Journal Article
Building on an inductive, qualitative study of independent workers (i.e., not affiliated with an
organization or established profession), this paper develops a theory about the management
of precarious and personalized work identities.
The authors found that in the absence of organizational
or professional membership, workers experienced stark emotional tensions encompassing
both the anxiety and fulfillment of working under precarious and personal conditions. Lacking
the holding environment provided by an organization, the workers they studied endeavored to
create one for themselves through cultivating connections to routines, places, people, and a
broader purpose.
These personal holding environments helped them to manage the broad
range of emotions stirred up by their precarious working lives, and to focus on producing work
that let them define, express, and develop their selves. Elucidating the process through which
people manage emotions associated with precarious and personalized work identities and
thereby render their work identities viable and selves vital, this paper advances theorizing on
the emotional underpinnings of identity work and the systems psychodynamics of
independent work.
Faculty
Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour
