Identity


SIG Chair
Peter McInnes

The purpose of the SIG is to develop current debates on Identity in organisation studies. Identities can be constructed and realised in various modes in organisations – the individual, the role, the profession, the interest group, the hierarchical group, the organisation and the network - amongst others. People are also identified by their gender, age, presumed and enacted attitudes, behaviours, associated scripts, rituals and symbols. The Identity SIG focuses on furthering the debate on how identities are formed and reformed and exploring the impacts of the social processes through which identity is constructed and used. Research from different areas (such as sociology, psychology, organizational theory and marketing) has something to say on the subject, and we aim to provide an arena in which researchers from different backgrounds could debate and develop understandings of identity. In addition to a multi-disciplinary approach, the outcomes of diverse methodologies are encouraged in the SIG. Research relating to identity is conducted through philosophical inquiry, ethnographic, positivistic, interpretivist and Mode 2/Action research, and the purpose is to facilitate dialogue between researchers operating from within different metholodogies.
 

Objectives

  • Can impact on action by actors in organisational settings,
  • Seeks dialogue between the diverse conceptions of identity,
  • Seeks awareness of, and transparency between, diverse traditions/methods of identity research.
     

Indicative questions informing this area of research include:

  • How is identity defined and understood in organisational settings?
  • How can we better understand and research the notion of the ‘self’?
  • Where divergent identities come into contact with each other, how can we understand the processes of interaction and meaning-making?
  • What impacts do perceptions of the self and other have on identities?
  • What possibilities for action are enabled and constrained through identity processes?
  • How can we better understand issues such as the operation of power, agency and meaning through a lens of identity?
  • How do identity issues impact on change and vice versa?
  • What are the impacts of identity processes on people’s abilities to conceptualise and achieve their aims?
  • What are the issues that arise for managers and other groups from the research of identity processes?
     

Committee members

Chair

Other Committee

  • Sandra Corlett, Northumbria University
  • Christine Coupland, Hull University
  • Daniel Doherty, Bristol University
  • David Sims, Cass Business School, City University
  • Jerry Hallier, University of Stirling