scholarly journals “That is Not What I Live For”: How Lower-Level Green Employees Cope with Identity Tensions at Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 5778
Author(s):  
Susanne Blazejewski ◽  
Franziska Dittmer ◽  
Anke Buhl ◽  
Andrea Simone Barth ◽  
Carsten Herbes
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Job Crafting ◽  
Top Management ◽  
Work Strategies ◽  
Job Context

Research on green identity work has so far concentrated on sustainability managers and/or top-management actors. How lower-level green employees cope with identity tensions at work is, as yet, under-researched. The paper uses an identity work perspective and a qualitative empirical study to identify four strategies that lower-level employees use in negotiating and enacting their green identities at work. Contrary to expectations, lower-level green employees engage substantially in job crafting as a form of identity work despite their limited discretion. In addition, the study demonstrates that lower-level green employees make use of identity work strategies that uphold rather than diminish perceived misalignment between their green identities and their job context.

scholarly journals Emotions and identity work: Emotions as discursive resources in the constitution of junior professionals’ identities

2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (5) ◽  
pp. 988-1009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sumati Ahuja ◽  
Helena Heizmann ◽  
Stewart Clegg
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Professional Service ◽  
Service Firms ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
Professional Service Firms ◽  
Professional Careers ◽  
Work Strategies ◽  
Work First ◽  
Discursive Resources

For junior professionals, notions of professional identity established during their education are often called into question in the early stages of their professional careers. The workplace gives rise to identity challenges that manifest in significant emotional struggles. However, although extant literature highlights how emotions trigger and accompany identity work, the constitutive role of emotions in identity work is under-researched. In this article, we analyse how junior professionals mobilize emotions as discursive resources for identity work. Drawing on an empirical study of junior architects employed in professional service firms, we examine how professional identities, imbued with varying forms of discipline and agency, are discursively represented. The study makes two contributions to the literature on emotions and identity work. First, we identify three key identity work strategies ( idealizing, reframing and distancing) that are bound up in junior architects’ emotion talk. We suggest that these strategies act simultaneously as a coping mechanism and as a disciplinary force in junior architects’ efforts to constitute themselves as professionals. Second, we argue that identity work may not always lead to the accomplishment of a positive sense of self but can express a sense of disillusionment that leads to the constitution of dejected professional identities.

An Empirical Study on the Effects of Job Crafting on Job Involvement and Turnover Intention

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-197
Author(s):  
Dong Tiantian ◽  
Wen Jun ◽  
Kang Mingzhu ◽  
He Lin
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Study ◽  
Turnover Intention ◽  
Job Involvement ◽  
Job Crafting

On humour in prison

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 500-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malene Molding Nielsen
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Job Crafting ◽  
Conflict Avoidance ◽  
Social Spaces ◽  
Prison Life ◽  
Structure Interaction ◽  
Communication Device ◽  
Sense Of Power

This paper unravels the presence of humour in prison as an institutionalized aspect of prison life. The analysis shows how officers use humour to manage their relationships with prisoners and other staff, and how they make use of humour to establish a collective understanding of the officer job, crafting themselves as a group. The humorous exchanges between officers, prisoners and other staff facilitate social spaces where officers briefly meet prisoners as equals, and where staff articulate hostility towards one another. These social spaces exist as briefly as the humorous exchanges, but the implications are real. The officer–prisoner joking relationship fosters conflict avoidance, smooth daily interactions, service provision for prisoners and transgression of officer norms for camaraderie. In contrast, the staff–staff joking relationship grants officers a sense of power vis-à-vis other staff and an opportunity to articulate hostility where staff solidarity is required. As a communication device with ambiguous qualities, humour unites the real and the unreal, shapes social structure, interaction and positioning and is suitable for identity work in prison.

scholarly journals Understanding the Spread of Sustained Employee Volunteering: How Volunteers Influence Their Coworkers’ Moral Identity Work

2021 ◽  
pp. 014920632110508
Author(s):  
Michael J. Gill
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Model ◽  
Empirical Study ◽  
Social Influence ◽  
Moral Identity ◽  
Social Influences ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Moral Self ◽  
Moral Exemplars ◽  
Employee Volunteering

Employee volunteering has become a common phenomenon in many organizations. However, it is unclear how sustained volunteering spreads between colleagues. Drawing on an empirical study set in the English legal profession, this study examines the processes through which existing employee volunteers influence their coworkers to internalize a volunteer identity. The study yields a theoretical model that specifies how coworkers may identify existing volunteers as moral exemplars. Five forms of social influence emanate, often unknowingly, from these exemplars: encouraging, evoking, edifying, enacting, and exemplifying. These forms of social influence inform coworkers’ microprocess of moral identity work through which they claim a volunteer identity. This study thereby shifts attention from the well-theorized outcomes of moral identities to the largely unexamined social influences on moral identities in the workplace, enriching our understanding of the development of the moral self that is foundational to theories of volunteering and identity.

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