Roles as Mediators in Identity Work

Abstract

In this article, we aim to revitalize the concept of role for advancing theory on identity work in organizations. Our article makes three contributions. First, we offer a critical review of how roles have been conceptualized in studies on identities, and develop a theoretical frame for understanding how people in organizations engage in transitions within and between roles that emerge and evolve in relational interaction and mediate their identity work. Second, we operationalize this frame in a longitudinal study of an organizational change initiative focusing on strategic rebranding in an industrial firm. We elucidate how roles and identities coevolve over time and how roles and role transitions figure in the organization-based identity work of individuals. Third, we consider the implications of viewing roles as mediators in identity work. We highlight identity-related trade-offs made by individuals when they become associated with particular roles and show how they become disillusioned as organizational change agents.

Identity Work and Organizational Identification

“…Recognition that people are able to deploy contradictory identities in the same social interaction has led to research on the incidence, impact, and management of role identity conflicts, such as those between professional and organization‐based identities (Ashforth et al . ; Järventie‐Thesleff and Tienari ; Simpson and Carroll ). Others have commented on how hybrid (Lok ), hypocritical (Brunsson ), paradoxical (Ahuja et al .…”

Digital technology and changing roles: a management accountant’s dream or nightmare?

“…Fourth, the changes that digital technology contributes to in the roles of management accountants can mediate the identity-work of the individual management accountants (Brown 2015;Goretzki and Messner 2019;Järventie-Thesleff and Tienari 2016). Either as the technology contributes to autonomous and free roles where the management accountant can pursue topics of interest linked to the identity of how the individual management accountant see themselves, akin to a dream come true for the management accountant.…”

“…As the focus of management and organizational research has shifted towards identity in recent decades (Alvesson et al 2008), there has been a revival of research linking and exploring the relationship between roles and identity construction and identity work (Goretzki and Messner 2019;Järventie-Thesleff and Tienari 2016;Simpson and Carroll 2008). Where roles address the expectations of others, identity has been defined as "the meanings that individuals attach reflexively to themselves, which are developed and sustained through processes of social interaction as they seek to address the question 'who am I?'"…”

Rethinking ‘Top‐Down’ and ‘Bottom‐Up’ Roles of Top and Middle Managers in Organizational Change: Implications for Employee Support

“…Our findings suggest that there is value in simultaneously theorizing about the different roles of TMs and MMs and acknowledging how their differences can be configured for synergistic advantage, instead of focusing just on TMs or MMs or even blaming each other for being unenthusiastic (MMs) or unwilling to listen (TMs). As a conceptual lens, our role configurational approach resonates with role based approaches to complex organizational phenomena (e.g., Järventie‐Thesleff and Tienari, ; Matta et al, ; Vandenberghe et al, ) and more specifically, role agency (Floyd and Lane, ; Mantere, ), as well as configurational theorizing (Busenbark et al, ; Meyer et al, ) to develop novel insights that add to understanding the role of different managerial echelons in organizational change.…”