From Cruise Director to Rabbi: Authoring the Agentic Self through Conventions of Narrative Necessity

Abstract

The concept of (self-)identity has become increasingly central to institutional theory’s microfoundations, yet remains relatively underdeveloped. In this chapter, the authors use an autobiographical interview with a gay Protestant minister in the US to explore the role of narrative conventions in the construction of self-identity. The analysis of this chapter offers the basis for a new understanding of the relation between institutions, self-identity, and agency: how we agentically engage institutions depends not only on who we narrate ourselves to be, but also on how we narrate ourselves into being. This suggests that narration as a specific modality of micro-institutional processes has important performative effects.

Citation

Lok, J., Creed, W.E.D. and DeJordy, R. (2019), "From Cruise Director to Rabbi: Authoring the Agentic Self through Conventions of Narrative Necessity", Haack, P., Sieweke, J. and Wessel, L. (Ed.) Microfoundations of Institutions (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 65B), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 63-83. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X2019000065B036