Identities in organizations: some concluding thoughts

Identities in Organizations: Some Concluding Thoughts Cite: Brown, A.D. Identities in organizations: some concluding thoughts. In: Brown, A.D. [Ed.] The Oxford Handbook of Identities in Organizations, pp.896-908. Oxford: Oxford University Press, UK. Andrew D. Brown Abstract The future of research on identities in and around organizations is ours to make. Sifting through the chapters of this handbook gives indications of what the immediate future may look like and the issues that might figure large in identities theorizing. Substantial attention is paid by contributors to: (i) our changing times and their implications for identities; (ii) the increasingly less definite and less assured nature of identities; (iii) the scope for generating new metaphors for understanding identities and their utility; (iv) the possible benefits of focusing not merely on discursively construed identities but their performed, embodied and emotional characteristics; (v) the contextual and relational dynamics of identities formation; (vi) issues of temporality and spatiality; (vii) discourses of authenticity, real and fake selves; (viii) the need for intersectional approaches to identities research; and (ix) the desirability for identities scholars to be reflexive in the conduct and write-up of their research. Key Words Identity, Self, Self-Identity, Identity Construction, Identity Work, Identity Regulation, Identification, Research Agenda Introduction According to Swann and Bosson (2010: 589) psychology’s relationship with the ‘self’ was initially tempestuous, with the term, having been introduced by James (1890), at first ‘ignored by a psychological mainstream’. It is notable that while self-identities have been embraced, to an extent, by scholars in organization studies, their most enthusiastic support has come from those with discursive, critical, interpretive and post-structural inclinations. Arguably, despite a stellar rise in interest in identities over the past two decades, they remain ignored or marginalized in key discourses on organizations and organizing. Indeed, there remains the danger that identity specialists continue to talk largely among themselves while, as in social psychology of old, identity concerns are overlooked by a ‘mainstream whose embrace of positivism…[makes] it squeamish about constructs that seem… to lack clear empirical referents’ (Swann & Bosson, 2010: 589). Whether this continues to be the case is a shared concern for everyone with a stake in the identities in organizations literature. Emerging themes I conclude with a brief overview of some of the key emergent themes evident in the chapters of this handbook. This is a convenient means for summarizing a number of interesting ideas that appealed particularly to me; but I offer them also in the hope that they may be helpful in shaping and invigorating future research agendas (see also Brown, 2020a). Some well-attested themes need little further elaboration. These include, for example, the need for identities to be studied at multiple levels of analysis and how identities framed at different levels interconnect and inform each other. Almost all the contributions to this handbook assume or assert explicitly that identities are processual phenomena. While many authors regard identities as worthy of study in their own right, there is also agreement that identities matter because they are embedded in, and key to our understanding of a range of, individual and collective processes and outcomes. All identities – age (Ainsworth, 2020), sexual (Rumens, 2020), career (Hoyer, 2020), gender (Fotaki, 2020), racial (Greedharry, Ahonen & Tienari, 2020) networked (Ellis & Hopkinson, 2020), branded (Karreman & Frandsen, 2020), entrepreneurial (Fauchart & Gruber, 2020), creative (Josefsson, 2020), philanthropic (Maclean & Harvey, 2020) etc. – and all aspects of identities construction, are entangled in and produced through relations of power (Bardon & Peze, 2020). While there is less consensus on which set of theoretical resources are best deployed in the study of identities, it is noticeable that some key established scholars are heavily referenced in this volume, with Butler, Giddens, Goffman, Foucault and Mead attracting particular attention, and some, such as Bauman, Bourdieu, Freud, Lacan and Weick inspiring entire chapters. Among a host of other issues, perhaps less predictably, substantial numbers of chapters make reference to: (i) our changing times and their implications for identities; (ii) the increasingly less-certain nature of identities; (iii) the role of and the need for new metaphors for understanding identities; (iv) the benefits of focusing not merely on discursively construed