Summary
Contents
This investigation of the fundamental character of organizational identity and identification with an organization is arranged in the form of a provocative discussion between key scholars. The book focuses on three different paradigmatic views of identity: functionalist, interpretive and postmodern. Similarities and distinctions among these ways of understanding are explored, and numerous theoretical and practical insights are gained. The book concludes with a discussion of the relevance of identity as a construct in organizational study, and observations on conversation and theory building.
To Be or Not to Be?: Central Questions in Organizational Identification
To Be or Not to Be?: Central Questions in Organizational Identification
Naturalism in its most naive manifestation made a blunt distinction between the “individual” and the “environment,” hence leading automatically to the notion that an individual's “identity” is something private, peculiar to himself [or herself]…[Psychologists] discovered accurately enough that identity is not individual, that a man [or woman] “identifies himself [or herself]” with all sorts of manifestations beyond himself [or herself], and they set out to “cure” him [or her] of this tendency It can't be “cured,” for the simple reason that it is normal. … Thus, in America, it is natural for a man [or woman] to identify himself [or herself] with the ...