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

Abstract

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, while 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.

Embracing Indeterminacy: On Being a Liminal Professional

“…Nevertheless, it is important to note that this identity process also potentially perpetuates the conditions it is responding to, as it does not question the liminal position in any way. Liminality as a discursive resource therefore allows the individual to construct a sense of a coherent self but because identity work and identity regulation operate together, it still reproduces the wider discursive regime (Ahuja, Heizmann and Clegg, 2018), thus indicating the 'importance of individual reflexivity' (Kuhn et al, 2008: 168) in this context.…”

“…Firstly, the research uses the concept of liminality to highlight how it serves as a discursive resource to construct an identity in a more amorphous professional environment. Discursive resources are prevailing norms of understanding, concepts and ideas that individuals draw on in the crafting and understanding of their selves (Ahuja, Heizmann and Clegg, 2018;Clarke, Brown and Hope Hailey, 2009;Kornberger and Brown, 2007;Kuhn et al, 2008). Discursive resources inform, therefore, an individual's 'identity work' (Watson, 2008).…”

Professional identity and anxiety in architect-client interactions

“…Design teaching in architecture schools tends to focus on theory and individual creativity unfettered by client demands (RIBA, 2015). Although Cohen et al (2005) suggest that architects identify with three entangled roles, those of creative person, business person and humanitarian, stereotypical notions of the architect as a creative and passionate genius (Heynen, 2012) permeate the expectations of junior architects (Ahuja et al, 2019). As such, the ethos of design as distinctive self-expression is highly disciplined and 'internalized in the professional socialization of many architects' (Brown et al, 2010: 530).…”

“…Professionals' identity construction has been conceptualized as an ongoing struggle (Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003;Ahuja et al, 2017) that may have unintended consequences, posing salient issues for construction management research. Ahuja et al (2019), for example, found that for junior architects employed in PSFs, identity work may lead to a sense of disillusionment and the constitution of a dejected professional identity.…”

Managing menopause at work: The contradictory nature of identity talk

“…Empirical studies of discursive identity formation and exploration generally posit identity talk as that which is positive, used to present the self in a positive light in relation to what is appropriate, desirable, or valued within the world of work (Riach & Loretto, 2009; Schein, 1975) and to emphasize distinction or favorable aspects of worker identity (Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003). Indeed, identity work itself is posited as a coping mechanism (Ahuja, Heizmann, & Clegg, 2019). Few studies have identified negative identity talk, and those that do, present it as a strategy of tactical self‐deprecation through conflicting organizational discourses (Down & Reveley, 2009), or self‐alienation as a mechanism to reconcile a negotiation between putative “real selves” (Costas & Fleming, 2009) or to preserve the integrity of self through separation of self and other (Clarke, Brown, & Hailey, 2009).…”