Abstract:

This study explores how members of self-managed organisations (SMOs) construct the meaning of “self-management” and how these constructions operate as identity claims shaping organisational identity. Grounded in a social constructionist and interpretivist perspective, the research examines the sensemaking processes through which self-management is discursively negotiated, enacted, and stabilised in practice. Empirically, the analysis draws on 108 interview-based episodes from a Spanish-language podcast featuring founders, managers, employees, consultants, and academics engaged in self-managed organising.

Findings indicate that participants construct self-management through six interrelated dimensions: conceptual, structural, managerial, operational, strategic, and cultural. Conceptually, self-management is framed as a plural and contrast-based construct, defined relationally against hierarchical and bureaucratic models. Structurally, it entails the redistribution of authority and the reconfiguration—rather than elimination—of governance mechanisms. Managerially, it is understood as a distinct yet adaptive way of organising work. Operationally, it is depicted as an ongoing process grounded in responsible autonomy and collective accountability. Strategically, it is articulated as a normative and transformative project extending beyond the firm. Culturally, it is embedded in trust, humanisation, and relational bonds.

Taken together, these dimensions suggest that self-management functions less as a fixed organisational model and more as a polysemous symbolic resource through which members articulate values, differentiate themselves from traditional managerial paradigms, and negotiate collective identity. The study contributes to organisational identity scholarship by conceptualising self-management as an identity claim continuously constructed through distributed sensemaking processes. It also advances research on self-managed organising by foregrounding meaning-making dynamics, showing how identity in SMOs emerges as processual, negotiated, and only partially stabilised rather than unified or structurally predetermined.

Please choose your submission type: Developmental Paper

Primary Track: Identity

Keywords: Social Identity Theory / identification / self-categorisation;Organisational identity;Identity construction;Qualitative

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Mrs. Claudia Díaz-Leyva