The increasing time requirements and perceived value of occupations raises concerns about creating and managing positive occupational identities. The author explains how individuals pursue moments of micro emancipation and empowerment as they negotiate the positive and negative discourses and material realities of occupational identity within the fund-raising occupation. Interviews with higher education fund-raisers reveal six power-laden and discourse-influenced ways of understanding (framing) fund-raising. The findings suggest that the potential for an empowered occupational identity resides in an individual's ability to shift among framings, managing and maintaining material and discursive tensions surrounding the framings rather than eliminating or avoiding these tensions. Implications of these identity negotiations for various occupations and particularly the nonprofit sector are discussed.
Albrecht, T. L. (1988). Communication and control in empowering organizations. In J. A. Anderson (Ed.), Communication yearbook 11 (pp. 380-390). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
2.
Alvesson, M. (2000). Social identity and the problem of loyalty in knowledge-intensive companies. Journal of Management Studies37, 1101-1123.
3.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (1996). Making sense of management: A critical analysis . London: Sage.
4.
Alvesson, M., & Willmott, H. (2002). Identity regulation as organizational control: Producing the appropriate individual. Journal of Management Studies, 39, 619-644.
5.
Ashcraft, K.L. (2005). Resistance through consent? Occupational identity, organizational form, and the maintenance of masculinity among commercial airline pilots. Management Communication Quarterly, 19, 67-90.
6.
Ashcraft, K.L. (2007). Appreciating the "work" of discourse: Occupational identity and difference as organizing mechanisms in the case of commercial airline pilots. Discourse & Communication, 1, 9-36.
7.
Ashcraft, K.L., & Allen, B.J. (2003). The racial foundation of organizational communication . Communication Theory, 13, 5-38.
8.
Ashcraft, K.L., & Mumby, D.K. (2004). Reworking gender: A feminist communicology of organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
9.
Ashcraft, K.L., & Trethewey, A. (2004). Developing tension: An agenda for applied research on the "organization of irrationality." Journal of Applied Communication Research, 32, 171-181.
10.
Ashforth, B.E., & Kreiner, G.E. (1999). "How can you do it?": Dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity. Academy of Management Review, 24, 413-434.
11.
Ashforth, B.E., Kreiner, G.E., Clark, M.A., & Fugate, M. (2007). Normalizing dirty work: Managerial tactics for countering taint. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 149-174.
12.
Association of Fundraising Professionals. ( 2007). State of fundraising 2006 report. Retrieved December 15, 2007, from http://www.afpnet.org/ka/ka-3.cfm?content_item_id=24149&folder_id=2365
13.
Brittingham, B.E., & Pezzullo, T.R. (1990). The campus green: Fund raising in higher education. Washington, DC: ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education.
14.
Caboni, T.C. (2001). The normative structure of college and university fund raising. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN.
15.
Carbone, R.F. (1989). Fund raising as a profession (Monograph No. 3) . College Park: University of Maryland, Clearinghouse for Research on Fund Raising.
16.
Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 509-535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
17.
Cheney, G., & Ashcraft, K.L. (2007). Considering "the professional" in communication studies: Implications for theory and research within and beyond the boundaries of organizational communication. Communication Theory, 17, 146-175.
18.
Cheney, G., Zorn, T.E., Jr., Planalp, S., & Lair, D.J. (in press). Organizational communication engages the meaning of work. In C. Beck (Ed.), Communication yearbook 32. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
19.
Duronio, M.A., & Tempel, E.R. (1997). Fund raisers: Their careers, stories, concerns, and accomplishments. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
20.
Dyer, J., & Keller-Cohen, D. (2000). The discursive construction of professional self through narratives of personal experience. Discourse Studies, 2, 283-304.
21.
Eisenberg, E.M. (1998). Flirting with meaning. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 17, 97-108.
22.
Giving USA. (2007). U.S. charitable giving reaches $295.02 billion in 2006. Retrieved June 25, 2007, from http://www.givingusa.org/press_releases/gusa/20070625.pdf
23.
Glaser, B.G. (1978). Theoretical sensitivity. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.
24.
Glaser, B.G., & Strauss, A.L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory. Chicago: Aldine.
