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Article published In: Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 14:4 (2023) ► pp.519–545

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Identity gatekeeping in New Work Order organizations

Quality care discussions during performance appraisal interviews

ORCiD logo with link | KU Leuven
Published online: 3 April 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.20039.van
Abstract
While much has been written on the transition of organizational life into the New Work Order (NWO) and the effects this has had on employees in language-centered economic spaces, few studies have attempted to tease out how these NWO-expectations have affected less language-centered workplaces. In this article, I focus on such a workplace, namely a medical lab, and I tease out processes of what I call ‘identity gatekeeping’. With this term I refer to the fact that NWO-employees are expected to be knowledge-workers whose identities need to be aligned with organizational expectations. As such, these identities become a crucial object of intra-organizational gatekeeping. Focusing on three performance appraisal interviews and using a social-realist discourse-analytical approach, I demonstrate how the superior’s interactional identity negotiations either mold or silence dissident identities depending on the employee’s future professional aspirations. Finally, the implications of these interactional negotiation processes for NWO-ways of working are discussed.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Performance appraisal interviews
  • 3.Method
  • 4.Data
  • 5.Analyses
    • 5.1A model employee
    • 5.2Silencing the ‘assembly line’-employee
    • 5.3‘Creative employee’ identity molding
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (41)
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