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Management Communication Quarterly
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0893318908323150v1
22/2/258    most recent
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Working With Tensions

Materiality, Discourse, and (Dis)empowerment in Occupational Identity Negotiation Among Higher Education Fund-Raisers

Rebecca J. Meisenbach

University of Missouri-Columbia

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.

Key Words: occupational identity • empowerment • fund-raising • materiality • professionalism

This version was published on November 1, 2008

Management Communication Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 2, 258-287 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0893318908323150
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