identities but their performed, embodied and emotional nature; (v) the contextual and relational aspects of identities formation; (vi) issues of temporality and spatiality; (vii) authentic, real and fake selves; (viii) the advantages of intersectional approaches to identities research; and (ix) the requirement for identities scholars to be reflexive in the conduct and write-up of their research. Changing times The contexts in which identities are constructed have changed and are changing. At a global level, Koveshnikov, Tienari and Vaara (2020) argue that this is an age where globalization often collides uncomfortably with nationalism, bringing to the fore issues of national identity fed by historical and colonial memories and fuelled by emotionally charged media representations (Boussebaa, 2020). Continuing macro-political and economic realignments, such as Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and the rise of ‘post-truth’ (Fairhurst & Sheep; Pratt, 2020) and divisive identity politics, often informed by an aggressive nostalgia that promotes populist and extreme right wing identities (Gabriel, 2020), have altered what Patriotta (2020) refers to as the ‘pre-interpreting mechanisms’ by which people make sense of their selves in what is an increasingly liquid world (Coupland & Spedale, 2020; Harding, 2020). Clarke and Knights (2020) describe how in recent times trends ranging from Karojisatsu (work induced suicide) and Karōshi (death from over-work) to progressive struggles against discrimination and disadvantage, and the ‘me too’ campaign, have transformed the modern world in which identities in organizations are fabricated. In short, ours is a time of considerable economic crisis, social uncertainty and political repositioning (Ford, 2020) that has witnessed the rapid growth of social inequalities (Fotaki, 2020). Moreover, individuals face an increasingly dynamic, virtual and temporary organizational world featuring shorter, flexible, part-time, and zero-hour employment contracts (Ahuja, Nikolova & Clegg, 2020). In the gig economy careers are more flexible, less bounded, and unpredictable (Hoyer, 2020). More people are now involved in networks of organizations and boundary-span between firms engaged in inter-organizational collaborations (Ellis & Hopkinson, 2020). There are fewer anchor points for constructing stable identities, and there are a greater number and variety of identity and identification options attaching not just to work groups and organizations but to artifacts and practices (Ashforth, Moser & Bubenzer, 2020). The rupturing of heteronormative hegemony means that sexual identities in organizations are also no longer rigidly ‘prescribed’ (Rumens, 2020). Complementarily, Hirst and Humphreys (2020) remark on the new ways of working, workspace designs, and office and building aesthetics that are often rich in symbolism, and novel spatial arrangements, which foster distinctive patterns of behaviour and promote fresh prospects for identities to be developed and performed. Increasing uncertainty This new discursive and material landscape for organizing poses both opportunities and challenges for organizational members. Identities are less fixed, secure and certain, more open, fluid, ambivalent, conflicted, paradoxical, vulnerable and protean (Fairhurst & Sheep, 2020). Selves, as Petriglieri (2020), asserts, are ever more provisional. Coupland and Spedale (2020) focus on the need for people to develop agile identities better able to cope with increasing temporariness, fluidity and porosity, while Ahuja, Nikolova and Clegg (2020) discuss the rise of digital nomads whose identities are, perchance, well adapted to our ambiguous and transitional times (Simpson & Carroll, 2020). All of which means that individuals have ever more scope for, and need to engage in diverse forms of identities construction, and identities management, and to devise innovative strategies for their performance and (non)disclosure (Rumens, 2020). In particular, identities are now often described as hybrid, liminal and precarious. Currie and Logan (2020) concentrate on hybridity, the idea that people are increasingly likely to be required to blend two or more professional identities at work, and the implications of this for their selves, their professional status and institutions. Liminality is a key theme that manifests in liminal spaces that provide opportunities to construct non-corporate identities (Hirst & Humphreys, 2020), the liminal positions of boundary spanners in inter-organizational collaborations (Ellis & Hopkinson, 2020) and the ‘perpetual liminality’ of those who, on a quotidian basis, must re-cast their identities for different audiences (Hoyer, 2020). For Ibarra and Obodaru (2020), in contemporary