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Careers in Transition - Resistance, Ambiguity and Contextual Resources in the Identity Constructions of Former Management Consultants
Type
dissertation project
Start Date
01 October 2009
End Date
30 September 2014
Status
completed
Keywords
Identity construction
career change
discourse
transition narratives
ambiguity
Description
While a wide range of organizational studies have investigated how control is exercised in the context of management consultancies through the regulation of identities, little attention has so far been given to the effects of identity control on individuals who exit consulting firms. Assuming that consultancies are rather successful in shaping and orchestrating the identities of their employees through the construction of a self-pleasing elite image, this project challenges the idea that consultants, upon resigning their job, can easily ‘walk out of' their former professional context. Instead, the concept of 'post-exit identification' highlights that a strong identification with a firm may exist well beyond the boundaries of an employment relationship.
For investigating post-exit emancipatory moves, that means the ways in which ex-consultants are still able to leave behind discursively constructed elite identities and to create a new image of self that is not primarily grounded in their previous working context, 30 life story interviews have been conducted with ex-consultants who now work in one of the following organizational contexts: academia, financial services, industry, NGOs, inhouse-consulting and own business start-ups. Based on this data, three different analyses are being conducted to shed more light on the question of post-exit identification.
The first analysis documents what can be called a post-exit identity struggle between discourses that on the one hand express nostalgia and even regret towards the consulting past and discourses that on the other hand indicate positive re-orientations towards the new working context. The analysis indicates that the creative mixing of these discourses constitutes new professional identity constructions in the post-exit arena.
The second analysis focuses on the role that transition narratives play in the construction of alternative identities in the new working context. Assuming that different organizational settings provide different contextual resources for telling a more or less compelling transition narrative, the analysis indicates that the degree of experienced contrast or radical change between the previous and the new working context has an impact as well on ex-consultants' ability to construct an alternative image of self that is not primarily grounded in the past.
By zooming in on the post-exit identity struggle that some former consultants experience , the third analysis sets out to investigate the discursive strategies and acts of balancing through which coherence and ambiguity can simultaneously be maintained in self-narratives of professional transitions. By drawing upon psychodynamic theory, this analysis moreover examines 'why' it might be emotionally worthwhile in narrative identity constructions to consciously or unconsciously preserve both: coherence for a sense of authenticity and ambiguity for a sense of openness.
By having chosen this theoretical framing and overall methodological set up, the study sets out to make the following contributions. By drawing attention to ex-consultants, the study acknowledges a diaspora of professionals which so far has mostly been rendered "absent', "invisible' or "identity-less' in organizational research. Furthermore, by elaborating upon the notion of post-exit identification the existing analysis of identity regulation can be expanded beyond the boundaries of the employment contract.
Moreover, in showing the variation of contextual resources available for the reconstruction of identity in the different new working contexts, greater insights may be provided to practitioners on the link between career shifts, contextual resources and identity change. And finally, by investigating the co-existence of coherence and ambiguity in the narrative constructions of identity from a psychoanalytic perspective, this co-existence can be better understood and explained.
For investigating post-exit emancipatory moves, that means the ways in which ex-consultants are still able to leave behind discursively constructed elite identities and to create a new image of self that is not primarily grounded in their previous working context, 30 life story interviews have been conducted with ex-consultants who now work in one of the following organizational contexts: academia, financial services, industry, NGOs, inhouse-consulting and own business start-ups. Based on this data, three different analyses are being conducted to shed more light on the question of post-exit identification.
The first analysis documents what can be called a post-exit identity struggle between discourses that on the one hand express nostalgia and even regret towards the consulting past and discourses that on the other hand indicate positive re-orientations towards the new working context. The analysis indicates that the creative mixing of these discourses constitutes new professional identity constructions in the post-exit arena.
The second analysis focuses on the role that transition narratives play in the construction of alternative identities in the new working context. Assuming that different organizational settings provide different contextual resources for telling a more or less compelling transition narrative, the analysis indicates that the degree of experienced contrast or radical change between the previous and the new working context has an impact as well on ex-consultants' ability to construct an alternative image of self that is not primarily grounded in the past.
By zooming in on the post-exit identity struggle that some former consultants experience , the third analysis sets out to investigate the discursive strategies and acts of balancing through which coherence and ambiguity can simultaneously be maintained in self-narratives of professional transitions. By drawing upon psychodynamic theory, this analysis moreover examines 'why' it might be emotionally worthwhile in narrative identity constructions to consciously or unconsciously preserve both: coherence for a sense of authenticity and ambiguity for a sense of openness.
By having chosen this theoretical framing and overall methodological set up, the study sets out to make the following contributions. By drawing attention to ex-consultants, the study acknowledges a diaspora of professionals which so far has mostly been rendered "absent', "invisible' or "identity-less' in organizational research. Furthermore, by elaborating upon the notion of post-exit identification the existing analysis of identity regulation can be expanded beyond the boundaries of the employment contract.
Moreover, in showing the variation of contextual resources available for the reconstruction of identity in the different new working contexts, greater insights may be provided to practitioners on the link between career shifts, contextual resources and identity change. And finally, by investigating the co-existence of coherence and ambiguity in the narrative constructions of identity from a psychoanalytic perspective, this co-existence can be better understood and explained.
Member contributor(s)
Funder(s)
Topic(s)
Identity constructions of former management consultants
control and resistance in the post-exit arena
ambiguity and coherence in narrative identity constructions
contextual variation during career transitions
Method(s)
Discourse analysis
narrative analysis
Range
HSG Internal
Range (De)
HSG Intern
Division(s)
Eprints ID
216238
5 results
Now showing
1 - 5 of 5
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PublicationType: presentation
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PublicationThe Show Must Go On: Ex-Consultants Perpetuating Discourses of Elitism into the Post-Exit ArenaMany graduates from leading universities and business schools fiercely compete for a position in the so-called gold-collar industry, where prestigious companies such as investment banks, law firms and management consultancies advertise to be an ideal springboard for a promising future career. By taking a critical stance on the control mechanisms prevalent in these industries, and particularly in the context of management consultancies, this paper will draw attention to the discursive regulation of employee identities that is achieved through constructing an image of elite. Given that management consultants on average spend only a couple of years in the consulting business though, it could be argued that a critical concern with control issues in this context is somewhat overrated. Yet, as I will illustrate in this paper, these forms of discursive identity control may be more powerful and enduring than currently acknowledged. By zooming in on the identity constructions of former management consultants who have left the consultancy and started a career in a different work environment, the paper will show that dominant and identity shaping consulting discourses are often perpetuated into the new working context, thereby allowing the effects of discursive identity regulations to stretch far into the post-exit arena.Type: conference paper
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PublicationType: conference paper
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PublicationType: journal articleJournal: Scandinavian Journal of ManagementVolume: 32Issue: 3
Scopus© Citations 12 -
PublicationMapping the Complexity of Shifting Organizational Identifications : A Critical-Discursive ReadingBy introducing positioning theory to the analysis of organizational identification, in this paper I attempt to move its current conceptualizations out of a domain that is problematically associated with functionalist and cognitive framings. Instead I suggest a critical-discursive understanding of organizational identification which takes note of the limiting, complex and potentially shifting attachments that people can have towards an organization. More concretely, by showing six positioning practices that former management consultants engage in for expressing different forms of identification towards a past or present working context, this paper indicates the emancipatory potential that lays within these positioning practices as they invite different subject positions that either help to reinforce or escape imperatives for organizational identification.Type: conference paper