The Glass Slipper: “Incorporating” Occupational Identity in Management Studies

Abstract

Management scholars have long separated the study of work and diversity, assuming that the nature of work itself is not affected by race or gender. Research on occupational segregation invalidates this assumption, confirming that we judge the nature of work in large part by the social identities aligned with it. Management theorists have yet to digest this evidence because of a unilateral view of the work-practitioner relation (i.e., people derive identity from work), which conceals a reciprocal relation (i.e., work derives identity from associated people). I build a bilateral view that accommodates available evidence by theorizing a new glass metaphor—the glass slipper—to capture occupational identity by association as it yields systematic forms of advantage and disadvantage. The metaphor elucidates how occupations come to appear “naturally” possessed of features that fit certain people yet are improbable for others. This article thus contributes to management knowledge by redefining the current division of scholarly labor as a consequential theoretical problem and developing the requisite theoretical tools to redress that problem. Through the glass slipper metaphor, I theorize collective occupational identity and its relation to other social identities in a way that fosters the sustainable integration of work and diversity studies.