organizations people are often betwixt and between – jobs, careers, technologies etc. – and live liminal working lives. Zundel et al. (2020) draw on Simmel to argue for an understanding of liminal identities using the metaphors of the bridge and the door. For Simpson and Carroll (2020) leadership is explicitly conceived as a perpetually liminal practice. Drawing often on the work of Butler, ‘precarity’ is another well-used descriptor of contemporary identities (Fotaki, 2020; Harding, 2020). Josefsson (2020) remarks on the precarity of creative workers whose working lives often resemble a ‘high stakes lottery’. Beech and Broad (2020) comment on the precarious identities of those engaged in the performing arts for whom it (the performance of the self) could go wrong at any moment. Even ‘positive’ identities, for Sheep (2020), are precarious accomplishments threatened by detractors, sceptics, competitors, and social stigmas that continually nip at people’s heels. New and reworked metaphors While their stated aims are often divergent, for social scientists ranging from the conventional to the post-positivist, developing identities scholarship often means finding ways to enrich our identities discourse by devising new – and elaborating on the implications of existing – metaphors that enhance, refine and extend understanding. Oswick and Oswick (2020) show just how saturated with metaphors and metaphorical theorizing the extant identities literature is, though they are not wholly enthusiastic about this, claiming that at present there is considerable metaphorical complexity, ambiguity and indeterminacy. Their recommendation is that metaphors be used as data gathering as well as interpretive devices, that researchers should be more sensitive to the metaphors in the epistemologies they adopt, and that the conceptual blending of metaphors may offer a fruitful way forward for theorizing. While these are eminently sensible suggestions, nevertheless, as Pratt (2020) argues, there is a continuing need for compelling images to better explain identity dynamics, and the possibilities are exciting to contemplate. Indeed, many intriguing metaphors are evoked in the chapters of this handbook. Mostly, metaphors for identities (both of ourselves as professional researchers and of those we study), and identity construction processes, are mentioned fleetingly and without much further analysis. For example, Carter and Spence (2020) refer to themselves as ‘tourists’ who appreciate, critique and contribute to (intellectual) territory that is not their own. Ashcraft (2020) identifies us as ‘sleepwalkers’ who act somnambulantly adrift in relational currents of which we are not fully aware. Ybema (2020) uses the phrase ‘caste members’ to describe hierarchized professional status. Some authors reference multiplicities of overlapping (or perhaps competing) metaphors. For Ahuja, Nikolova and Clegg (2020), identities are variously liquid, plastic, elastic, paradoxical and nomadic, while Coupland and Spedale (2020) describe identities that are not just agile but nimble, versatile, supple, lithe, responsive and fragile. Lok (2020) analyzes the identities metaphors implied in various strands of institutional theory. Others, however, take a particular metaphor to investigate in a more thorough-going way its analytic potential. Maclean and Harvey (2020) identify types of philanthropists as ‘travellers’ embarked on four distinct philanthropic journeys. Tracy and Town (2020) discuss the merits of the ‘crystallized’ identity metaphor. Fairhurst and Sheep (2020) use the metaphors of identity ‘paradox’ and ‘knotting’ to refer to identity work that reveals multiple tensions. From discourse to action, embodiment and affect Discursive approaches to identities in organizations, especially those that emphasize people’s intentionality and rationality, continue to attract considerable attention (e.g., Whittle & Mueller, 2020) . That said, there is also some dissatisfaction with this perspective, and increasing insistence scholars recognize that identities are not just talked about but acted on, that there are limits to individuals’ conscious manoeuvrings and rational intent, that people are emotional beings, and that identities are embodied (e.g., McInnes & Corlett, 2020). As, among others, Kuhn and Simpson (2020) note, allied with the practice and ontological turns in organizational theory, interest is turning to reframing identities as sociomaterial accomplishments: shattered bodies, homes, careers and environments cannot reasonably be reduced to the non-material, argues Harding (2020). Instructive here is Bardon and Peze’s (2020) analysis of how the attention of identity scholars, when investigating identity construction fluctuates