Encountering the Arugula Leaf: The Failure of the Imaginary and Its Implications for Research on Identity in Organizations

The paper reviews research on identity in organizations. It suggests that current research reiterates imaginary constructions of identity by which identity can be defined as coherent or fragmented. Based on a psychoanalytic understanding of subjectivity, it explores how articulating identity as lack may unsettle such imaginary constructions. The paper develops the significant implications this has for how identity is conceptualized and researched and, importantly, how the failure of imaginary identity constructions relates to resistance and control in organizations. The paper provides new directions for the study of identity in organizations particularly with respect to widening the discursive spaces in which creative identity struggles occur.