Identity school

Question 1

WRI:

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 1

Work Related Identity

aspects of identity and self-definition that are tied to participation in the activities of work, or membership in work-related groups, organizations, occupations or professions.

Question 2

Liminality

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 2

betwixt and between conditions. Periods in which there is “absence of a self-defining connection” to the social domain. The liminal period is defined by the dynamic process of self-construal, a time in which the sense of “who I was” gives way to a sense of “who I am becoming.”

Question 3

Identity instability:

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 3

they are cognitively and emotionally consumed by the loss, stagnating in their inability to let go of the old self and/or to embrace the new and changed work self. More desired is the creation of identity development.

Question 4

Liminality has three phases:

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 4

• Separation: detachment of the old sense of self. Dissociate and construct.
• Transition: resolving ambiguity inherent to this indeterminate state. Identity sense-making. Provisional selves are created, tested (against internal and external standards), discarded, and revised as individuals move through career transitions.
• Reincorporation: established a sense of self- growth.

Question 5

Grief provides insights into how one lets go of the past and moves forward in a changing world. Loss is a dynamic process of loss orientation and restoration orientation coping in which individuals move fluidly between these two planes:

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 5

1. As individual in loss orientation is cognitively and emotionally consumed with “who I am” in relation to the loss itself, whereas understanding “who I am in a post-loss world” dominates in restoration orientation
2. It is the dynamic interplay between these two orientations, not a staged identity transition, that defines the identity development process.

Question 6

Loss related emotion

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 6

loss of self will be accompanied by emotion. These need to be calmed. The more a WRI loss event increases the distance between current and desires, the stronger the loss-related emotion will be.

Question 7

Narrative development

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 7

sensemaking tools to explain change. Stories that individuals create to construct the meaning of self.

Question 8

In loss orientation, individuals seek to build a valid loss-related identity narrative. Individuals are determining the story of the lost self they can live with and into. This is important because:

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 8

• Loss narratives can settle negative emotions to move forward.
• The past self in important to the construction of future selves as individuals try to create continuity across life stories.

Question 9

A promotion-focused system (Ideal self-dejection emotions)
vs
A prevention-focused (Ought self-agitation emotions)

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 9

A promotion-focused system (Ideal self-dejection emotions) engages approach-oriented strategies around positive outcomes to fulfill growth and development needs.

A prevention-focused (Ought self-agitation emotions) system engages avoidance-oriented strategies around negative outcomes to fulfill protection and safety needs.

Question 10

Uncomplicated progression:

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 10

• restoration of identity with a validated loss orientation narrative and calmed loss related emotions. They will focus on development of a restoration narrative, identifying possible selves. Easy stability.

Question 11

Progression with emotion residue:

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 11

• could happen when forced to move forward. Emotions still present have influence on the progression.
  When emotion residue involves prevention emotions, an individual will develop the restoration self from a defensive stance—vigilant to any more identity losses and risk averse in his or her development of new identity narratives.
  When emotion residue involves promotion emotions, this increases openness to more divergent identity narratives and enactment within a broader social audience.

Question 12

Oscillation

Conroy & O’Leary-Kelly

Answer 12

the dynamic fluctuation between loss and restoration orientations, beneficial to healthy adaptation to loss. Which outcome occurs depends on narrative development experiences in restoration orientation and, importantly, on the emotions that individuals carry back when they return to the loss plane:

1. Strengthend emotions
2. Compelling emotions

Question 13

Identity

Ibarra

Answer 13

the internalized and evolving story that results from a person’s selective appropriation of past, present and future.

The elements of narrative that allow people to achieve desired identity aims and the dynamics of the process by which new narratives are explored and rejected or retained for future use.

Question 14

Macro work role transitions:

Ibarra

Answer 14

passages between sequentially held organizational, occupational or professional roles. (promotions, transfers etc.)

Question 15

Idenity work

Ibarra

Answer 15

people’s engagement in forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising their identities.

Question 16

Not all narratives are equally satisfying in meeting their goals. Depends on:
- Coherence:

Ibarra

Answer 16

A coherent self-narrative depicts a career as a series of unfolding events that make sense sequentially, in which the protagonist’s agency provides a key narrative thread or causal explanation for the story’s events.
o Plot: goal-directed sequence of events in which the past is related to the present, and from that connection one can extrapolate to the future.
o Protagonist agency: provides the thread that ties together the meaning of the story’s events. Validation of the plot by the agent.

Question 17

Not all narratives are equally satisfying in meeting their goals. Depends on:
- Legitimacy:

Ibarra

Answer 17

by using canonical themes-that is, archetypal character portrayals, settings, and story lines and institutionalized scripts drawn from collective narratives- people increase the legitimacy of their story. (master framing?)

Question 18

Not all narratives are equally satisfying in meeting their goals. Depends on:
- Audience participation:

Ibarra

Answer 18

negotiation process directly influences the coherence and legitimacy of a self-narrative as audiences cue the storyteller, interject their own data, and, if necessary, guide the story toward more sub culturally appropriate plots and morals.
o Achieve agreement on the story’s moral, or main point.

Question 19

What does this paper conclude?

Ibarra

Answer 19

The paper suggests that uncertainty is resolved and the transition completed not when an actual role change occurs but when a person is finally able to resolve the conflict and contradiction in his or her narrative repertoire.

Question 20

Name the 3 main steps in radical status change according to Delmestri

Answer 20

1. Category Detachment
2. Category Emulation
3. Category Sublimation

Question 21

Draw the model:

1. Category Detachment (3)
2. Category Emulation (2)
3. Category Sublimation (2)

Delmestri

Answer 21

1. Category Detachment
   - Visual & material distancing
   - Distancing through puzzlement (§§§)
   - Personal & organizational distancing
2. Category Emulation
   - Mimic alternate high-status category
   - Associate with high-status practices
3. Category Sublimation
   - Participate in narrative of tradition
   - Participate in narrative of modernity

Question 22

Category detachment

Delmestri

Answer 22

the distancing of a social object from its existing category. It is the presentation and signaling of an object in such a way that audiences have serious difficulty associating it with the meanings and practices of the undesired category.

Detachment is not a strategy of hiding an object; on the contrary, it is the deliberate appeal for attention, a frontal call for publicity in the attempt to signal difference from a derided category.

o The material appearance
o The price: prices signal a category’s meaning and by which a ‘‘category’s identity and value [are] institutionalized’’.
o The producer and the producer relationships with others in the undesired market and organization category. Distancing.
o Personal persona that was inconsistent with traditional meaning.

Question 23

Category emulation:

Delmestri

Answer 23

• the presentation of a social object so that it hints at the practices of a different high-status category. “difference attracts interests” Proximity to the desired category is very important: Proximity enables comparison. Distant allusions, in contrast, could too easily be dismissed as irrelevant and overly fanciful and their advocates as ‘‘irrelevant gadflies’’
  o Mimicking visual appearances and practices of an alternative high-status category.
  o Engaging the market infrastructure of that of an alternative category.

Question 24

Category sublimation:

Delmestri

Answer 24

• the shift from local, field-specific references to broader, societal-level frames. The process by which recategorization incorporates ‘‘wider cultural material’’ and connects to broader legitimating narratives to enhance the likelihood of sustained change. (master frame)

o Participating in the emerging reevaluation. Actors, to get acceptance for their claims, need to locate proposed changes ‘‘within the set of understandings and patterns of actions that constitute the institutional environment,’’ they also need to distinguish their claim ‘‘from what already exists.’’
o Connecting name to wider socio-cultural practices