Handbook of Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Second Edition

Do New Organizational Forms Threaten Social Identity and Learning?

Despite the growing technical possibilities for individuals and organizations to be connected through networks, the restructuring of many workplaces has detached people from a long-term stable association with employing organizations (Littler, 2000; Cascio, 2002). This creates insecurity and anxiety for many. It has often been accompanied by a breach of the trust which prevailed between employers and employees (Child and Rodrigues, 2004), and it therefore weakens the sources of work-related social identity. Albert, Ashforth, and Dutton (2000: 13–14) comment that ‘given the massive corporate downsizings of recent years, the decrease in long-term relational contracts in favor of shorter-term transactional ones, and the growth in boundaryless careers . . . the notion of identification with and loyalty to one’s employer, workgroup, or occupation may seem quite quaint, even naïve.’ Insofar as identification with organizations is a condition for people to contribute to learning within them, this would be ironic because learning is one of the key processes that new organizational forms are intended to promote.

One feature in this trend is the disappearance of the former supports for occupational identity as new organizational forms are adopted. Previously, many specialists could rely on occupational credentialism (Collins, 1979) to provide an assured income stream and career progression within traditional functionally ...