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Human Relations
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Narrative, life story and manager identity: A case study in autobiographical identity work

Tony J. Watson

Organizational Behaviour at Nottingham University Business School, tony.watson{at}nottingham.ac.uk

To study and better understand people's working lives and organizational involvement in the context of their whole lives and in the context of the societal culture in which they have grown up and now live, it is helpful to bring together three key concepts of narrative, identity work and the social construction of reality. Such a move can be connected to the abandonment of widely used but limiting concepts, such as that of`managerial identity'. The essentially sociological nature of this move also provides an antidote to the equally limiting tendency towards the `narrative imperialism' which is associated with the idea of the `narrative self'. The value of the suggested theoretical framing and its linking of narrative, identity work and social construction is demonstrated by the close analysis of a large private autobiography of a former manager. This individual's identity work simultaneously uses discursively available narratives and creates new narratives (many small stories being embedded in one large life story), all within the framework of history, social structure and culture.

Key Words: autobiography {blacksquare}identity work {blacksquare}life story {blacksquare} managerial identity • narrative {blacksquare} social construction

Human Relations, Vol. 62, No. 3, 425-452 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726708101044
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C. A. Clarke, A. D. Brown, and V. H. Hailey
Working identities? Antagonistic discursive resources and managerial identity
Human Relations, March 1, 2009; 62(3): 323 - 352.
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