Working With Tensions

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Working With Tensions: Materiality, Discourse, and (Dis)empowerment in Occupational Identity Negotiation Among Higher Education Fund-Raisers
Rebecca J. Meisenbach Management Communication Quarterly 2008 22: 258 originally published online 12 August 2008 DOI: 10.1177/0893318908323150 The online version of this article can be found at: http://mcq.sagepub.com/content/22/2/258 Published by:
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Working With Tensions

Materiality, Discourse, and (Dis)empowerment in Occupational Identity Negotiation Among Higher Education Fund-Raisers
Rebecca J. Meisenbach
University of MissouriColumbia
Management Communication Quarterly Volume 22 Number 2 November 2008 258-287 2008 Sage Publications 10.1177/0893318908323150 http://mcq.sagepub.com hosted at http://online.sagepub.com
The increasing time requirements and perceived value of occupations raises concerns about creating and managing positive occupational identities. The author explains how individuals pursue moments of micro emancipation and empowerment as they negotiate the positive and negative discourses and material realities of occupational identity within the fund-raising occupation. Interviews with higher education fund-raisers reveal six power-laden and discourseinfluenced ways of understanding (framing) fund-raising. The findings suggest that the potential for an empowered occupational identity resides in an individuals ability to shift among framings, managing and maintaining material and discursive tensions surrounding the framings rather than eliminating or avoiding these tensions. Implications of these identity negotiations for various occupations and particularly the nonprofit sector are discussed. Keywords: occupational identity; empowerment; fund-raising; materiality; professionalism
he current shifting of job security and stability toward job insecurity and instability, coupled with the increasing amounts of time that many employees engage in paid work, can lead to challenges for workers in making meaning of their work and their senses of self. Lair, Sullivan, and Cheney (2005) noted that the trend toward personal branding of workers promotes a belief that the individual is responsible for his or her own career, whether a success or failure. This belief in personal agency, along with the
Authors Note: This article is based on data collected for the authors dissertation, which was completed under the direction of Patrice M. Buzzanell and Josh Boyd. The author wishes to thank her advisors, the anonymous reviewers, and MCQ editor Jim Barker for their helpful comments. 258
Meisenbach / Working With Tensions
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belief that employees should be happy in their work, individualizes the meaning-making process and simultaneously encourages individuals to project appropriately disciplined professional selves and to derive a positive sense of self from such constructions. These individuals are turning toward occupations and individual careers as sites of stability for their social identities. But although entire occupations may be more stable than particular organizations in the contemporary landscape, occupations are still susceptible to a wide range of influences from both inside organizations and society. It is not surprising then that scholars are calling for more attention to meanings and consequences of occupation, work, and professionalism in relation to identity negotiation (Ashcraft, 2007; Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007; Cheney, Zorn, Planalp, & Lair, in press; Lair et al., 2005). Within research on identity negotiation, resistance, and empowerment, Ashcraft and Mumby (2004) noted that despite increasing acceptance of identities as sites of tension and fragmentation, existing identity studies still tend to lack dialectical explanation of the social processes through which identity organization occurs. Furthermore, as suggested above, material conditions play into occupational choices and identities, yet scholars have neglected the material aspects of identity negotiation (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007). Others have argued that awareness of tensions in identity negotiation necessitates studies that demonstrate how organizational members respond to and manage the binds in which they find themselves (Pepper & Larson, 2006, pp. 51-52) and consideration of more productive ways of living with such tensions (Ashcraft & Trethewey, 2004). Specifically, this project recognizes that just as tensions are present within traditional organizational boundaries (as assessed by Pepper & Larson, 2006), they are also present in occupations, affecting the construction and negotiation of increasingly important occupational identities. Furthermore, Tracy and Trethewey (2005) pointed out that jobs may be chosen and avoided based on the extent to which they support preferred organizational or, as is argued here, occupational selves. Therefore, management and organizational scholars interested in what makes a particular career well liked and desired should turn their attention toward understanding occupational identities and their tensions. Ashcraft (2005, 2007; Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004) has started this kind of empirical work by researching identity negotiation in a generally admired occupation, that of airline pilots. She has called for further studies of how occupational practitioners tweak available discourse as they navigate tensions between historical discourses and contemporary changes in occupations (Ashcraft, 2007, p. 28). Research on occupational identity tensions should expand to
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Management Communication Quarterly
focus on the tweaking of these discourses and identities in emerging and less universally admired occupations (e.g., Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999). In terms of occupation types, Cheney et al. (in press) have also argued that scholars need to broaden the locus of research on meaningful work beyond for-profit organizations. Thus, by studying less admired occupations that are also distinct from those found in U.S. for-profit corporations, researchers can obtain a fuller picture of the management of occupational identity tensions and their implications. Fund-raising is an ideal occupation in which to study identity-negotiation tensions because it is an emerging yet reputationally complicated occupation within nonprofit and nongovernmental sectors around the globe. Just within the United States in 2006 alone, Americans gave approximately $295 billion to nonprofit organizations (Giving USA, 2007). Furthermore, scholars have conservatively estimated that during the next 50 years $41 trillion in wealth will be transferred from one generation to the next. With approximately $6 trillion of that money going to charities (Havens & Schervish, 2000), fund-raisers are expected to play an essential role in the future of the sector. Most recently, public higher education institutions have come to recognize the value of staff fund-raisers (Brittingham & Pezzullo, 1990). Although the United States leads the way in this kind of philanthropy, other countries are following suit, and the increasing internationalization of philanthropic efforts only increases the relevance of and interest in this particular occupation. Yet the interest in fund-raisers is not always positive. Fund-raisers are closely connected to major public concerns about the nonprofit sectors potential to raise and use donated funds inappropriately (Kelly, 1998). Payton (1987) noted that a lot of people dont want to be bothered with fund-raising, dont like it, find it distasteful and dont want to be involved with it at all (p. 133). Fund-raisers construct occupational identities amidst these tensions and perceptions, and for the nonprofit sector to sustain itself, ideally they will be positive and empowered ones. Thus, by focusing on the occupational identity negotiations of higher education fund-raisers, I explain how individuals in a growing, sometimes revered, and sometimes despised career make sense of their work selves while managing the tensions inherent in their work and surrounding historical and social discourses. The present findings suggest that positive and empowered occupational identities involve constant shifting in the discursive construction of occupational selves rather than maintenance of a monolithic sense of self. This movement is noteworthy in that people use it to manage and maintain (rather than conquer or eliminate) the tensions and
