Understanding Identity and Organizations

Andrea Whittle (BSc(Hons), PhD) is Professor of Management and Organization Studies at Newcastle University Business School. Before joining Newcastle University in 2013, she held a Chair in Organization Studies at Cardiff University. Andrea holds a first class honours degree in Natural Science from Durham University and gained her PhD in Sociology from Brunel University at the Centre for Research into Innovation, Culture and Technology (CRICT). After an ESRC funded post-doctoral research fellowship at Said Business School, University of Oxford, Andrea joined Cardiff University in 2004.

Her research is driven by a passion for understanding the role of language in management settings and is informed by theories and methodologies from the fields of discourse analysis, narrative, discursive psychology, ethnography, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. She has conducted research on management consultants, identity, branding, organizational change, technology and strategy. Her research has been published in leading journals, including Organization Studies, Human Relations, Management Communication Quarterly and Organization. She has also co-authored a SAGE textbook, with Kate Kenny and Hugh Willmott (2011) Understanding Identity and Organizations.

An understanding of identity is fundamental to a complete understanding of organizational life. While conventional management textbooks nod to in-groups, cohesion and discrimination, this text offers instead a deeper, more nuanced understanding of why people, groups and organizations behave the way they do.

With conceptions of identity perhaps less stable than they have ever been, the authors make complex theoretical issues accessible to the reader through the use of lively examples from popular culture. The authors present an overview of the key issues, as well as an examination of cutting-edge research and topical forces currently re-defining identity, such as globalisation, the fair trade movement and online identities.

This text is a succinct, relevant and exciting overview of the field of identity studies as it relates to business and management and applied social sciences, an is an invaluable resource to undergraduate and postgraduate students of management on any course that has an identity component.

A succinct, relevant and exciting overview of the field of identity studies as it relates to business and management and applied social sciences

Introduction to Understanding Identity
Introduction
Identity vs Personality
Identity on the Management Agenda: A Brief History
How Do Individual and Organizational Identities Interact?
Introducing the Book
Suggested Reading
Theoretical Perspectives on Identity
Introduction
Social Identity Theory (SIT)
Psychoanalysis
Foucauldian Perspective
Symbolic Interactionism
Narrative Approaches
Micro-Interactional Approaches
Application Exercise - The Case of Frances
Conclusion
Suggested Reading
Sample Exam/Assignment Questions
Diversity and Identity
Introduction
Identity as a Social Category
Identity as a Process of Social Construction
Conclusion
Suggested Reading
Sample Exam/Assignment Questions
Occupational Identities
Introduction
The Meaning of Work
Occupational Cultures and Boundaries
Managerial Identities
Professional Identities
The Dirty, the Deviant and the Degrading
Unpaid Work and Unemployment
When I Grow Up I Want To Be ...
Conclusion
Suggested Reading
Sample Exam/Assignment Questions
Identity and Organizational Control
Overview and Introduction
Bringing Identity to Work
Managing Culture
Managing Identities
Identification and Dis-identification
Conclusion
Suggested Reading
Sample Exam/Assignment Questions
Organizational Identity
Introduction
Organizational Identity: What Is It and Why Does It Matter?
Organizational Identity - Properties or Beliefs?
Types of Organizational Identity
Power in (and of) Organizational Identity
Conclusion
Suggested Reading
Sample Exam/Assignment Questions
Virtual Identity
Overview and Introduction
Competing Perspectives: Technological Determinism and Social Constructionism
New Connections and Identity: Online Communities
Virtual Identity, Power and Control
Teleworking and Identity
Conclusion
Suggested Reading
Sample Exam/Assignment Questions
The Future of Identity
Introduction
Strong Attachments and Totalizing Workplaces?
Weak Attachments and the 'Flexible' Firm
New Public Management
Identity and the Global, Virtual Firm
The Future of Diversity
Conclusion
Suggested Reading
Glossary of Terms