between the power of language and the power of materiality, and how post-structuralist identity studies have not infrequently been criticized for neglecting materiality. Also worthy of note in this respect is that interest in Lacanian approaches to identity may in part reflect an ‘affective turn’ in social and organizational theory (Kenny, 2020). Evidently, scholarly discourses are now shifting so that even scholars predisposed to focus on talk and texts often acknowledge that identities manifest in material things like objects, contextual spaces, timeframes, and bodies (Tracy & Town, 2020; Zundel, et al., 2020). Coupland and Spedale (2020) insist that identities are ‘fundamentally embodied’. In Ashcraft’s (2020) analysis identities are sociomaterial productions that are posthuman, social, material and transpersonal. For Ybema (2020) identities are co-produced performances that are enacted in myriad ways, not least how we act, dress or even stand in a queue, our cars, tattoos and other means by which we present ourselves to others. Petriglieri (2020) comments that people ‘feel’ as well as ‘know’ who they are. Winkler (2020) reminds us that identities are intersected by emotions. That identities are embodied becomes all too evident when they begin to age, functional decline and dependency loom, and physical ailments pose restrictions on what kinds of identities can be performed (Ainsworth, 2020). Much is omitted from solely discursive analyses of racialized identities that do not account adequately for the physicality of such identities (Greedharry, Ahonen, & Tienari, 2020). Summing up the thrust of this new turn, Watson (2020) argues for an approach to identities that emphasises emergence, social processes and relationality, and that embraces the study of emotions, feelings, and personal wants (cf. Fotaki, 2020). From the individual to the social There is consensus on the merits of releasing identities studies from the straitjacket of a micro-focus on individual selves and studying them in broader processes of social relations. Moreover, there is ongoing criticism of those studies that focus exclusively on individuals and which fail to account adequately for the contexts in which identities are formed and the relational processes through which they are negotiated with others (Kuhn & Simpson, 2020). Among those who favour better contextualized studies of identities is Ybema (2020), who is adamant that identity is inherently social, and that individuals are caught in and engage actively with Geertz’s webs of cultural significance. Carter and Spence (2020), drawing on Bourdieu, suggest that identity scholars pay more attention to issues of field and class. In Ahuja, Nikolova and Clegg’s (2020) analysis, identities can only be understood adequately in the context of broader sociological theorizing on the nature of liquid modernity and its ethical, political and organizational consequences. Several authors consider explicitly the media, film and literary resources we draw on to construct our work and organization-based identities (e.g., Watson, 2020). Learmonth and Griffin (2020), for example, analyse how ‘positive’, ‘negative’ and ‘tragic’ portrayals of managers in fictional works shape who we think of when we consider a ‘manager’ in contemporary society. Complementing calls for more attention to be paid to context are injunctions, following Mead (1934) and Goffman (1990[1959]) to attend also to the micro-interactions with significant others through which identities are made. All identities, whether highly specific such as those of philanthropists (Maclean & Harvey, 2020) and managers (Learmonth & Griffin, 2020) or that draw on shared social categories such as age (Ainsworth), 2020), gender (Fotaki, 2020) and sexuality (Rumens, 2020) are negotiated in relation to diverse social actors. As Pratt (2020) argues, identities ultimately come in part from the expectations of others, and one’s identities may be viewed as internalized expectations that others have of us. For Simpson and Carroll (2020) and Ford (2020) it is not possible to appreciate fully issues of leadership and leader identity formation without regard to the followers they require to play their roles through relational encounters. Langley, Oliver and Rouleau (2020) show how, from narrative and work perspectives, the identities of individuals are tied intimately to the identities of organizations. Identities, whether discursive, symbolic, dramaturgical, socio-cognitive or psychodynamic, are constituted in the dynamics of social relationships and enacted relationally (Cutcher, 2020; Karreman & Frandsen, 2020; Koveshnikov, Tienari & Vaara, 2020; Petriglieri, 2020). Temporality and spatiality There is discernible interest in studying identities