Introduction

Developments and transitions have characterised modern-day organisations ever since the historic shift from the industrial worker to the knowledge worker has put increasing emphasis on employees’ skills and knowledge. This process has been referred to as the ‘new work order’ (Gee et al. 1996) and is characterised by several diverse tendencies. One of these tendencies is ‘the dispersal of centralised authority and hegemony’ (Gee et al. 1996: xiii), which implies that ‘top-down hierarchies are replaced by “flat” allegedly egalitarian systems’ (Angouri 2013: 577). In these ‘flat’ hierarchical systems, workers ‘are expected to share the vision of the employer they work for’ while also orienting to ‘a set of core values – for example, equality, trust, collaboration, quality’ (Sarangi 2005: 163). These transitions to seemingly flatter organisational structures (Geis et al. 1990) have also led to changes in management approaches. These have been increasingly oriented to the egalitarian ideal of the new work order and have put more and more emphasis on empowering rather than directing employees. This worker empowerment ‘thus amounts to taking full responsibility and remaining accountable for what they [the employees] do (not) achieve’ (Sarangi 2005: 163). So, employees are made responsible for ‘motivating, disciplining and directing themselves’ (Cameron 2000: 14). Many organisational practices, such as problem solving, and standardising procedures which were traditionally the responsibilities of individuals in senior positions are often redefined in the modern workplace as the collective responsibility of the team, thus illustrating the shift ‘from top-down/ bottom-up to the level of the team’ (Angouri 2013: 577).

In turn, such a transition towards more participatory approaches has had profound effects on the professional identities of employees, that is, the ways in which they perceive themselves, and their roles and responsibilities in the wider context of their workplace (see Fairclough 1992). For example, in a study of a gaming machine factory and a teaching hospital, Iedema and Scheeres (2003) observed how structural changes in these workplaces led to challenges for the staff in conceptualising their (new) roles and constructing their (new) professional identities.