infonet-economy

By exploring post-exit identity constructions of former management consultants, this paper challenges the idea that identity regulation is ultimately resisted with the termination of an employment contract. Based on 30 auto-biographical interviews with ex-consultants working in a new organizational contexts, the paper will examine how these former consultants are able to liberate themselves from discursively constructed elite identities of the past in order to create a new image of self. The analysis will document what can be called a post-exit identity struggle, reflecting a creative interplay between conflicting discourses of 'nostalgia' and 'positive re-orientation' that interpellate professional (post-exit) identity constructions