Struggling with Lack: A Lacanian Perspective on Organizational Identity

By Michaela Driver. 2009

120 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to research on organizational identity by developing a psychoanalytic perspective. In particular, the author draws on Lacanian theorizing to explore how organizational identity discourse is informed by imaginary constructions of subjectivity. It is proposed that the collective construction of coherent, unitary, and definably organizational identity discourse is validated by and validates conscious but illusory constructions of the self. The resulting discourse is inevitably disrupted by unconscious subjectivity and invariably fails. Therefore, the collective construction of fragmented, dynamic, and emergent organizational identity discourse is equally inevitable. While such discourse can be illusory, it also contains the opportunity for engaging in liberating struggles with identity as lack. The implications of this perspective for the theory and practice of organizational identity are discussed.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d5e32d568b3ecde4362bd103b3b8d81a39bbc5c2

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In Clinical Psychology

In Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

Citations in the corpus

Forging an Identity: An Insider-outsider Study of Processes Involved in the Formation of Organizational Identity (2010, background): “There has also been a substantial amount of recent work arguing that the most fruitful approach to studying identity is via a discursive/linguistic approach (Humphreys and Brown, 2002; Coupland and Brown, 2004; Harding, 2008; Driver, 2009; Ybema et al., 2009).”
It’s a Bittersweet Symphony, this Life: Fragile Academic Selves and Insecure Identities at Work (2014, background): “It is not surprising therefore, that activities such as work become one of the important sites for repairing what might be lacking elsewhere (Driver, 2009).”
Fantasies about work as limitless potential – how managers and employees seduce each other through dynamics of mutual recognition (2013, background): “…If we embrace the fact that subjects are inherently dissatisfied and fallible, then we may stand stronger in our resistance against the lures of perfection and wholeness offered by work, they claim (Driver, 2009; Hoedemaekers, 2009; Johnsen and Gudmand-Høyer, 2010; Spicer and, Cederström 2010).”
What Can Psychoanalysis Offer Organization Studies Today? Taking Stock of Current Developments and Thinking about Future Directions (2012, methodology): “…are several other contributions drawing on psychoanalytic means to investigate a variety of issues including organizational identity and change (Driver, 2009a, 2009b; Humphreys & Brown, 2002), public policy failure (Fotaki, 2010a), sexualized abjection and gender (Phillips & Rippin, 2010;…”
Organizational Identity and Organizational Identification (2013, background): “This is because answers to questions of identity (individual or collective) are merely conscious efforts “to cover up an unconscious lack in the subject that cannot be overcome” (Driver, 2009, p. 56).”
Construing Organizational Identity: The Role of Embodied Cognition (2010, background): “An embodied construal of OI might contribute to our appreciation of the psychodynamics of construing OI by emphasizing the range of embodied resources that people are using to fulfill these psychological needs (Brown and Starkey 2000; Diamond 1993; Driver 2009).”