asymmetry at workplace

Individuals at the workplace have a lasting interest in how others perceive them and a core desire for others to assert and verify their salient work-related identities. Internal identity asymmetry is encountered when an individual feels misidentified; when they think their work-related identities are not recognized by their peers. This article based on previous literature about women leadership and their experience of Internal Identity at the workplace. Although there is no concrete theory to explain this concept accordingly in this article, we attempt to investigate the concept of internal identity asymmetry with related theories combined. Subsequently, we addressed how women get misidentified and deduce the consequences of experiences of Internal Identity Asymmetry at the workplace. The current study is a conceptual paper and therefore, contributes freshness to this existing literature by integrating the concept of internal Identity asymmetry and women leadership thus, the model can be empirically tested in future research.

Employee Civic-Employee Identity Relationships and Positive Change Behavior in the Workplace

Recent organizational studies have highlighted the importance of multiple identities. Although most studies have focused on work-related identities (e.g., organizational, professional), fundamental...

The Social/Personal Identity Dichotomy Revisited: A Critical Conceptual Review

Scholars have classified the multiple identities individuals hold in a variety of ways (e.g., positive/negative, work/non-work, visible/invisible). One especially common and enduring approach to classifying identities within (and beyond) the field of organizational behavior is the social/personal identity dichotomy, which distinguishes between social identities on the one hand, and personal identities on the other. While there has been much discussion about the conceptual basis of this dichotomy in social psychology, understandings of it in organizational behavior have yet to be substantively shifted by this dialogue. This article aims to rectify this state of affairs, and thereby deepen understanding of the social/personal identity dichotomy and its conceptual strengths and limitations amongst organizational behavior scholars, in three ways. First, by outlining the view of the social/personal dichotomy that currently predominates in organizational behavior, and tracing the origins of this particular version of the dichotomy in early work within the social identity approach. Second, by critically evaluating two extant conceptual approaches (content-based and function-based) to the social/personal identity dichotomy in social psychology, and finally, by drawing on this critical evaluation to comment on the role of the social/personal identity dichotomy in future research on work-related identities.

Conflict, Resistance and the Symbolic Meaning of Space – Activity Based Work and Possibilities to Express Work-related Identities in Everyday Working Life

The article focuses on a current trend in office design: Activity Based Work (ABW). This is an office solution that instead of providing employees with designated places, it provides them with a variety of spaces in the office that offer different functionalities. A case study is presented of the ongoing effort of a multinational technology company in the software industry to implement ABW at a local site in Sweden. Based on an analysis of the individual and focus group interviews of company employees, the article argues that the non-territorial foundation of ABW is seen as a threat to the work-related identity among certain groups within the company. The findings presented comprise specific insights into how the material aspects of organizational life interact with social identity construction.

Dealing with multiple incompatible work-related identities: the case of artists

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine how artists deal with having multiple potentially incompatible work-related identities as a result of a career transition from making a living exclusively as artists to taking on additional work outside the creative industries.Design/methodology/approachIn all, 40 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted by telephone with artists in the Netherlands. A grounded theory approach was used to analyze the findings.FindingsFour different strategies for dealing with multiple potentially incompatible identities were identified: integration, accumulation, separation and dis-identification. The findings suggest that the informal social context, the support of rejection of important others, influenced the strategy adopted by the artists. Invalidation from the environment often leads to stress and separation or dis-identification strategies, while validation seems to lead to integration and accumulation strategies that are less psychologically straining.Practical implicationsThe findings stress the importance of the external environment. While the workers had to deal with their own psychological stress and regret about not succeeding at working exclusively as artists, they also had to create a feasible story that allowed them to “sell” their transition to others.Originality/valueCareers are becoming increasingly non-linear, and the number of workers who need to juggle multiple (potentially conflicting) work-related identities is rising. However, how workers deal with this has received only limited attention from researchers.

