Could a Subaltern Manage? Identity Work and Habitus in a Colonial Workplace

Abstract

How did historically marginalized groups learn to become professional managers? This paper studies the identity work of a manager in a colonial work setting, focusing specifically on the aspirational quality of professional identity, and on the forms of subordination enmeshed in organizational work, through a close reading of an autobiography. Beyond Punjab describes the career of Prakash Tandon in the multinational Lever Brothers India. He eventually became its first Indian Chief Executive and a respected public figure. Studies of such colonial work settings can seem indebted to existing research within postcolonial studies in management. But I argue that the dominant attention of postcolonial studies in management has not been on identity work and practices, but the historical enduring force of representations. Therefore this paper offers a complementary engagement, developing Bourdieu's concept of the habitus for a fuller understanding of how managerial identity was constituted in colonial work settings. Implications for contemporary organizations and professional identity in postcolonial societies such as India are discussed.

The Impact of Emotionally Important Social Identities on the Construction of a Managerial Leader Identity: A Challenge for Nurses in the English National Health Service

“…These findings build on the work of Srinivas (2013), who considered a subordinate individual confronted with similar emotional issues of identity conflict, moving into a middle management position requiring identity transition. Like us, he suggested negative emotions arose due to the incongruence between an emotionally important social identity (as an Indian man) and a managerial leadership identity (which required him to conform to a more Colonial, British identity).…”

“…Eschewing an emotional attachment to the social group will undermine the ability of middle managers to influence those within the group, negatively influencing their ability to lead (Tee et al, 2013). The individual discussed by Srinivas (2013) was not attempting to influence others from his emotionally important social group. Similarly, the five nurse managers in this paper, who had moved into the general management structure, were no longer attempting to influence nurses, but were now leaders within the wider organization.…”

“…Whilst existing work has assumed that individuals accommodate desired leader and group identities, we considered a case of nurse managers, who have not traditionally been seen as leaders. In doing so, we have addressed calls for greater exploration of the identity work used by low status groups when constructing leader identities, triggering negative emotional responses (Srinivas, 2013).…”

“…To address these questions we consider nurses, a group traditionally viewed as subordinate followers, rather than leaders (Abbott, 1988;Allen, 1997), responding to calls for further research into the identity work engaged in by subordinate groups moving into managerially-defined leadership roles (Srinivas, 2013).…”

Englishization in offshore call centers: A postcolonial perspective

“…In so doing, we add to recent efforts to address the over-emphasis placed by postcolonial studies on text and representation at the expense of lived experience and political economy (e.g. Jack et al, 2011;Srinivas, 2013).…”