A two-year stretch: the functions of an identity workspace in mid-career identity work by management academics

Haynes, Kathryn; Grugulis, Irena; Spring, Martin; Blackmon, Kate; Battisti, Giuliana; Ng, Irene

Abstract

This paper examines the way in which identity workspaces function to facilitate and stimulate transitions at mid-career. We explore our collective experience as a cohort of a mid-career management academics participating in a two-year fellowship programme, which acted as an identity workspace in which mid-career identity work took place. Using insights from our narratives, interviews and experiences, we demonstrate how the fellowship provided rites of passage, experimentation and social defences, and we analyze our identity work, in relation to mid-career development, disciplinary orientation and relationships with existing institutions. We conceptualise the identity workspace as a liminal zone in which to experiment with provisional selves, finding that identity workspaces function through alterity as well as identity, and at a communal as well as individual level. The paper draws out the challenges for the academic community to facilitate mid-career identity work experienced in this identity workspace within existing institutions.

Citation

Haynes, K., Grugulis, I., Spring, M., Blackmon, K., Battisti, G., & Ng, I. (2014). A two-year stretch: the functions of an identity workspace in mid-career identity work by management academics. Journal of Management Inquiry, 23(4), 379-392. https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492614521692

• Acceptance Date: Jan 1, 2014
• Online Publication Date: Feb 24, 2014
• Publication Date: 2014-10
• Deposit Date: Feb 25, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Feb 25, 2016
• Journal: Journal of management inquiry
• Print ISSN: 1056-4926
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 23
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 379-392
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1056492614521692
• Keywords: Identity; Career; Academia; Identity work; Identity workspace; Third place; Liminality; Reputation; Service industries; Socialization/orienting new employees
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/411485
• Publisher URL: http://jmi.sagepub.com/content/23/4/379.abstract
• Additional Information: This is an authors accepted manuscript version of an article published in Journal of management inquiry, 2014, v.23 issue 4.
• Contract Date: Feb 25, 2016