Identity work in different entrepreneurial settings:dominant interpretive repertoires and divergent striving agendas

This paper examines how entrepreneurs within different settings reflect on social interactions to work on their identity. Using life story narratives, we explore a business membership network and a creative hub in the central belt of Scotland. Our subsequent model shows how individuals in these settings use different dominant interpretive repertoires, as represented by structural-instrumental work in the business network and relational work in the creative hub. We also show how the interpretive repertoires both shape and are shaped by what individuals strive for in their identity work: striving for esteem and striving for closeness. We discuss how our findings offer insight into the dynamics of social identities and how they are reproduced and maintained through situated exchange using specific interpretive repertoires and striving agendas

Language Management/Labor

How language is conceptualized as labor is a function of the economy within which profits are made and businesses are structured. Under capitalist regimes, language practices have been conceptualized as apart from labor, as part of the means of production, and as the product. Under neoliberal regimes and conditions of globalization, and depending on the language worker\u27s job description and status as managed or managing, ethnicity/race, gender, and affiliation with national or nonnational language practices are conceptualized as skills subject to Taylorization, as natural abilities for employers\u27 occasional use, or as indexes of authenticity. What ties all this together is how language workers are imagined in relation to the organizations for which they work, a key element being the degree to which language labor represents an internalization of the organization. In this way, language labor is conceptualized in relation to agency as a technology of self