Emergent Identity Work and Institutional Change: The 'Quiet' Revolution of Japanese Middle-Class Housewives. Issue 3 (March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Leung, Aegean; Zietsma, Charlene; Peredo, Ana Maria
• Is Part Of: Organization studies. Volume 35:Issue 3(2014)
• Page Start: 423
• Page End: 450
• Publication Date: 2014-03
• Subjects: gender role-identity -- identity work -- institutional change; Organizational sociology -- Periodicals; Organizational behavior -- Periodicals; Organization -- Periodicals; 302.35
• DOI: 10.1177/0170840613498529
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0170-8406

Abstract

How do relatively low-power, role-constrained actors break through their constraints in a highly institutionalized environment? Examining the experience of Japanese middle-class housewives involved in a social enterprise, we developed a model of emergent identity work which outlines how actors who enacted their role values in new domains triggered a process of learning and sensemaking which led to spiralling cycles of role boundary expansion. In this process, facilitated by an enabling collective, actors not only changed their own self-concept (internal identity work) but also, through external identity work, changed others' conceptions of their institutionally prescribed roles.