Constructing Identity in and around Organizations

Constructing Identity in and around Organizations is the second volume in Perspectives on Process Organization Studies, a series which explores an emerging approach to the study of organizations that focuses on (understanding) activities, interactions, and change as essential properties of organizations rather than structures and state – an approach which prioritizes activity over product, change over persistence, novelty over continuity, and expression over determination. The constructing of identities – those processes through which actors in and around organizations claim, accept, negotiate, affirm, stabilize, maintain, reproduce, challenge, disrupt, destabilize, repair or otherwise relate to their sense of selves and others – has become a critically important topic in the study of organizations. This volume attempts to amplify – and possibly refract – contemporary debates amongst identity scholars that question established notions of identity as “essence”, “entity,” or “thing”. It calls for alternative approaches to understanding identity and its significance in contexts in and around organizations by conceptualizing it as “process” – that is, being continually under construction. Based in diverse theoretical and philosophical traditions and contexts, contributions by leading scholars to this volume offer new perspectives on how individual and organizational identities evolve and come to be constructed through ongoing activities and interactions.