Advertising what lies behind the academic door: Occupational identity displays

Abstract

We used an unobtrusive research design to observe and measure the materials that academics post on their office doors in a social science department. The purpose of the study was to uncover how social actors advertise dimensions of their occupational identities. The analysis examined variation in the amounts and types of door materials, focusing specifically on how indicators of social status influenced expressions given in displays of occupational identity. We found that door displays are related to professorial rank and other relevant status markers. We encourage researchers to replicate the study in different types of universities and academic departments.