Identity Work on the Fringes: Creating and Maintaining Identity Legitimacy

This symposium showcases recent research projects on identities that are seeking to gain legitimacy in a wide variety of contexts. We will present fresh insights into the processes taken by actors to manage fringe identities and, subsequently, create legitimacy. By integrating social psychology and institutional literatures, we consider “fringe identities” as those that have an ongoing struggle with cognitive, instrumental, moral, and/or relational legitimacy. In addition to this, we position these legitimating processes within the identity work literature – the various processes individuals employ to create, maintain, and present positive personal identities. The topics addressed in the proposed symposium include: how people that do not fit within socio-normative expectations create and maintain identity within organizations; how organizations’ attempts to create desired organizational identities for professional workers can compel an enactment of undesired selves; how individuals in a new occupational role establish a sense of ‘who they are’ in their work; and how entrepreneurs legitimize a stigmatized industry. These research projects include studying the linkages between organizational and professional identity, workers on the autism spectrum, the emerging profession of health coaches, and entrepreneurs selling medical marijuana. The studies are, therefore, not only diverse in content and context but also representative of multiple levels of analysis. Overall, the symposium will address these goals: (1) shed light on new findings and emerging theory on the relationship between fringe identity and legitimacy; (2) compare and contrast the identity challenges of fringe identities at multiple levels of analysis; and (3) provide a forum for discussion of the challenges and opportunities of conducting research on fringe identities. Keywords: fringe identity, professional identity, organizational identity, qualitative Beast or God? Unpacking an Autistic Identity in Organizations Presenter: Aparna Joshi; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Tiffany D. Johnson; Pennsylvania State U. Presenter: Glen E. Kreiner; Pennsylvania State U. Facing the Void: Identity Clarity and the Search for Compensatory Resources Presenter: Chad Murphy; Pennsylvania State U. Entrepreneurship in Stigma: Legitimization Strategies of Medical ‘Cannabusinesses’ Presenter: Kisha Lashley; Pennsylvania State U. Organizational Identity and the Undesired Self Presenter: Kimberly D. Elsbach; U. of California, Davis Presenter: Janet M. Dukerich; The U. of Texas at Austin