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power relations inherent in and surrounding the occupation. I begin by developing a theoretical framework from recent research on identity negotiation and the current issues surrounding fund-raising as an occupation. I then use the framework to interpret 18 in-depth interviews with higher education fund-raisers as they talk about their work and occupational identities. The findings illustrate the transient character of empowerment processes and the tension-filled dynamics of occupational identity negotiations for fund-raisers.
Identities
Research on identity in organizational settings has grown in recent years, considering issues such as the roles of gender (e.g., Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004; Jorgenson, 2002; Tracy & Scott, 2006), professionalism (e.g., Dyer & Keller-Cohen, 2000; Jorgenson, 2000), narratives (e.g., Dyer & Keller-Cohen, 2000; Holmes, 2005), organizational control (e.g., Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Ashcraft, 2005), and societal discourses (e.g., Ashcraft, 2007; Kuhn, 2006) in the processes of identity negotiation. These studies have articulated identity as a socially constructed process, and many of them have explicitly taken a poststructuralist stance toward the concept, in which identities are conceptualized as fragmented, shifting, conflicted, and lacking in coherence (e.g., Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004; HolmerNadesan, 1996; Kondo, 1990; Kuhn, 2006; Shotter & Gergen, 1989; Tracy & Scott, 2006; Tracy & Trethewey, 2005). In contrast, structuralist identity assumptions suggest that a real and stable self exists, but the individual must seek it out and uphold it. From a structuralist perspective, identity is viewed as a relatively fixed essence that a person has; it is locatable and static. Poststructuralist approaches challenge these structuralist assumptions. Tracy and Trethewey (2005) illuminated the assumptions of a poststructuralist approach to identity through the metaphor of a crystallized identity, in which individuals identities may grow, change, and reflect differently in different moments. Although this notion of identity may sound uncomfortable, they posited that poststructuralist understandings of identity can free individuals to more readily embrace different senses of self in different moments, offering an empowering potential. However, future research needs to provide empirical evidence of anyone enacting a crystallized identity and/or realizing this empowering potential. Within identity-negotiation research, scholars frequently attend to issues of control and resistance. This focus is natural because a poststructuralist
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approach to identity suggests that these identities are developed in the context of power relations (Alvesson, 2000, p. 1105) and that identity is partly a temporary outcome of the powers and regulations that the subject encounters (Krreman & Alvesson, 2001, p. 63). Alvesson and Willmott (2002) have distinguished between identity regulation and identity work. Identity regulation focuses on how discourses generate and control selfidentities. In contrast, identity work represents individuals interpretations of and reactions (including resistance) to various discourses. Of particular importance for the current project, Alvesson and Willmott (2002) also pointed out that acknowledging identity-negotiation processes as fluid and unstable highlights opportunities for microemancipation as well as openings for new forms of subordination and oppression (p. 638). Micro emancipation involves an emphasis on partial, temporary movements that break away from diverse forms of oppression, rather than successive moves towards a predetermined state of liberation (Alvesson & Willmott, 1996, p. 172). These emancipatory movements thus pursue and sometimes generate empowerment for the individual. Empowerment is a sense of ability to control or influence ones circumstances (see Albrecht, 1988; Papa, Singhal, Ghanekar, & Papa, 2000). Recent identity research addresses the role of discourse in this identity workregulation process (Kuhn, 2006; Musson & Duberley, 2007). Mumby (2004) defined discourse as a material, embodied, performative process through which social actors construct their identities in a dynamic, contradictory and precarious fashion (p. 247). Kuhn (2006) noted that although scholars are recognizing the breadth of discursive resources that are relevant to identity work and regulation, studies rarely consider how organizational discourses influence identity formation, and even more rarely attend to discourses beyond the artificial boundaries of the organization (p. 1342). The current project attends to these discourses. Along with the interest in discourse, scholars advocate a dialectical approach to studies of (dis)empowerment and control or resistance that considers the simultaneity of such factors (e.g., Mumby, 2005; Papa et al., 2000). Ashcraft (2005) used this perspective in discussing how airline pilots overt discursive acts of consent can also function as moments of resistance. It is important that rather than assuming that identity tensions must be resolved, Mumbys approach relies on Adornos concept of negative dialectics, which refuses to engage in transcendence or grand synthesis and chooses the more difficult path of keeping tensions and contradictions in constant play (Mumby, 2005, p. 22). Similarly, Pepper and Larson (2006) noted the ubiquity of tensions in organizing and their
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potential for positive and negative outcomes. Yet in their study of cultural identity tensions surrounding a corporate merger, their findings revealed the tensions (conflicting premises competing to define individuals) as negative experiences that generated conflict and anxiety and unhealthy and unproductive organizational cultures (p. 52). The negativity of the experience of these identity tensions might have been tied to the postacquisition context of the study, suggesting that further study should explore the positive and/or negative experience of identity tensions in other situations. Most relevant to the current project is occupational identity, which is a type of group or social identity in that it represents how individuals construct their sense of who they are and what they do in relation to their jobs.1 Tracy and Scott (2006) offered a fairly static definition of occupational identity as central, distinctive, and enduring characteristics that typify a line of work (p. 7), but this definition seems to be at odds with the fragmentation and changeability associated with the poststructuralist view they take in their overall project. More clearly reflecting poststructuralist assumptions of fragmentation and changeability, Ashcraft (2007) noted that the formation of occupational identity is an ongoing persuasive endeavor that traverses time and space, macro and micro messages, institutions and actors, and that serves to (re)organize work by mobilizing discourses of difference in response to lived pressures and material circumstances (p. 15). Similar to Alvesson and Willmotts (2002) identity regulation and work, she described occupational identity as consisting of occupational image discourse (public discourses regarding the occupation) and role communication (the individuals day-to-day practices and experiences of doing the job). However, I believe that the use of the term role invites confusion over distinctions between roles and identities. Thus, I define occupational identity as the shifting, material, and discursive framing of image and practices associated with a particular type of work. Overall, recent identity research has opened up questions about the lived experience of identity negotiations, particularly what theorized micro practices of empowerment look like in practice and how individuals experience tensions across and among conflicting sources of identity regulation. This need, coupled with the increasing importance of occupational identities for those in growing and sometimes tainted occupations, serves as the impetus for this study.
Managing the Occupational Identities of Fund-Raisers