25.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
26.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper & Row.
27.
Gregory, K.W. (2001). "Don't sweat the small stuff": Employee identity work in a transitioning business environment. Dissertation Abstracts International, 63(02), 661A. ( UMI No. 3041107)
28.
Hall, H. (2007, August 9). Fund-raising frenzy. Chronicle of Philanthropy, 19, 19.
29.
Havens, J.J., & Schervish, P.G. (2000). Finances and philanthropy: The forthcoming $41 trillion transfer and the prospects for fund raising. Boston: Social Welfare Research Institute .
30.
Holmer-Nadesan, M. (1996). Organizational identity and space of action. Organization Studies, 17, 49-81.
31.
Holmes, J. (2005). Story-telling at work: A complex discursive resource for integrating personal, professional and social identities. Discourse Studies, 7, 671-700.
32.
Jorgenson, J. (2000). Interpreting the intersections of work and family: Frame conflicts in women's work. Electronic Journal of Communication , 10(3-4). Retrieved June 14, 2005, from http://www.cios.org/getfile/Jorgen_V10n3400
33.
Jorgenson, J. (2002). Engineering selves: Negotiating gender and identity in technical work. Management Communication Quarterly, 15, 350-380.
34.
Kärreman, D., & Alvesson, M. (2001). Making newsmakers: conversational identity at work. Organization Studies, 22, 59-89.
35.
Kelly, K.S. (1998). Effective fund-raising management. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
36.
Kondo, D. (1990). Crafting selves: Power, gender and discourses of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
37.
Kuhn, T.R. (2006). A "demented work ethic" and a "lifestyle firm": Discourse, identity, and workplace time commitments. Organization Studies, 27, 1339-1358.
38.
Lair, D.J., Sullivan, K., & Cheney, G. (2005). Marketization and the recasting of the professional self: The rhetoric and ethics of personal branding. Management Communication Quarterly, 18, 307-343.
39.
Meisenbach, R.J., & Jones, G. (2003, May). Making money and making friends: Corporate ideology and friendship in university fund raising. Paper presented to the public relations division at the International Communication Association Conference, San Diego, CA.
40.
Mumby, D.K. (2004). Discourse, power and ideology: Unpacking the critical approach. In D. Grant, C. Hardy, C. Oswick, & L. Putnam (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational discourse (pp. 237-258). London: Sage.
41.
Mumby, D.K. (2005). Theorizing resistance in organization studies: A dialectical approach. Management Communication Quarterly , 19, 19-44.
42.
Musson, G., & Duberley, J. (2007). Change, change or be exchanged: The discourse of participation and the manufacture of identity. Journal of Management Studies, 44, 143-164.
43.
Nemko, M. (2007, December 19). Fundraiser: Executive summary. U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved January 24, 2008, from http://www.usnews.com/articles/business/bestcareers/2007/12/19/fundraiser-executive-summary.html
44.
Papa, M.J., Singhal, A., Ghanekar, D.V., & Papa, W.H. (2000). Organizing for social change through cooperative action: The (dis)empowering dimensions of women's communication. Communication Theory, 10, 90-123.
45.
Patton, M.Q. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods (2nd ed.). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
46.
Payton, R.L. (1987). The philanthropic dialogue. In K. W. Thompson (Ed.), Philanthropy: Private means, public ends (pp. 123-136). Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
47.
Pepper, G., & Larson, G. (2006). Cultural identity tensions in a post-acquisition organization. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 34, 49-71.
48.
Shotter, J., & Gergen, K. J. (1989). (Eds.). Texts of identity. London: Sage.
49.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J.C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33-47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
50.
Tracy, S.J., & Scott, C. (2006). Sexuality, masculinity, and taint management among firefighters and correctional officers: Getting down and dirty with "America's heroes" and the "scum of law enforcement." Management Communication Quarterly, 20, 6-38.
51.
Tracy, S.J., & Trethewey, A. (2005). Fracturing the real-self-fake-self dichotomy: Moving toward crystallized organizational identities. Communication Theory, 15, 168-195.
52.
Wagner, L. (2002). Careers in fund raising. New York: John Wiley.
