Emergent Identity Work and Institutional Change: The ‘Quiet’ Revolution of Japanese Middle-Class Housewives
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.
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Biographies
Aegean Leung is Assistant Professor, Entrepreneurship and International Business in the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, University of Victoria, Canada. Aegean had held top management positions in multinationals and entrepreneurial firms in different countries before completing her PhD in Management at the National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on how individual and societal values influence entrepreneurial ventures’ emergence and growth, and their organizational practices. She has published in Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Human Resource Management, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and International Journal of Gender and Entrepreneurship.
Charlene Zietsma is Associate Professor and Ann Brown Chair of Organization Studies at Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada. She completed her PhD at the University of British Columbia. Her research interests focus on institutional work and change processes and entrepreneurship, usually in the context of social and ecological issues and social movements. She has articles published or forthcoming in Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Business Venturing and others, and she serves on the editorial board of Organization Studies.
Ana Maria Peredo is Professor in the Peter B. Gustavson School of Business, and Director of the Centre for Co-Operative and Community-Based Economy, both at the University of Victoria. Drawing on her background in social and cultural anthropology, her research focuses on the role of business in fostering sustainable communities, especially in impoverished circumstances. She has published in such journals as Academy of Management Review, Journal of Management Inquiry, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Humanity and Society, Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Journal of World Business and Business and Society.
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