Fund-raising is an emerging and rapidly growing career option. Although the first staff fund-raisers tended to find their positions accidentally, the field
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is slowly developing into a purposefully chosen career path (Kelly, 1998; Wagner, 2002). The jobs tend to be plentiful, well paid (comparatively within the nonprofit sector), and autonomous. In fact, fund-raising has recently been listed by U.S. News & World Report as one of the best careers for the coming years, along with firefighting, investment banking, and 28 other careers (Nemko, 2007). As in other developing careers, this growth affects occupational identity. Factors that are relevant to the reputation of fund-raisers include (a) the fields high turnover rate and fieldwide competition for good fund-raisers, (b) greater organizational dependence on and competition for private support, and (c) increased attention to and public concern about how funds are raised and used (Association of Fundraising Professionals, 2007; Duronio & Tempel, 1997; Hall, 2007). Although the increased need and competition for fund-raising dollars, along with connections to admired causes such as education, enhance the prestige of fund-raisers, on the downside fundraisers face (a) long hours, (b) extensive travel requirements, (c) pressure to produce quick, visible, and sometimes unrealistic results for their organizations, and (d) resentment by other members of the nonprofit sector for fundraisers perceived higher pay and proclivity to abandon one organization for another. Meisenbach and Jones (2003) found that some educational fundraisers still face disapproval from their own families regarding their career choices. Overall, based on survey responses from nearly 1,800 fund-raisers and 82 interviews, Duronio and Tempel (1997) found that fund-raisers frequently face negative public and self-perceptions. Although facing issues with their image and reputation, the onset of Havens and Schervishs (2000) predicted transfer of wealth also means that Americas fund-raisers are embarking on a half century of fund-raising that can make them the heroes of the nonprofit sector. Existing research has revealed and explained little about how individuals in growing but tainted occupations negotiate positive and negative identities amidst these public and self-perceptions. As a growing and alternately revered and tainted (see Tracy & Scott, 2006) occupation, fund-raising offers a rich locus for seeking greater understanding of occupational identity negotiation as well as moments of micro emancipation. Thus, I ask,
Research Question 1 (RQ1): How do fund-raisers discursively negotiate their occupational identities? Research Question 2 (RQ2): How do these negotiations disempower and/or demonstrate paths for micro emancipation for fund-raisers?
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Method
Participants
The participants in this study are 18 full-time fund-raisers for U.S. institutions of higher education. Within fund-raising, educational institutions employ more fund-raisers than any other type of nonprofit organization (Caboni, 2001; Carbone, 1989). Fund-raisers came from six different states (Florida, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin) and 11 different public and private institutions. Equal numbers of participants were male and female. Participants had been fund-raisers between 6 months and 20 years, representing a total of nearly 170 years of experience, with an average of 9.4 years. They had been in their current positions between 4 months and 17 years, with an average tenure of 3.6 years. One fund-raiser was in an entry-level position, 10 described themselves as having midlevel positions, and 7 described themselves as middle to high or high-level fund-raisers. In all, 17 participants described themselves as Caucasian or White (European American), whereas 1 described himself or herself as African American.
Procedures
Participants were located through a snowball sampling technique, beginning with my personal and professional contacts within U.S. higher education institutions. Participants completed a consent form and biographical questionnaire that supplied demographic information about them and their institutions (e.g., educational levels, professional association memberships). Data were then collected through semistructured interviews over a 6month period. The four-part interview protocol asked how participants became fund-raisers, their perceptions and descriptions of being a fundraiser, their understandings of fund-raising practices, and their experiences with a variety of issues related to fund-raising. Example questions included What was the toughest part of becoming a fund-raiser? What do you like best about being a fund-raiser? and how would you describe the process of fund-raising in higher education? In-person interviews typically were scheduled at the participants offices at their request. Six interviews were conducted via telephone calls to the participants home or office. The interviews lasted from 41 to 78 minutes, with an average length of 68 minutes. All interviews were audiotaped, transcribed, and verified, resulting in 556 pages of double-spaced text. Identifying information such as names, locations, and dollar amounts was changed to protect confidentiality.
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Using a grounded theory approach, I began analyzing the data as I collected it (Charmaz, 2000; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). In grounded theory, data gathering and analysis merge insofar as researchers engage in systematic inductive methods to generate midlevel theory (Charmaz, 2000). As the transcripts were verified against the audiotapes, I engaged in initial open coding, examining each line of the data and describing its contents. I wrote brief descriptions in the margins about what was happening and being articulated in each sentence. Descriptions included asking for money, learning what to do, helping others, and building relationships. This process helps keep researchers from imposing their preexisting beliefs on the data (Charmaz, 2000; Glaser, 1978). This method was effective because I wanted the ways that fund-raisers negotiate their identities and interact with empowerment opportunities to emanate from their own words rather than be forced into preexisting categories. I also began the process of writing memos about the data and generating themes using the constant comparative technique (Charmaz, 2000; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Themes were formed out of talk that served to construct a sense of occupational identity. Thus, any talk that related to the work and image of the occupation and the individuals who perform this work was coded. This method generated initial categories that were then refined through further interviews and memoing. For example, early memos focused on ideas such as fund-raisers frequent articulation of themselves as relationship builders and students of fund-raising, their focus on making the ask, and how they viewed their work as being onstage or offstage. During this time, a secondary researcher also began reading the interview transcripts, engaging in additional memoing, and discussing categories, themes, and ideas with the primary researcher. Six ways of framing fund-raising emerged from the grounded analysis. The memoing process developed an awareness of how fund-raisers use of these framings simultaneously empowered and disempowered the fund-raisers, generating the second research question. When both researchers independently concluded that interviews were only repeating categories without revealing new characteristics of these categories (i.e., theoretical saturation, see Patton, 1990), a final two interviews were conducted. Because no new data continued to emerge, data collection ended.
Negotiating Tensions and (Dis)empowerment in Occupational Identities

