Being Creative Within (or Outside) the Box: Bridging Occupational Identity Gaps

• Published in: Management communication quarterly Vol. 38; no. 1; pp. 86 - 116
• Main Authors: Dailey, Stephanie L., Pierce, Casey S., Bailey, Diane E., Leonardi, Paul M., Nardi, Bonnie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.02.2024; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: communication theory of identity; occupational identity; occupational identity gaps
• ISSN: 0893-3189; 1552-6798
• DOI: 10.1177/08933189231167385

This study advances organizational communication scholarship by introducing the notion of an occupational identity gap as a misalignment among the personal, relational, communal, and enacted frames of identity. Despite knowledge that occupational identity gaps exist, scholars know little about how people manage them. Interviews with 31 graphic designers explain how occupational identity gaps were forged by personal frames (e.g., “I am a creative person”) that contradicted enacted (e.g., “I do boring template work”) and relational frames (e.g., “It’s the client’s decision which [design] he or she will like”). Workers managed this misalignment by employing two novel strategies—reappraising and repositioning—that bridged personal-enacted and personal-relational occupational identity gaps. Our analysis contributes to scholarship by a) theorizing these two occupational identity gap bridging strategies, (b) extending CTI research, and (c) offering a novel conceptualization of occupational identity.