Exploring the Personal Philosophies of Volunteerism among Professors at a Malaysian Research University

Many argue that the changing nature of research universities globally is making the academic profession demanding. Academics are expected to do more, produce more, and ‘justify their existence’ at their respective universities often in the form of outcomes-based performance measures that are historically foreign to the academic profession. At the same time, they may have to engage in volunteerism outside the academy. Despite much existing research on volunteerism within the context of higher education, a few studies have been conducted on volunteerism among senior academics in non-Western countries, in an attempt to understand how academics balance these pluralistic roles and responsibilities, and the personal philosophy behind their ongoing engagement in volunteerism. To address this gap, this study explored the personal volunteerism philosophies of university professors from a leading research university in Malaysia. Using a purposeful sampling approach, the authors conducted in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews with seven professors from different academic departments who have regular engagement in volunteering activities beyond their internal academic obligations. Interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. From the analysis, three factors were found to contribute to the formulation of the personal philosophies about volunteerism. These were: (a) individual orientation and exposure; (b) religious beliefs; and (c) work related identities. Volunteerism was found to foster recognition for academics in their related field of expertise. The study concludes with suggestions for enhancing the volunteerism experiences of academics and implications for future research.

Stability of Repeated Work-Related Life Stories

The issue of stability of the narrative self, meaning to what extent an individual's story about a certain stretch of life stays the same over time, was examined by comparing working life stories concerning the same period but narrated 10 years apart. Twenty middle-aged individuals were interviewed in 1999 and in 2009. The analysis of the interview data was based on the parallel use of narrative analysis and the analysis of cultural distinctions. The results indicate that the core of the work-related narrative identities that were expressed in the first interviews also emerged in the second interviews. In our view, this lends support to the idea that people have a stable way of making sense of their past—that is, a continuous “inner narrative.”

Reconstrucciones de la identidad laboral en contextos organizacionales invivibles

Las transformaciones en el mundo laboral están produciendo una crisis de las identidades vinculadas con el trabajo, en la medida en que las condiciones en que se produce desincentivan la inversión identitaria en unos referentes cada vez más inseguros, inestables, al tiempo que más demandantes en términos cuantitativos y cualitativos. La dificultad para la vinculación positiva con las identidades laborales está detrás de la preocupación de las grandes compañías por la implicación o el compromiso organizacionales, en tanto se convierte en un problema para las empresas, que cada vez más basan su control en mecanismos que involucran la voluntad subjetiva, al tiempo que cada vez ofrecen menos razones para involucrarse decididamente. Ante esta situación, los sujetos trabajadores expresan este cierto alejamiento subjetivo del trabajo y la organización de formas diversas, desde la aceptación de las demandas organizacionales, a veces con sinceridad, otras con ironía, hasta la desimplicación subjetiva más o menos oculta, pasando lógicamente por el abandono de la propia organización para buscar un empleo en otra. El objetivo de este trabajo será analizar en profundidad las respuestas, en términos de agencia, de los trabajadores a las condiciones en que desempeñan sus tareas, prestando especialmente atención a las salidas voluntarias de las organizaciones, que son quizá las que representen mejor el malestar que las nuevas formas de regulación de la subjetividad están creando. Para tal análisis se recurrirá a entrevistas que han formado parte de distintas investigaciones.

Work-Related Identity of Clinical Research Sector Employees in Poland Against Professional Transformation of the Industry

Purpose: Established professions and knowledge workers identify more with their professional groups than with their organisations. The purpose of the study was to find what kind of work-related identities are shown by clinical research sector employees in Poland, what is the intensity of those identities and which one is dominant. Methodology: The study started with qualitative interviews dedicated to professional changes and to work-related identity. The latter was selected for the main quantitative part of the study and its five types were defined related to the trained profession, the practised profession, organizational, relational and task-related work identities. Intensity of these pre-defined identities was tested with a use of a questionnaire completed by 147 representatives of the sector under study. Statistical analysis of the collected data verified the research hypotheses that assumed a certain gradation of these work-related identities. Results: Professional identity related to the practised occupation was placed on the highest level followed by task-related identity. Relational and organisational identities were classified on the third and fourth levels. Identity related to the trained occupation achieved the lowest score. The employing organization type had no effect on the manifested professional identity. Originality value: As a developing new occupation, the study group itself was an interesting population for studying work-related identity. Combining the qualitative and quantitative methods enabled evaluation of the results against the professional changes shaping the sector, which can have an impact on building the work-related identity of its employees.