The main research question asks how higher education fund-raisers discursively negotiate their occupational identities (RQ1). Fund-raisers interviews
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reveal how they simultaneously employ a variety of discursive frames or ways of bracketing and making sense of their occupational identity (see, Goffman, 1974). Specifically, the findings reveal six major modes of framing (financial, relational, educational, mission, coordination, and magical framing) on which fund-raisers discursively rely and often simultaneously accommodate and resist as they attempt to make meaning of their work and form occupational identities. The findings foreground combinations of and tensions among different framings or ways of making sense of their occupations. In addition, these framings simultaneously empower and disempower fund-raisers; that is, although a particular discursive move toward empowerment may help fundraisers manage one discourse-influenced identity tension, the findings demonstrate how that move simultaneously generates new tensions and opportunities for disempowerment associated with other constraining discourses (see RQ2). Fund-raisers constantly reframe, refocus, adopt, infuse, challenge, resist, broaden, and move among these frames as they seek to form, enhance, and explain their occupational identities in relation to relevant discourses and empowerment opportunities. Furthermore, fund-raisers occupational identities are not successfully managed by any one frame winning over another; rather, their identities are managed by maintaining tensions within and among frames that stem from materiality and historical and societal discourses. Therefore, although in the following sections I discuss the (dis)empowerment opportunities in each framing, I also focus on the tensions among and layering of framings. The examples shared here are by no means exhaustive of those found in the transcripts, and I often use examples from the same fundraiser in discussing different frames to help demonstrate the overlapping use of multiple frames by the same person.
Financial Framing
First, financial framing was the most clearly articulated way of framing the occupational identities of fund-raisers. Its frequency stems from a material reality for most fund-raisers in that they must raise money to keep their jobs. John, an annual fund fund-raiser with 10 years experience declared, Our job is to ask people for money. If you do not ask, do not like asking people for money, [then] you ought not to be a fund-raiser. Peter, a major gifts officer for 19 years, spoke of the material pressure of financial framing, saying, None of its terribly bad other than kind of having $600 million dollars stamped across your forehead every day for 5 years. Chris similarly noted, Theres so much pressure generated by schools that need money. . . . And theres a lot of pressure from the president of the institution and the
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financial office all the way through the trustees to simply go look for dollars. These material demands influence how fund-raisers can and want to frame their work and work selves. Fund-raisers frequently discussed disempowering public images of themselves as slimy, tin-cup beggars associated with financial framings of their work. Michele, who had been an annual gifts fund-raiser for 4 years, noted a common belief that fund-raisers are kinda sleazy, and theyre kinda out there with used car salesmen according to some folks. Kate, another annual gifts fund-raiser with 4 years of experience, said,
People are scared when you say that [you are a fund-raiser]. [laughs] Um. They automatically have this, I feel like they have an automatic feeling about you. People call me things like Oh, youre a money grubber, youre a, oh, you beg people for money.
Fund-raisers find explanations of what they do to be particularly difficult when this frame is the only way in which their work is understood. A subservient social taint associated with being a beggar was often perceived by the fund-raisers when articulating this frame (see Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999). Thus, the discourse of begging for money affects their occupational identities and can isolate and stigmatize fund-raisers. By keeping them from interacting with others, this discourse challenges fund-raisers sense of control, disempowering them. Although potentially isolating, the focus on finances as part of their occupational identities simultaneously allowed them to embody powerful positions. Based on 10 years of experience, Chris suggested that his talent for raising money both repels and attracts others:
Chris: If you go to a party and you say what you do . . . and you say youre a professional fund-raiser, everybody in the room moves away from you . . . and then throughout the evening people begin to come back to see you individually because almost everybody you meet is involved in some organization that has a need to raise money, and people begin to think that maybe you have something to offer that would help with what their main project is. Interviewer: Well what do you do when those people start returning and start sidling up to you one by one? Chris: I dominate the conversation by sharing all that I know about fund-raising. . . . [laughs] I love to talk about it.
Chris realized that the financial aspects of his occupation simultaneously repel and compel others and that he has little control over the material reality
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and societal discourses behind this movement. Yet he reclaims a sense of empowerment for at least a moment by shifting into a more positive framing of himself as a sharer and teacher. Carols interview also revealed ways in which financial framing both ostracized and empowered her, noting that her grandmother sees her as a glorified beggar but also that when we announce our totals [at administrative meetings], we get clapping, cheering and standing ovations. She is disempowered by her perceived inability to end the beggar image but also sees that her occupation can get her the recognition that she presumably desires from the university. Thus, financial framing stands out as a tension-filled framing of their occupational identities that is (dis)empowering in participants discourses. Although much of what follows demonstrates ways in which fund-raisers attempt to move beyond the negative begging discourse associated with asking for money, the fund-raisers do not reject financial framing of their occupational identities entirely. Indeed, the material reality of their work makes denial of this frame implausible. Instead, they discursively layer and hold it in tension with other framings, finding moments of emancipation from stigmatizing discourses that create the need for still other paths.
Relational Framing
Relational framing offers a path to micro emancipation that creates new tensions for fund-raisers as simultaneously (dis)empowered. This framing at first suggests empowering reciprocal relations among fund-raisers and others, and fund-raisers articulated relationship building as their favorite thing about fund-raising, a source of positive self-image and a way to manage other negative framings. For example, Karen, who had worked as a foundations giving officer for nearly 4 years, talked about how she turns to relationships to manage the tensions associated with her financial role as a fund-raiser:
And a lot of people even, I feel really bad sometimes when Ive hit em up for things, when I come in just to shop in their stores, I think they like, worry, like, Is she going to ask me for something today?
When I asked how she handled that suspicion, she said, Im like, Im only here to shop today, indicating that at first she remains within the financial frame with them and denies that she will ask for money. However, she then turned to the relational frame:
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I think they wonder what Im up to when I come in to shop. . . . But they know me, we have that that type of relationship and you, and you build that, you build that. People build that being comfortable and confidence in you to know if you, if youre in there for an ethical purpose and, and they like you and they like your organization. And I think thats very important, is the relationship part of it.
So she compensates for and manages her perception of peoples suspicion that she wants money through a personal relationship that she builds with the shop owners. In this way she is trying to use relational framing to free herself from a perceived undesirable image associated with her occupation. Through relational framing, fund-raisers can be understood as ethical and equal to those with whom they interact, enjoying higher levels of power, respect, and reputation. However, it is key to note that participants were articulating both framings rather than choosing one over the other. For example, Roger, a major gifts officer with 8 years of experience, described what he does: I think building relationships, umm, and translating those relationships into support for the, for the university is really, thats really the crux of the matter. Similarly, Alan is a fund-raiser with 8 years of experience and a masters degree in communication who consistently layered financial and relational frames during his interview:
Alan: I dont like friend-raising. I think youre just, youre fund-raising. I dont think you need to shy away from that were fund-raisers. Interviewer: So let me reflect back. Is this kind of the way youre seeing it, that you dont really view it as friend-raising, because making friends isnt the goal, its fund-raising, because making funds is the goal? Alan: No, because I disagree with both of those points. I dont think its about making friends. I think what we do in educational fund-raising is build relationships with people . . . and bring them closer to the university . . . and then hopefully, somewhere down the road, were going to ask them for a gift.
