Branded Lives: The Production and Consumption of Meaning at Work PDF
Preview Branded Lives: The Production and Consumption of Meaning at Work
Branded Lives Branded Lives The Production and Consumption of Meaning at Work Edited by Matthew J. Brannan Lecturer in Management, Keele University, UK Elizabeth Parsons Senior Lecturer in Marketing, Keele University, UK Vincenza Priola Lecturer in Organisation Studies, Aston University, UK Edward Elgar Cheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA © Matthew J. Brannan, Elizabeth Parsons and Vincenza Priola 2011 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. Published by Edward Elgar Publishing Limited The Lypiatts 15 Lansdown Road Cheltenham Glos GL50 2JA UK Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc. William Pratt House 9 Dewey Court Northampton Massachusetts 01060 USA A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: 2011927317 ISBN 978 1 84980 092 1 (cased) Printed and bound by MPG Books Group, UK 2 0 Contents List of contributors vii Preface x Paul Willis Acknowledgments xiv 1. Introduction 1 Matthew J. Brannan, Elizabeth Parsons and Vincenza Priola 2. Considering the ‘bigger picture’: branding in processes of financialization and market capitalization 17 Hugh Willmott 3. Be who you want to be: branding, identity and the desire for authenticity 35 Christopher Land and Scott Taylor 4. The branded self as paradox: polysemic readings of employee–brand identification 57 Sandra Smith and Margo Buchanan-Oliver 5. The trouble with employer branding: resistance and disillusionment at Avatar 75 Jean Cushen 6. Internalizing the brand? Identity regulation and resistance at Aqua-Tilt 90 Stephanie Russell 7. Recruitment and selection practices, person–brand fit and soft skills gaps in service organizations: the benefits of institutionalized informality 108 Scott A. Hurrell and Dora Scholarios 8. The brand I call home? Employee–brand appropriation at IKEA 128 Veronika V. Tarnovskaya v vi Branded lives 9. Appropriating the brand: union organizing in front-line service work 148 Melanie Simms 10. Employer branding and diversity: foes or friends? 168 Martin R. Edwards and Elisabeth K. Kelan 11. Placing branding within organization theory 185 Matthew J. Brannan, Elizabeth Parsons and Vincenza Priola Index 197 Contributors Matthew J. Brannan is Director of International Partnerships and a lecturer in Management at Keele Management School. His research focuses upon the contemporary experience of work, especially service work, and employs predominately ethnographic techniques of investigation. Margo Buchanan-Oliver is Professor of Marketing and the Co-Director of the Centre for Digital Enterprise (CODE) at the University of Auckland Business School. Her research concerns interdisciplinary consumption discourse and practice, cultural identity projects and social semiotics. Jean Cushen is a lecturer within the Management School, Queen’s University Belfast. Jean teaches Human Resource Management and Research Methods and her research explores Human Resource Management, Knowledge Work, Labour Process Theory and Critical Realism. Martin R. Edwards is a senior lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour at the Department of Management, King’s College London. His research has involved investigating organizational identification in parent-subsidiary contexts with a particular emphasis on multi-foci organizational identity issues, as well as longitudinal research examining the impact of mergers and acquisition on employee identities and employee well-being. Scott A. Hurrell is a lecturer in Work and Employment Studies in the Institute for Socio-Management at Stirling University. His research interests include skills, work organization and recruitment and selection with a particular focus on front-line service workers and the non-profit sector. Scott has worked with policy bodies such as Futureskills Scotland, the former Equal Opportunities Commission (Scotland), the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and Scottish Government Departments. Elisabeth K. Kelan is a lecturer in Work and Organisation in the Department of Management at King’s College London. Prior to this appointment she was a senior research fellow at London Business School. She received her PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests vii viii Branded lives lie in the area of gender in organizations, diversity, identities and organiza- tional cultures. Christopher Land is a senior lecturer in Management at the University of Essex and visiting fellow at the University of St Gallen. His research covers a range of topics including representations of work and organization in litera- ture, the relationship between the arts and political economy, community as an organizational discourse, and ethical branding. Elizabeth Parsons is a senior lecturer in Marketing at Keele Management School. Her current research interests lie in two key areas: the cultures of second- hand markets and the construction of gender and identity in organizational life. She draws from social theory, material cultural studies and post-structural femi- nism for inspiration. She is Assistant Editor of the journal Marketing Theory. Vincenza Priola is lecturer in Organisation Studies at Aston University in the UK. Her research interests centre on the general field of management processes and practices with a particular focus on gendered processes in orga- nizations. She is interested in managerial and gender identities and how these are constructed within organizations. Stephanie Russell is a PhD student in Keele Management School, Keele University. Her research focuses upon the impact and experience of dereg- ulation, with particular emphasis on institutional theory and critical theory. Attention is also given to Foucault’s work on power and the enterprise discourse. She has particular interest in ethnographic and qualitative research methodologies. Dora Scholarios is Professor of Work Psychology in the Department of Human Resource Management, University of Strathclyde. Her research interests span the areas of recruitment, assessment and selection, skills and employabil- ity, well-being, and work/life boundaries, with special focus on call centres, service work, software/IT and the voluntary sector. Melanie Simms is Associate Professor of Industrial Relations in the IROB group at the University of Warwick. She researches trade union renewal, organizing campaigns, and comparative employment relations with a particular interest in the ways in which trade unions try to recruit and engage new groups of workers. Sandra Smith is currently a lecturer in the Department of Marketing at the University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand. She has completed her doctoral thesis on employee constructions of a service brand and has a special Contributors ix interest in the use of narrative analysis to unveil the complexity of organiza- tional worlds and, moreover, the branded identity within organizations. Veronika V. Tarnovskaya is Associate Professor at the School of Economics and Management, Lund University. She is a researcher in strategic marketing and branding with a special focus on emerging markets. She has published several articles in journals such as the Academy of Management Executive and International Marketing Review and is the author of The Mechanism of Market Driving with a Corporate Brand (VDM Verlag, 2009). She lectures in interna- tional marketing and brand management. Scott Taylor currently works as a senior lecturer at the Centre for Leadership Studies, University of Exeter Business School. He has worked at Manchester Metropolitan, Open, Birmingham, and Essex universities. His research centres on the religious or spiritual beliefs and values people bring to workplaces. Hugh Willmott is Research Professor in Organization Studies, Cardiff Business School. He co-founded the International Labour Process Conference and the Critical Management Studies Conference. He has a strong inter- est in the application of social theory to the field of management and busi- ness. He currently serves on the board of Academy of Management Review, Organization Studies, Journal of Management Studies and is an Associate Editor of Organization.
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