A Behavioral Measure of the Construction of Self as Story, Process and Perspective

Identity is a core construct within organizational studies. Recent literature has emphasized the importance of identity work as people form, maintain and change their identities in the context of work. We present an account of identity change that has more precision, scope and depth than accounts existing in the management literature. We then describe a behavioral measure of identity flexibility that can be applied to any natural language text where a person is talking about themselves. A validation study using a mindfulness based stress reduction course (MBSR) demonstrated that the measure can detect changes in identity associated with more flexible perspective taking. We conclude by arguing that such flexible perspective taking is an essential aspect of the modern organizational environment and that such research is essential if we are to understand the impacts of identity work interventions.