Gianpiero Petriglieri, INSEAD & Sue Ashford, University of Michigan, M&O

Building on an inductive, qualitative study of independent workers (i.e., not affiliated with an organization or established profession), this paper develops a theory about the management of precarious and personalized work identities. We found that in the absence of organizational or professional membership, workers experienced stark emotional tensions encompassing both the anxiety and fulfillment of working under precarious and personal conditions. Lacking the holding environment provided by an organization, the workers we studied endeavored to create one for themselves through cultivating connections to places, people, routines, and a broader purpose. These personal holding environments enabled them to master the broad range of emotions stirred up by their precarious working lives, and to focus on producing work that let them define, express, and develop their selves. Elucidating the process through which people master emotions associated with precarious and personalized work identities and thereby render their work identities viable and selves vital, this paper advances theorizing on the emotional underpinnings of identity work and the systems psychodynamics of independent work.