in relation to issues of temporality, including how identities develop historically, and spatiality (e.g., Ibarra & Obodaru, 2020). Petriglieri (2020), for example, proposes that identity is a fabrication, i.e. a process of positioning the self in (existential) time and (social) space. Time is implicated in many different ways in this handbook by those who regard social actors as temporally embedded (Coupland & Spedale, 2020). Suddaby, Schultz and Israelsen (2020) exhort scholars not to valorize identity stability but to embrace how in autobiographical memory individuals and organizations draw creatively on the remembered past, present and future to fabricate coherent selves. For Fairhurst and Sheep (2020) temporality is one aspect of the paradoxical nature of identity adaptation, that is, how does one transition from a current (or former) self into future possible selves? From a Bourdieusian perspective, identities can only be understood fully through the prism of history (Carter & Spence, 2020; cf. Rowlinson & Heller, 2020). Gabriel discusses how nostalgia is an emotion that anchors people to their past and that prevents identities from drifting or being overwhelmed by current concerns. Racial identities are historical products (Greedharry, Ahonen & Tienari, 2020) while ‘age’ identities make little sense without reference to unfolding chronological time (Ainsworth, 2020). Fewer authors account explicitly for the spatialization of identities, and when they do so it is often merely to note, as Atewologun, Kutzer and Doldor (2020) remind us, that identities caught in discourses at micro, meso- and macro levels are also constituted both temporally and spatially and that the meanings of identity foci are changeable across time and space (Langley, Oliver, & Rouleau, 2020). That said, McInnes and Corlett (2020) argue that studies of identities in relation to space and place have become more significant recently. For Ahuja, Nikolova and Clegg (2020), today, identities are less anchored in spatial proximities of family and work life, as symptomized by the rise of global leasing companies such as WeWork, the blurring of home/work boundaries, the prominence of virtual working and the phenomenon of digital nomads with their plural identities who are able to live life on the move. Harding (2020) observes that space is an active and important actor in the endurance of emerging organizations. Bardon and Peze (2020) draw on Våland and Georg’s (2018: 195) notion of ‘spacing identity’ to refer to how identities are constituted through organizational practices taking place within, enabled by and constitutive of particular constellations of the social, material and spatial. In this volume, the most in-depth analysis of how identities require study in relation to spatiality is provided by Hirst and Humphreys (2020) who show how they are tied intimately to issues of space and place in contemporary work settings. Authentic, fake and real selves As Oswick and Oswick (2020) note, ‘authenticity’, and its implication that there are both ‘real’ and ‘fake’ selves, is one of many metaphors used to typify certain identities. Sheep (2020) regards authenticity as integral to ‘positive’ identities such that the search for a positive identity is also a quest for the authentic self. Maclean and Harvey (2020) speculate on the extent to which philanthropic identities are assumed ‘authentically’ by the super-wealthy, or whether they are perhaps masquerades adopted to deflect and diffuse the politics of envy. Dis-identification, for Karreman and Frandsen (2020), is more likely when employees experience identity material provided by their organizations as fake or inauthentic. For Beech and Broad (2020) authentic identities may be both disguised and revealed through performance. Ibarra and Obodaru (2020) discuss how people may strive to maintain authenticity in the face of identity integrity violations. In Pratt’s (2020) analysis, bringing one’s entire portfolio of identities to work, and thus being wholly ‘authentic’ is a privilege restricted to the white male leaders of organizations. Fairhurst and Sheep (2020) refer to the real-self/fake-self duality as a paradox of authenticity. For some, in less certain times authenticity, often regarded as the challenge of discerning a ‘true’ self among a multiplicity of possible selves, becomes a more significant issue (Ashforth, Moser & Bubenzer, 2020). Ahuja, Nikolova and Clegg (2020), for instance, suggest that notions of authenticity are challenged by the changes associated with liquid modernity. Others counsel against essentializing selves and the pursuit of ‘true’ or ‘real’ identities and more-or-less fixed sets of personality traits and behavioural repertoires (Watson, 2020). Tracy and