Thus, he resisted the interviewers attempts to categorize his occupational identity in one frame. For him, fund-raising is not about either asking for money or altruistically making friends; financial and relational frames must be held in tension to fully understand how he views his work. The material reality is certainly a factor. There is also a current of professionalism in such stances in which the fund-raisers implied that friendships are distinct from professional relationships. Furthermore, even though Roger and Alan brought up the financial aspect and frame, they both articulated the financial
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goal in relational and mission-based terms such as asking for support instead of asking for money. Turning attention to the disempowering potential of this frame, Kelly, an annual giving fund-raiser for 5 years, foregrounds the relational aspects of fund-raising when explaining to a stranger what she does. She tells them, I build relationships with people and then ask them for money. She laughed and continued, People look at you, and theyre like, Okay, so are you a hooker? From that conversational opening she would describe her work. Kelly uses the frame to challenge peoples assumptions about her occupational identity, but her approach highlights new tensions. Although the beggar suffers from potential physical (filth) and social (servile relationship to others) taints, a hooker also faces a moral taint stemming from the occupations doubtful virtue (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999). The strategic use of relationships as a means to financial ends can call forth public discomfort with combinations of friendship and money. Talking about building relationships as a necessary step or means of raising money challenges any assumptions that fund-raisers are building altruistic friendships. Overall, the addition of relational framing helps fund-raisers extricate themselves from the disempowering begging discourse by generating a focus on respectful, honest, and reciprocal relations with others. Talking about relationships with human beings avoids public discomfort with talking about money and connotes a sense of empowerment for fund-raisers as those who are orchestrating and building the relationships but also leads to questions about the ethics of their actions. Some participants seemed aware that blending financial and relational framing, while freeing them from some issues, creates new identity issues. Specifically, this blending can result in even greater public mistrust of fund-raisers as people who subvert and bend relationships to the strategic end goal of obtaining money. Strategic rather than altruistic relations may conflict with public assumptions about philanthropy. Also, if they are building relationships with donors, then leaving the organization could destroy the relationship, making it harder to justify changing jobs. Many participants attempt to distinguish these relationships from friendship as a way to manage these tensions. Thus, although relational framing helps manage problems stemming from financial framing, it also creates new tensions and issues for fund-raisers.
Educational Framing
Third, educational framing of fund-raising encompasses additional power-laden tensions for fund-raisers, ranging from admitting that they
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knew little about their jobs when they started and are still learning the work more than 10 years later to describing themselves as knowledgeable teachers of publics who are undereducated about fund-raising and fundraisers. Although fund-raisers constantly persuade others to alter and form perceptions of their work and identities, this framing addresses how they frame their occupational identities in educational terms, that is, how they describe themselves particularly as both students and teachers, interacting with societal discourses about education and philanthropy as still another way of nuancing understandings of their occupation. Almost all the fund-raisers mentioned that they lacked any knowledge about their occupation as they started their first fund-raising job (We knew nothing), thus distancing themselves from the professionalism and empowerment traditionally associated with education and knowledge in societal discourses. For example, Kelly shared a very intimidating initial experience with her student workers that left her disempowered: It was very nerve-racking at first to come in knowing that [my student workers] had that expertise, and I didnt. Gary talked candidly about how he faced the initial stumbling blocks of really knowing the, the vernacular and um, a lot of methodology, just completely ignorant about that so yes, you know, you have to spend some time reading, researching what works, what methodologies do people use. They typically learned on the job, matching Duronio and Tempels (1997) findings a decade earlier. Fund-raisers spoke freely and frequently about their initial lack of understanding of fund-raising. Most of them turned this lack of knowledge into a discussion of how their occupation required a willingness to constantly learn. Even fund-raisers with 18 years of experience spoke about the need to be students of fund-raising, continuously learning skills and the needs of their organizations and donors. Karen noted, Becoming a good, a good fund-raiser is that personal commitment to always grow and learn what is going on in the industry of fund-raising. This defining of their work as constantly being students could both excite and worry fund-raisers. Janet noted, Ive been at [this school] for 16 years, and I still dont have my arms fully around it. Because its constantly evolving, constantly changing, and thats the beauty of an educational institution. Several fund-raisers shared Janets excitement about constantly learning. On the other hand, Gary described the need to always learn new techniques as the hardest part of his job: The biggest hurdle is staying current with the methodologies and being able to, the hardest thing for me is to be able to adapt myself. His position matches Gregorys (2001) findings of corporate workers feeling pressured by realizations that they were facing a need to constantly learn, but more of the
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fund-raisers shared Janets enthusiasm. Fund-raisers perceive themselves as people who really want to and/or have to learn constantly. As perpetual students, they can see themselves as less competent, powerful, and empowered than other professionals (or even students), yet the constant learning gives them a sense of pride in their work, suggests their job is not easy, and furthermore can reduce others expectations of their outputs. Even as they described themselves as students, they also described themselves as teachers of others who lacked knowledge of fund-raising and philanthropy. By reframing others negative perceptions as uninformed or incorrect, fund-raisers position themselves and their work positively. Even Erin, with only 6 months of experience, was already using this framing:
I think a lot of people have misconceptions. Um, they think I think a lot of time theyre unsure about exactly what the money is being raised for and what it goes to support. Um, I think thats the biggest thing is just they dont really know what goes into it.
They often shared stories of educating their administrations and faculties about realistic goals for fund-raisers. Chris laughingly offered an example of when his trustees wanted him to raise $3 million in 60 dayssomething that had never been done on the campus without someone dying: So I had to explain to them that that would not be a realistic goal. When understood as teachers, empowered dispensers of knowledge, fund-raisers share an admired commonality with others in the higher education system in which they work. Fund-raisers also manage and create tensions by suggesting that their job is to educate people about philanthropy in general. Moving fluidly from student to teacher, Sarah, who had been in fund-raising for 14 years, talked about realizing her work could involve being a teacher: That was a real learning lesson for me, and so what, what Ive taken as a challenge is to help educate my alums um. Just about giving. Not only if its for me but for other institutions. She concluded, I see our role here is [to be] educators about the whole, about the whole philanthropic process. This discursive move to being philanthropy teachers can assist fund-raisers in managing ideas that it is unethical for them to switch positions because a switch in institutions still offers the chance to educate people about philanthropy. In contrast, relational framing would make justifying a move more complicated because the fund-raiser might be damaging these relationships. Particularly in todays workforce and in the midst of beliefs that the individual is responsible for the success of his or her career, a perception that
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an individual is morally and materially able to switch jobs is important and empowering. Although a few fund-raisers choose not to engage in teaching various publics about fund-raising, philanthropy, and fund-raisers, they often encounter moments that contain the opportunity. Taking advantage of the opportunity represents an additional responsibility but also a chance for emancipation from the limits and tensions of other frames that may improve their self-perception, their reputations, and thus their occupational identities.
Mission Framing
