Ethno-national discourse, employee identity and public sector organisation in Northern Ireland
Gary Brown, Edge Hill University
Mark McGovern, Edge Hill University
Dominic Elliott, Liverpool University
Frank Worthington, Liverpool University
Even a cursory glance through the identity literature leads to a diverse range of identity discourses. Identities are gendered, sexual, cultural, ethnic, religious, national, social, personal, cyber, ascribed and acquired. Identity is a complex ‘perpetual process’ (Jenkins, 2002) informing our self-image and drawing from notions of sameness and difference. We identify with some social groups but rail against others. Aspects of identity come and go while others are more persistent. Organisations operating in the late/high/post modern contexts are much more likely to pursue strategies which emphasise the alignment of employee identity with organisational norms. Employees are routinely encouraged to buy into managerially determined objectives with ‘heart and soul’ and, therefore, to identify their own personal goals with those of the organisation (Warhurst and Thompson, 1998). This regulation of workers’ ‘insides’ is encompassed by many of the ‘new’ managerial discourses such as knowledge and services management (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002) and Human Resource Management (HRM). Put another way, they are concerned not only with the production of ‘things’ but the production people who identify with the organisation (Deetz, 2003). Whilst there may be a trend to help define for employees a more managerially compliant subjectivity, resistance to these demands remains strong and can be sourced from a plethora of authoritative discourses. In the context of Northern Ireland, ethno-national discourses such as Unionism and Nationalism provide for employees one such source of resistance to, or compliance with, managerial aspirations.
In this paper we reflect on our recent empirical research with a cross-section of employees from three of Northern Ireland’s twenty-six local authorities, which are invariably structured by ethno-national discourses. Participants’ experiences and motivations at work were commonly framed by ethno-national discourses such that formal organisational objectives were variously embraced and/or undermined. Aspects of employee self-identity were derived from historical narratives of Unionism and Nationalism. Those interviewees identifying as Unionist were likely to lament what they perceived to be their identity under attack due to political developments within Northern Ireland since the late 1960s. On the other hand, Nationalist interviewees more frequently embodied an upwardly mobile identity generated by perceived political gains during the same period of time. In making sense of, and deciding how to act within, their employing organisation interviewees often located their self-image within these discourses. We argue that ethno-national discourses do not so much run alongside discourses of the formal organisation in shaping identities but have the potential to dissect and disrupt their flow. For example, Unionist employees if promoted by Nationalist managers and vice versa may view managerial initiatives with suspicion. Similarly, selection decisions are likely to be queried by Nationalist employees if a Unionist manager appoints another Unionist. Far from being marginal in their effects, employee identifications such as these are impact fundamentally on organisations subjectivity-shaping endeavours. Interviewees’ perceptions of their employing organisations are moulded by their self-image that in turn is informed by ethno-national narratives. In that sense, organisational attempts to produce desirable workers willing to devote to them their heart and soul are mediated in a complex manner by the ethno-national identifications of employees.
References
Alvesson, M. and Willmott, H. (2002a) ‘Identity regulation as organizational control: producing the appropriate individual’. Journal of Management Studies, 39, 5, pp619-644.
Deetz, S. (2003) ‘Disciplinary power, conflict suppression and Human Resource management’. In Alvesson and Willmott (eds) Studying Management Critically. London: Sage.
Jenkins, R. (2002) Foundations of Sociology: Towards a Better Understanding of the Human World. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Warhust, C. and Thompson, P. (1998) ‘Hands, hearts and minds: changing work and workers at the end of the century.’ In Thompson, P. and Warhurst, C. (eds). Workplaces of the Future. London: Macmillan.