This paper seeks to supplement the theory that identity work incorporates a dialogic process by focusing on how such processes can proceed. The research question is: how do people's identities become meaningful? The aim is to theorize the `route to meaning construction' of the self by producing a model of micro dialogical process. The model synthesizes current research on dialogic processes and classic concepts of Bakhtin and Wittgenstein. An empirical analysis is conducted of a longitudinal multi-method engagement with an organization in the cultural sector, focusing on the multiple identity narratives of a manager. Subsequently, the model is developed to incorporate the concepts of meaning-giving tensions and enabling/militating factors.
Alvesson, Mats and Deetz, Stanley (2000) Doing Critical Management Research. London: Sage.
2.
Alvesson, Mats and Willmott, Hugh (2002) `Identity Regulation as Organizational Control: Producing the Appropriate Individual', Journal of Management Studies39(5): 619—44.
3.
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M.M. Bakhtin, M. Holquist (ed.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
4.
Bakhtin, Mikhail (1986) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
5.
Beech, Nic (2000) `Narrative Styles of Managers and Workers: A Tale of Star-Crossed Lovers?', Journal of Applied Behavioural Science36(2): 210—28.
6.
Beech, Nic and Huxham, Chris (2003) `Cycles of Identity Formation in Inter-organizational Collaborations', International Studies of Management and Organization33(3): 28—52.
7.
Berger, Arthur (1997) Narratives in Popular Culture, Media and Everyday Life. London: Sage.
8.
Bohm, D. (1996) On Dialogue, L. Nichol (ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
9.
Boje, David (1995) `Stories of the Storytelling Organization: A Postmodern Analysis of Disney as “Tamara-land''', Academy of Management Journal38(4): 997—1035.
10.
Boje, David (2001) Narrative Methods for Organizational and Communication Research. London: Sage.
11.
Broadfoot, Kirsten, Deetz, Stanley and Anderson, Donald (2004) `Multi-Levelled, Multi-Method Approaches to Organizational Discourse', in D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick and L. Putnam (eds) Organizational Discourse, pp.193—211. London : Sage.
12.
Brown, Andrew (2006) `A Narrative Approach to Collective Identities ', Journal of Management Studies43(4): 731—53.
13.
Brown, Andrew and Coupland, Christine (2005) `Sounds of Silence: Graduate Trainees, Hegemony and Resistance', Organization Studies26(7): 1049—69.
14.
Clegg, Stewart (1989) Frameworks of Power. London : Sage.
15.
Coupland, Christine (2001) `Accounting for Change: A Discourse Analysis of Graduate Trainees' Talk of Adjustment', Journal of Management Studies38(8): 1103—19.
16.
Coupland, Christine and Brown, Andrew (2004) `Constructing Organizational Identities on the Web: A Case Study of Royal Dutch Shell', Journal of Management Studies41(8): 1325—47.
17.
Creed, W.E. and Scully, M.A. (2000) `Songs of Ourselves: Employees' Deployment of Social Identity in Workplace Encounters', Journal of Management Inquiry9(4): 391—412.
18.
Cunliffe, Ann (2001) `Managers as Practical Authors: Reconstructing our Understanding of Management Practice', Journal of Management Studies38(3): 351—70.
19.
Currie, Graham and Brown, Andrew (2003) `A Narratological Approach to Understanding Processes of Organizing in a UK Hospital', Human Relations56(5): 563—86.
20.
Czarniawska, Barbara (1997) Narrating the Organization: Dramas of Institutional Identity. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
21.
Deetz, Stanley (1995) Transforming Communication, Transforming Business: Building Responsive and Responsible Workplaces. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.
22.
Fineman, Stephen (1997) `Constructing the Green Manager', British Journal of Management8: 31—8.
23.
Gabriel, Yannis (2003) `Your Home, My Exile: Boundaries and “Otherness” in Antiquity and Now', Organization Studies24(4): 619—32.
24.
Gergen, Kenneth, Gergen, Mary and Barrett, Frank (2004) `Dialogue: Life and Death of the Organization', in D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick and L. Putnam (eds) The Sage Handbook of Organizational Discourse, pp. 39—59. London: Sage.
25.
Goffman, Erving (1961) Encounters. Indianapolis, IN : Bobbs-Merrill.
26.
Hardy, Cynthia, Palmer, Ian and Phillips, Nelson (2000) `Discourse as a Strategic Resource', Human Relations53(9): 1227—47.
27.
Hermans, H. (2001) `The Dialogical Self: Toward a Theory of Personal and Cultural Positioning', Culture and Psychology7(3): 243—81.
28.
Holquist, Michael (1986) `Introduction', in C. Emerson and M. Holquist (eds) Speech Genres and Other Late Essays M. M. Bakhtin, pp. ix—xxiii. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
29.
Hunt, R. (1992) `Speech Genres, Writing Genres, School Genres and Computer Genres', in A. Freedman, and P. Medway (eds) Learning and Teaching Genres. Portsmouth: Heinemann .
30.
Karreman, Dan and Alvesson, Mats (2004) `Cages in Tandem: Management Control, Social Identity and Identification in a Knowledge-Intensive Firm', Organization11(1): 149—75.
31.
Mueller, Frank and Carter, Chris (2007) ```We Are All Managers Now”: Managerialism and Professional Engineering in UK Electricity Utilities', Accounting, Organizations and Society32(1—2): 181—95.
32.
MacLean, Donald, MacIntosh, Robert and Grant, Sandra (2002) `Mode 2 Management Research', British Journal of Management13: 189—207.
33.
Musson, Gill and Duberley, Joanne (2007) `Change, Change or Be Exchanged: The Discourse of Participation and the Manufacture of Identity', Journal of Management Studies44(1): 143—64.
34.
Shotter, John (1996) `Dialogical Realities: The Ordinary, the Everyday and Other Strange New Worlds', Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour27: 345—57.
35.
Shotter, John and Billig, Michael (1998) `A Bakhtinian Psychology: From Out of the Heads of Individuals and Into the Dialogues Between Them', in M. Mayerfield Bell and M. Gardiner (eds) Bakhtin and the Human Sciences: No Last Words , pp. 137—29. London: Sage.
36.
Sims, David (2003) `Between the Millstones: A Narrative Account of the Vulnerability of Middle Managers' Storying', Human Relations56: 1195—21.
37.
Sims, David (2005a) `Living a Story and Storying a Life: A Narrative Understanding of Distributed Self', in A. Pullen and S. Linstead (eds) Organization and Identity, pp. 86—104. London: Routledge.
38.
Sims, David (2005b) `You Bastard: A Narrative Exploration of the Experience of Indignation within Organizations', Organization Studies26(11): 1625—40.
39.
Sveningsson, Stefan and Alvesson, Mats (2003) `Managing Managerial Identities: Organizational Fragmentation, Discourse and Identity Struggle', Human Relations56(10): 1163—93.
40.
Thomas, Robyn and Linstead, Alison (2002) `Losing the Plot? Middle Managers and Identity', Organization9(1): 71—93.
41.
Vaara, Eero (2002) `On the Discursive Construction of Success/Failure in Narratives of Post-Merger Integration', Organization Studies23(2): 211—48.
42.
Weber, Max (1947) The Theory of Social and Economic Organization . London: Oxford University Press .
43.
Wertsch, J. (1991) Voices of the Mind: A Sociocultural Approach to Mediated Action. Harvard, MA: Harvard University Press.
44.
Wertsch, J., Rio, P. and Alvarez, A. (1995) Sociocultural Studies of Mind. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