Fourth, fund-raisers often negotiated identity tensions by speaking of their occupation as mission oriented. As Janet noted, Mission is everything to us. This mission framing offers a particularly rich microemancipation opportunity for fund-raisers needing to transcend other oppressive frames and understandings of their occupation. Mission framing empowers fund-raisers as pursuing a higher cause, trumping concerns about fund-raisers as beggars or false friends, yet the framing suggests subservience to these missions and therefore limits individual choices to move up a career ladder in a new place as promoted by personal branding and professional discourses. Indeed, within mission framing, the fund-raisers spoke of how identifying with the missions of their institutions and philanthropy could assist them. Karen described how important it is for the fund-raiser to support a schools mission and how that drives others to give. Focus on mission makes her job easier and thus gives her some control over her success:
I mean I think, if you really support the mission of your organization and you get excited about a program thats being developed and you as an individual can support it and buy into it, I think, I think thats really the key to it. And . . . your excitement and enthusiasm can drive others, donors and other individuals to really buy into your mission and buy into your organization. I mean and cause theres, sometimes theres projects that Im asked to work on where its very difficult for me to do research or proposals on cause I just cant get excited on or see where at first its going to help us, but eventually when I do, when the light clicks I guess, um, I can really get into it.
Yet identifying with the mission can control fund-raisers. Peter spoke of telling a friend:
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I said, You know, Nancy, I dont return [headhunter] calls because I feel like Id almost be, uh, if I return the call I would not be being loyal to [the university] if I return the call. And she said, Peter, thats so stupid! They just, theyre trying to network.
Peter so strongly identifies with his organization and its mission that he was not even willing to talk with anyone about other jobs or making more money. Gary spoke about how he came to identify with the mission of his current organization, (making education possible) from first questioning what the slogan meant to becoming so involved that he really believed that meant something. In contrast, he had left another organization because he thought it was failing to meet its mission: It became very difficult for me to solicit funds for an organization that was not necessarily meeting its mission, was not living up to its mission. And I, you just lose your spirit for doing it. So identifying with an organizations mission may simultaneously limit career options and make being a fund-raiser easier. Thus, fund-raisers manage tensions between believing in and selling their organizations mission and their own needs for career advancement. As in educational framing, they sometimes described prioritizing a broader philanthropic mission, often associated with donor and public interests, over what they may see as the short-term mission of their organizations. Gary discussed the importance of this broader mission:
I dont think you can be a long term successful fund-raiser if you really dont believe in your heart with the altruism of, of philanthropy and fund-raising. . . . I think if youre just opportunistic and, um, and dont have that philosophic base, I think its real hard.
As in the educating frame, connecting with philanthropy generates empowering choices for the fund-raiser and can build a positive sense of occupational identity among fund-raisers. Also, identifying with a philanthropic mission over an organizational one can justify the choice to change institutions. Yet identification with the mission of the organization can limit a fund-raisers perception of his or her career options. Indeed, Garys juxtaposition of altruism and opportunism illustrates a conflict fund-raisers face between a selflessness associated with a philanthropic mission and the self-interest and self-promotion often expected of todays professional. Their descriptions also suggest that fund-raisers must identify with missions.
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Coordination Framing
Fifth, understandings of fund-raisers as coordinators, conduits, and backstage participants in a drama (see Goffman, 1959) suggest contradictory empowerment moments for fund-raisers. Some fund-raisers took pride in their abilities to coordinate, whereas others lamented that coordinating, although important, was the worst part of the job. Janet provided an example of coordination framing as a source of pride and one that blends back into mission framing: Its the fine art of connecting people and this institution and I firmly believe in our mission. . . . Im proud to be a fundraiser. She later said, We are the thin copper wire that conducts electricity between the two and we conduct it back and forth. So, thats our, thats our role . . . and passing the excitement from one to the other as well. Peter similarly argued, You are a conduit for support that people want to give anyway. Sarah went further, describing herself as merely grease on the conduit of fund-raising for her school: Were just the, were a technician. Its the faculty, um, that are, and the students that are the real conduits for um, all of our interactions. All of these descriptions place fund-raisers in an interesting position power-wise. On one hand, a conduit is a tool, something to be used and easily replaced without concern for who or what the conduit is, resembling dehumanizing classical management assumptions about workers. Such a position sounds like it disempowers fund-raisers. However, at the same time, replaceability can be freeing to fund-raisers, making it easier for them to move on to other situations. They are not central to the process; funds can be raised by others without this particular fund-raiser being present. For example, Carol expressed dislike for the background and coordinating aspects of her work with a large donation for her school:
[The donation] was a really big deal. But I was, um, the dean got to make the ask, and he got to tell everybody about it, and he got to do everything, and all I did was sort of file the paperwork and pat people on the back behind the scenes . . . and it was very like, oh, wow we raised all this money and what a let down that I really didnt get to do it.
However, she also used this framing to justify switching institutions every 2 or 3 years:
Were building the relationship with the institution, and, um, presidents stay at universities for you know a decade. Deans tend to stay quite, quite a long
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time and, um, those are the people who are setting the vision and the direction and all were doing is communicating that with them, being a liaison, getting their questions answered and getting them introduced to people, so. I dont think that, um, peoples gifts are cut short when the right fund-raiser doesnt answer the phone.
Thus, coordination framing minimizes the fund-raisers importance as individuals, suggesting they have little control regarding their fund-raising success; yet that lack of control is simultaneously an opportunity for micro emancipation from discourses that attempt to tie fund-raisers to remaining at one institution for their whole career as their only ethical option.
Magical Framing
Finally, magical framing generates contradictory empowerment opportunities and tensions for fund-raisers. Several fund-raisers described what they do as akin to the work of a magician. Magical framing offers a sense of power and even joy to fund-raisers as magicians and wish granters who fulfill dreams. Roger spoke of his
bag of tricks I take with me when I travel to see people, but I dont always show the entire hand because I want to be able to continue that, I want to have something else to do with that person later on.
Carol said,
After a few years you . . . you dont have any new tricks in your bag that this organization hasnt seen. Youve implemented them all. And youve impressed everybody youre going to impress and its only downhill from there. And if you havent then, you, theyre probably going to fire you anyway, you might as well get out before it happens.
Roger and Carol referred to hiding part of a hand and having a bag of tricks for strategically handling interactions with donors. Neither person explicitly addressed the manipulative nature of this exchange, and through a magicians metaphor they do not have to do so. The magician is supposed to have tricks up the sleeve, and the audience knows and is a willing participant in the deception. The metaphor of a magician obscures any harmful effects of pulling fund-raising tricks out of a bag and then disappearing. Of course an ethical consideration for fund-raisers is whether
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or not their audiences see themselves as willing participants who accept that fund-raisers are performing magic tricks. Differing perceptions on this point could explain some public trust issues with fund-raisers, harming the occupations identity in the long run. However, because the magician is a professional who is supposed to quickly move on to the next gig, this magical framing offers fund-raisers another path of emancipation from discourses that attempt to keep the fundraiser from switching positions and institutions. Yet magical framing also fosters expectations that can create enormous pressure on fund-raisers to perform and to deliver miraculous, and maybe unrealistic, results. Perhaps because of this possibility, fund-raisers seemed to employ this frame only in brief moments and resisted its use at times by publics, faculty, and administrations. Carol noted,
I dont think its ever a good idea for people to say, Oh I have this idea, but lets ask the fund-raisers if they can get it funded, because we dont have crystal balls. . . . They know so much more about their project than we do.
Overall, this way of framing is not used as frequently and prominently as many of the other frames. It has distinctive characteristics, placing fundraisers in a position of privilege and apparent control over what happens but with the associated risks of seeming to have easy jobs and to be manipulative, suspicious, and untrustworthy.
Layering Fund-Raising Framing

