Identity regulation, identity work and phronesis

Dados Bibliográficos

ID9889248
AutoresThibaut Bardon (0000-0001-5242-2668, Audencia Business School, autor correspondente), Adalsteinn D Brown (0000-0002-9233-087X, University of Bath, autor correspondente), Andrew D Brown (0000-0003-0838-2894, University of Bath), Stéphan Pezé (Université Paris-Est, IRG (EA 2354), UPEC, F-94010, Créteil, France, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume70
Fascículo8
Páginas940-965
Data de publicação2017-08-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoHuman Relations (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0018-7267 • E-ISSN: 1741-282X
EditoraSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0018726716680724
OpenAlexW2570954298
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas25
Referências citadas70

How do corporations attempt to regulate the ways middle managers draw on discourses centred on ‘effectiveness’ and ‘ethics’ in their identity work, and how do these individuals respond? We analyse the discursive struggle over what it meant to be a competent manager at Disneyland, where middle managers were encouraged to construe their selves in ways that emphasized ‘being effective’ over ‘being ethical’, and managers responded with identity work that positioned them as searching for the practical wisdom (phronesis) to make decisions that were both effective and moral. The theoretical contribution we make is twofold. First, we analyse processes of identity regulation and identity work at Disneyland, highlighting divergences between corporate injunctions and middle managers’ appropriations of them, regarding what it meant to be a practically wise manager. Second, we discuss a phronetic identity narrative template, contestable both by organizations and managers, in which people are positioned as questing for the practical wisdom to make decisions that are both moral and effective, and phronesis as an image by which scholars may analyse identities and identity work. This leads us to a more nuanced understanding of middle manager identities and the scope they have to constitute their selves as moral agents

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Identity (music · Narrative · Phronesis · Political science · Public relations · Scope (computer science · Sociology · Work (physics · Management and Organizational Studies