Town (2020), in keeping with much poststructural, and relational theorizing, regard ‘authenticity’ and the real-self↔fake-self dichotomy it enshrines, as an ideological discourse created and maintained through contemporary literature, scholarly theories of identity, discourses of power, and everyday organizational talk and practices. From this perspective, there is no ‘authentic’ self, and its continued use by scholars dangerously obscures how authenticity discourses are used to discipline identities in organizations. This critique is echoed and elaborated by Bardon and Peze (2020) who invite researchers to look with renewed vigour at the disciplinary mechanisms by which biocratic corporate initiatives align notionally ‘authentic’ selves with corporate interests and to novel forms of agency, and in particular resistance, that can be anticipated to emerge in work contexts where being ‘authentic’ is officially promoted by managerial discourses. Scepticism regarding the possibility of ‘authenticity’ in identity matters is also implied in the many analyses of how organizations manipulate individuals to engage in personal branding to create supposedly authentic identities that are commodified for organizational ends (Coupland & Spedale, 2020; Josefsson, 2020; Karreman & Frandsen, 2020; Kuhn & Simpson). Intersectionality The concept ‘intersectionality’, defined by Atewologun, Kutzer and Doldor (2020) as ‘an approach that pays conscious attention to multiple positionality and power in conceptualising, theorising and analysing identities and identification’ is used by a multitude of authors, though in quite different ways. In general, interest in intersectionality reflects growing scepticism that specific social identities can be studied meaningfully in isolation from one another, and a conviction that an intersectional perspective leads to more complex, verisimilitudinous and theoretically worthwhile research (Pratt, 2020). Multiple authors make the case for studying specific age-related, national and racial identities in relation to other identities such as those relating to gender, sexuality, disability and social class (Ainsworth, 2020; Fotaki, 2020; Greedharry, Ahonen & Tienari, 2020; Koveshnikov, Tienari & Vaara, 2020). Identities, as Ellis and Hopkinson show, are increasingly forged in networks featuring multiple overlapping and interconnected identity opportunities. Watson (2020) argues scholars need better to appreciate how work identities – e.g., managerial, professional etc. – intersect with those they adopt across different – e.g., personal, familial - aspects of their lives. In addition to a variety of general ideological commitments to intersectional research a number of authors make specific recommendations or point to particular opportunities and potential drawbacks. Tracy and Town (2020) suggest that the metaphor of the ‘crystallized self’ is useful to account for the intersectionality of identities and how subjectivities may develop, adapt and mutate, raising the interesting question of whether some metaphors might be more and others less facilitative of intersectional research. For Fotaki (2020), intersectionality is a means to develop our understanding of identities as embodied practices. Many authors argue for the generativity that may be unleashed through the intersection not of individuals’ identities but of the identity literature per se with specialist literatures such as those on stigma (Kreiner & Mihelcic, 2020), careers (Hoyer, 2020), sensemaking (Vough, Caza & Maitlis, 2020), race (Greedharry, Ahonen & Tienari, 2020), paradox (Fairhurst & Sheep, 2020; Sheep, 2020) and LGBTQ+ sexualities (Rumens, 2020). Perhaps most intriguing is Clarke and Knights (2020) note of caution that a preoccupation with intersectionality is not in itself necessarily laudable: an intersectional approach, they suggest, may be deficient unless those identities and the discourses from which they are constructed are sufficiently interrogated. Reflexivity Many authors comment on the importance of researchers being explicitly reflexive in their research on identities (e.g., Cutcher, 2020; Watson, 2020). This is in part predicated on a concern that what we think we know about others is contingent on how we conceive ourselves, and the relations of power in which researchers and the researched are enmeshed. Moreover, the quest to understand others is, importantly, also an endeavour to know ourselves. In some of the chapters in this handbook the researcher self is foregrounded by scholars in ways that highlight their personal history, values and concerns. Mostly, scholars reference the need for reflexivity incidentally, en passant, in summary or concluding thoughts, though often in interesting and insightful