The second research question asked how these negotiations demonstrate opportunities for (dis)empowerment and particularly paths of micro emancipation. The findings above demonstrate the tendency of fund-raisers to discursively blend, move among, and layer multiple ways of framing their work and identities. No one frame generated empowerment as a static and secure outcome for fund-raisers. In fact, it became apparent that fundraisers who primarily articulated only one frame were also the fund-raisers who more strongly expressed difficulties in negotiating, embodying, and presenting a positive occupational identity. For example, Kate, who expressed discomfort with her job throughout the interview, overwhelmingly articulated her work through financial framing, at one point explicitly rejecting both coordinating and relational framing, noting that if
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the assistant director of alumni relations [and I] walk into a room [of alums] I feel like they look at me completely different from her. They see her as a friend, as a, you know, liaison. They see me as being . . . there because I want something.
Kate had no perception that others see her as a coordinator or relationship builder, and though she wanted to see her work as both she struggled to do so. Similarly, Gary indicated that when faced with opportunities to educate others about fund-raising or philanthropy, he did not engage: I dont really have much occasion to. Thus, he had fewer discursive resources for managing his occupational identity. In contrast, fund-raisers willingness and ability to move among and layer multiple framings of their occupations offered the greatest potential for moments of micro emancipation. For example, Janet, who seemed very comfortable with and enthusiastic about being a fund-raiser, articulated all six framings in one 41-minute interview, often in the same statement. By constantly discursively pursuing opportunities for empowerment through each framing, fund-raisers are achieving in-the-moment emancipation from particular discourses, moving on to the next framing when a new societal or material influence challenges that sense of self and control.
Discussion
My central goal here has been to understand how individuals in a growing and sometimes stigmatized job manage the tensions associated with their occupational identities. Past research has theorized about the fragmented and shifting character of identities but has thus far provided little empirical evidence of how individuals manage the potential tensions and opportunities for (dis)empowerment and micro emancipation associated with crystallized identities. As an element of identity that is growing in importance for employees, managers, and organizations, occupational identities need to be researched to enhance understanding of individuals occupation choices and the identity difficulties associated with those occupations. Specifically, the findings reveal six major modes of framing (financial, relational, educational, mission, coordination, and magical framing) on which fund-raisers discursively rely and often simultaneously accommodate and resist as they attempt to make meaning of their work and occupation amidst competing societal discourses and material realities. The findings also suggest that the constant (dis)empowering tensions present in each individual framing mean
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that emancipation and positive occupational identities reside not in the selection and espousal of any one frame and thus the removal of tensions but rather in the constant movement and maintenance of tensions among the various ways of framing. In essence, the different framings serve as correctives to each other and their associated discourses. The movement among the framings is a path to micro emancipation. These findings have several theoretical implications. First, the project offers insight into the interactions of material and discursive reality in identity negotiation. As such, this project recognizes a multidimensional, interactive, and dynamic relationship among discourse and materiality that is often lacking in communicative research (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007, p. 157). The material reality of the work of fund-raising is that successful fund-raisers generate financial donations to their organizations. And this reality is a key factor in the discursive constructions of the occupational identity of fund-raisers. Specifically, although the financial framing that stems from this reality is one that raises many stigmatized and disempowering reputation issues for fund-raisers, its material centrality to their work inhibits them from rejecting the frame outright in discussions of their occupational identities. Instead, fund-raisers frequently, actively, and discursively seek to supplement or correct financial framing and the disempowering aspects of a discourse of money with one or more of the other five frames. Future research should consider occupations in which the material reality of the work generates relatively few reputational issues to compare the amount of shifting that occurs in these less materially challenging occupations. Along the lines of shifting framings, the findings also answer calls to investigate the tensions among and intersections of identity regulation (image discourse) and identity work (role communication) (Alvesson & Willmott, 2002; Ashcraft, 2007) and particularly to research the influence of nonorganizational discourses in this process (Kuhn, 2006). The disempowering tensions associated with societal and historical discourses (identity regulation) serve as impetuses for shifting and layering additional framings of ones identity (identity work). All of the framings provide opportunities for fund-raisers to (re)shape the potentially disempowering historical, socioeconomic, and professional discourses surrounding fundraising in a given moment. As such, the findings also provide empirical evidence that supports poststructuralist theorizing that individuals identity constructions are complex and constantly shifting (e.g., Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004), yet they offer a sense of explanation that challenges suggestions that these identity negotiations are lacking in coherence. The
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coherence is found in how each framing of occupational identity is associated with material reality and historical-societal discourses. The materiality and discourses (forces of identity regulation) and the responses to them (identity work) are the cohesive threads amidst identity negotiations. Fund-raisers articulate different framings and combinations to manage the reputational and power tensions tied to each discourse. Therefore, this project also helps answer calls for understanding productive and enabling ways of living with tension, in this case in the realm of occupational identities (Ashcraft & Trethewey, 2004, p. 178; also see Pepper & Larson, 2006). The six ways of framing generate and are generated by identity tensions. By flirting with various ways of describing their work (Eisenberg, 1998) and in fact discursively creating new tensions (e.g., between raising money and building relationships), fund-raisers seem better able to understand and negotiate their identities. The fund-raisers manage the tensions by purposefully combining and layering them, avoiding eitheror choices. This holistic picture is overlooked if one assumes that tensions should be minimized, but it readily becomes apparent through a poststructuralist lens and can contribute to research on identity and career negotiation. As fund-raisers encounter and respond to discourses by shifting framings, they influence reputations and meanings and constantly (re)create what it means to be a fund-raiser. One particular discourse the fund-raisers encountered and managed that transcends the organizational boundaries Kuhn (2006) discussed is the discourse of professionalism. Professionalism can be invoked to both suppress and elevate individuals (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007) and thus contributes to the (dis)empowerment of workers. As they frame their work, fund-raisers challenge and struggle with the appropriateness of embodying traditional understandings of what it means to be a professional. The results show fund-raisers encountering impressions that it is not okay for them to seek the same sort of personal advancement that is expected in dominant (forprofit) conceptualizations of professionalism (see Ashcraft & Allen, 2003). Thus, professionalization in the nonprofit sector may create a unique tension between an (accepted professional and for-profit) interest in improving salaries and status through job movement and a nonprofit sectorbased belief that philanthropic work means privileging concern for others and the cause over concern for self. This tension is likely to extend beyond fund-raisers to other paid work in the nonprofit sector. Elsewhere, scholars have considered race, nationality, class, and gender biases of professional norms (see Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007). To this list, I add sector biases to refer to the for-profit sector bias of the discourse of professionalism. As
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such, the discourses of professionalism and philanthropy (or the nonprofit sector) can be at odds with one another, and these tensions warrant further exploration. This analysis also contributes to research on dirty work and tainted occupations (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Ashforth, Kreiner, Clark, & Fugate, 2007; Tracy & Scott, 2006) in that the shifting and layering of various framings are ways of managing occupational taint. This project suggests that the ability to constantly adapt to and shift among these various methods of framing offers strong potential for successful management of power relations and identity tensions for the fund-raisers in this study. Specifically, counter to modernist suggestions that workers should develop and maintain a stable sense of self (and thus eliminate tensions), fund-raisers who invoked and maintained multiple and layered framings often had many years of experience (e.g., Alan, 8 years; Carol, 14 years; Janet, 18 years; and Sarah, 14 years). They spoke of their occupational identities with great enthusiasm, whereas fund-raisers with less experience who articulated less enjoyment and more difficulties in managing a positive identity had trouble with or even resisted the applicability of certain framings (e.g., Gary, 3 years; Kate, 4.5 years). In other words, multiple framings of their occupational identities assist fund-raisers in the management of identity tensions, including moments of occupational taint. Finally, this analysis addresses opportunities for micro emancipation and (dis)empowerment in identity negotiation. The findings reveal the dialectical presence of empowerment and disempowerment in all of the framings and related discourses. Power is not viewed here as a repressive force in which spaces of resistance have broken free of power. No one framing places fund-raisers in a stable empowered position. Instead, language and knowledge are inherently tied to power, such that moments of control and resistance are about dynamic struggles with power relations (Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004). As the fund-raisers might encounter an undesirable sense of self or control associated with one framing, they often discursively focused attention on a different framing, ideally an empowering aspect of that other framing. This is the kind of discursive micro emancipatory move that Alvesson and Willmott (1996, 2002) discussed. Yet these moves do not liberate the individual from oppression and control; rather, they invite new discourses and their implications into the identity-negotiation process. The results demonstrate that even as a framing empowers, it can also disempower, requiring further discursive moves to address new issues. Thus, this study supports Alvesson and Willmotts (1996) claim that such moves are temporary moves away from oppression rather than purposeful moves
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toward a static locus of emancipation. This study reveals that emancipation is a temporary status constantly pursued and managed through the maintenance of identity tensions.
Practical Implications and Applications

