Identity

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.