“Nobody Really Knows What We Do”: Exploring the Organizational and Occupational Identification of Academic Librarians

ABSTRACT

This study investigates the organizational and occupational identification of academic librarians. Results from 21 semi-structured interviews with librarians with instruction roles at an Ivy-league and two state universities reveal that academic librarians identify primarily with their occupation rather than organization. In addition, communication partner as well as two types of identity cues influence participants’ communicative strategies during the process of identification. Consistent with communication accommodation theory, in-group or out-group status is triggered by stereotypes, which affects participants’ accommodation or nonaccommodation decisions. Unlike previous studies, we find that perceived external prestige can serve as a negative cue limiting the amount of identification in a certain context. Other findings and implications are also discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Organizational identification
• occupational identification
• communication accommodation theory
• perceived external prestige
• identity cues
• professional identity

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The interview protocol is available from the first author.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the Potter College Arts & Letter, Western Kentucky University.

Notes on contributors

Kumi Ishii

Kumi Ishii (Ph.D., Kent State University) is a Professor of the Department of Communication at Western Kentucky University. Her research interest is organizational communication, particularly communication among diverse members and communication with technology in the global age.

Kris M. Markman

Kris M. Markman (Ph.D., The University of Texas at Austin) is a communication scholar with more than 20 years of experience in higher education including teaching, program administration, management, and research. In October 2020 she joined the Tufts Clinical & Translational Science Institute as their Director of Professional Education. As a researcher, Kris is interested in communication processes related to teaching, learning, and collaborating with and through with technology. In the past her research has been focused on the ways that new media affect our everyday communicative and cultural practices, with a particular emphasis on discourse structures, identity and community, and independent podcasting.

Hannah Arnow

Hannah Arnow (M.A. & M.L.I.S., Simmons University) currently works as the Information Governance and eDiscovery Program Manager at Textron in Providence, Rhode Island.  Her research interests include information governance, information systems design, and historic examinations of identity creation, belonging, and communal memory.

Sabrina Carr

Sabrina Carr (M.A., Western Kentucky University) is a recent graduate currently teaching ESL. Her research interests include social movement rhetoric and the influence of technology in both interpersonal and organizational communication.