On a pragmatic level, these findings suggest some important applications for fund-raisers specifically as well as for individuals in a broader range of emerging, growing, evolving, and/or stigmatized careers. One overarching conclusion about fund-raiser identity is that the material reality of raising money affects the management of their occupational identities. For example, if fund-raisers talk about what they do only as building personal relationships and coordinating internal and external audiences, it would be difficult to understand it as inherently fund-raising. In contrast, someone who asks one person for money one time is considered by many to be a fund-raiser. The findings have demonstrated how moving among and combining different framings of their work, including the materially necessitated financial framing, can assist them in managing tensions associated with different aspects of their occupational identities. Basically, the goal of this approach is to make someone who asks one person for money not meet the sufficiency definition of being a fund-raiser. Work to encourage and develop the use of multiple framings held in tension may assist fund-raisers and their organizations in recruiting and retaining successful fund-raisers. Second, this project offers an opportunity to realize Tracy and Tretheweys (2005) call for scholars to play a key role in helping translate a poststructuralist-inspired understanding of identity to an audience of laypeople . . . accustomed to striving for a stable self (p. 185). In other words, I argue that just as researchers have benefitted from understanding identities as transient constructions, so can the fund-raisers and other workers who are embodying these occupational identities. Because this datadriven study challenges public assumptions that a successful identity is unchanging, explicit training and teaching of fund-raisers and others about this alternative conception of self and multiple ways of framing are advisable. In terms of consequences, this study suggests making fund-raisers aware that articulating and negotiating a variety of fund-raising frames can discursively create moments of positive and empowered identities. However, fund-raisers should also recognize that all frames empower and disempower.
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Beyond fund-raisers, this poststructuralist understanding of negotiating occupational identity through multiple framings can be helpful to individuals in other occupations, particularly those working in emerging or stigmatized occupations. Being new and/or ostracized is difficult, so in contrast to everyday assumptions about finding and maintaining a fixed, real self, consciously creating multiple ways of framing an occupation can yield a variety of options for interacting with and managing discursive and material challenges to occupational identities. In conclusion, this project continues the work of conceptualizing and understanding occupational identity negotiation. These identities are not constructed and then left alone to fend for themselves. They are constantly and actively challenged, developed, expanded, and contracted in every power-laden moment of experience. Therefore, they can be affected both positively and negatively through every interaction, every micro practice. Research should ascertain the extent to which this constant movement and maintenance of discursive and material tensions carries across other occupations, including a diverse range of emerging or established and admired or abhorred occupations. Furthermore, the discoveries about how tensions are managed and how empowerment and emancipation are sought through occupational framing have implications beyond the occupational realm. This same process may well be at work in the management of personal and other social identities including organizational, gendered, and classed identities. The fragmentation seen here just among occupational framings is likely to be even more complicated when, for example, researchers explore tensions generated between personal and occupational identities. This knowledge and perspective offer scholars, fund-raisers, and others encouragement and understanding of how to consciously negotiate and understand identities as tension-filled experiences co-constructed in relation to material reality and various discourses.
Note
1. Group identity and social identity are terms stemming from social identity theory, which originated in social psychology research and distinguishes between personal and social or group identities (Tajfel & Turner, 1979).
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Rebecca J. Meisenbach (PhD, Purdue University, 2004) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of MissouriColumbia. Her research addresses issues of identity and ethics in relation to nonprofit and gendered organizing.

Working With Tensions

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Working With Tensions

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Managing the Occupational Identities of Fund-Raisers

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Negotiating Tensions and (Dis)empowerment in Occupational Identities

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Layering Fund-Raising Framing

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Practical Implications and Applications

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

Management Communication Quarterly

Meisenbach / Working With Tensions

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