ways. Sheep (2020) comments on how in the course of his career he has experimented with multiple possible and provisional selves. Ybema (2020) references a conversation with an occupational therapist about organizational attire. Atewologun, Kutzer and Doldor (2020) make revealing comments about their gender, sexual, national, professional and career identities. Gill (2020) discusses constructivist approaches which foster researcher reflexivity about their own interpretations. Sometimes reflexivity is more sustained, though most often confined largely to a vignette or two. Patriotta (2020) relates a personal confessional narrative as an Italian living in the UK following the vote for Brexit. Ashcraft (2020) tells a poignant tale of how her and another’s identities were fabricated in an encounter with a sommelier. Watson (2020) foregrounds a conversation between himself and an HR manager, making the observation that in our research we are ‘inevitably’ engaged in processes of identity work and that we should be sensitive to it. In a few instances, such as in Cutcher’s (2020) chapter, the practices associated with being a reflexive identity researcher are a key feature of the arguments made, and reveal how researcher selves are accomplished and also ‘undone’ through encounters with others in research processes. For critical management scholars in particular, it is towards a more reflexive identities literature that we should strive. Gaps in this Handbook Even in a volume with 50 major chapters, omissions are inevitable For example, little attention is paid in this handbook to the substantial literature on consumer identities. . The topic ‘identities in organizations’ is vast - and the scope for new empirical studies, innovative ideas, and of forging connections between existing notions so considerable - that no handbook, not even one of this magnitude, can realistically hope to be fully comprehensive. One wonders what has been lost as a result of there being no contributors with affiliations to institutions based in Latin America, the Middle East, China, India or any African country. Most of the contributors to this handbook have focused on subjectively construed identities as constituted through discursive and other symbolic means, with only a few drawing substantially on objectivist theorizing such as Social Identity Theory (Ashforth, Moser & Bubenzer, 2020; Atewologun, Kutzer & Doldor, 2020). Rather than identities at the group or other collective level, the emphasis of this handbook is on the self-identities worked on by individuals participating (mostly working in and around) organizations. There are no specific chapters on moral/ethical concerns or identities in relation to decision making processes. Moreover, there is always another identity ‘type’ or identity narrative ‘template’ that can be devised or discovered, a further ‘resource’ for identity work to be analysed, a unique context for the study of identity to be explored, and novel theoretical synthesis to be sought. The fecund potential of the concept of identity, which is part of its attraction, means also that the range of scholarship centred on it or which meaningfully implicates it is impossible definitively or conclusively to delimit. To conclude The turn to identities and processes of identity construction in organizations continues apace. Of course, it is important not to make unrealistic claims regarding what a focus on identities issues can accomplish, to continue to strive to craft more interesting and more theoretically generative concepts, not to waste resources on trivial concerns, and to challenge relations of power that sediment identity inequality and stigma. As long as we can stay focused not just on identities themselves but on those topics in which identity dynamics are an important explanatory component then, as with other commentators on the identities field (e.g., Swann & Bosson, 2010: 617; Caza, Vough & Puranik, 2018), we may be justifiably sanguine regarding the literature’s long term prospects. Acknowledgements I gratefully acknowledge the insightful comments of Michael Pratt and Michael Humphreys on an earlier draft of this chapter.  References Ahuja, S., Nikolova, N., & Clegg, S. (2020). Identities, digital nomads and liquid modernity. In The Oxford Handbook on Identities in Organizations, edited by A.D. Brown, [pp]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ainsworth, S. (2020). Age identity and organizations: critical potential and challenges. In The Oxford Handbook on Identities in Organizations, edited by A.D. Brown, [pp]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Alvesson, M. & Gjerde, S. (2020). On the scope and limits of identity. 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