Journal of Organizational Change Management

Identity work and play

Herminia Ibarra Jennifer L. Petriglieri
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JOCM
23,1 Identity work and play
Herminia Ibarra and Jennifer L. Petriglieri
INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France

10 Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of identity play defined as people’s
engagement in provisional but active trial of possible future selves.
Design/methodology/approach – Current research and theorizing on the variety of strategies and
behaviors used by individuals to tailor, adapt or otherwise change their identities has converged on the
notion of identity work to conceptualize these processes. This paper introduces an alternative but
complementary notion – identity play – and develops a framework that specifies how identity work
and play differ from each other, and proposes a set of ideas about the process of identity play in role
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transitions.
Findings – The authors theorize that role transitions are a useful context to explore identity play and
that just as individuals move between cycles of career stability and professional transitions so may
they move between periods of identity work and play.
Originality/value – The concept of identity play provides a useful starting point to explore the
multiple, often incoherent and variable nature of the self as well as the process of exploration and
discovery necessary for creating new identities.
Keywords Work identity, Individual behaviour, Career development
Paper type Research paper

Journal of Organizational Change
Management
Vol. 23 No. 1, 2010
pp. 10-25
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0953-4814
DOI 10.1108/09534811011017180
The fact that people tend to flirt only with serious things – madness, disaster, other people –
makes it a relationship, a way of doing things worth considering (Adam Philips).
Despite a growing interest in identity processes in organizations, researchers still know
little about how work identities change (Albert et al., 2000). Recent scholarship defines
identity work as people’s engagement in forming, repairing, maintaining, and
strengthening or revising their identities (Snow and Anderson, 1987; Sveningsson and
Alvesson, 2003). This way of conceptualizing identity’s multiplicity and dynamism has
provided much insight into strategies for coping with multiple, conflicting, and/or
ambiguous identities (Ashforth et al., 2000; Bartel and Dutton, 2001; Elsbach and
Bhattacharya, 2001; Pratt and Foreman, 2000; Sveningsson and Alvesson, 2003) and
tailoring role identities to better fit their sense of self (Ibarra, 1999; Kreiner et al., 2006;
Pratt et al., 2006; van Mannen, 1997). While clarifying how people manage discrepancies
among their various personal and role identities, researchers largely assume identities
as given, shedding little light on situations in which selves stand at a threshold between
past and future.
In organizational life, people work at being certain things but play at becoming
others. Imagine a person working at being a doctor. The image formed no doubt evokes
diligence, efficiency, and duty – the “ought self.” Now, imagine instead, a person
playing at being a doctor. In all likelihood, the image had an element of fantasy and
possibility (who do you want to be when you grow up?”). But, as psychoanalyst Philips
(1995) points out in the quote above, flirting with, or playing at, being a doctor is very
serious because we play with things that matter. Play is a way of believing in a
 possibility and behaving as if it exists; yet it is flirtation because commitment to being a Identity work
doctor is provisional, limited to the play episode. Conspicuously missing from research and play
on “identity work,” however, are conceptions of identity as playful or experimental.
Our objective in this paper is to propose an alternative but complementary notion,
identity play, defined as people’s engagement in provisional but active trial of possible
future selves. We argue that our limited understanding of the processes by which
identities evolve and change is partially due to the way, we have defined and 11
investigated identity processes. By focusing our attention on how we work identities,
we neglect the playful processes necessary for creating new possibilities.
In the sections below, we briefly review the literature on identity work and on play
in organizational life. Next, we develop a framework that defines and differentiates
identity play from identity work on three critical dimensions: purpose, place, and
process. Identity play aims to explore possible selves rather than to claim and be
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granted, desired or ought selves. Work is conducted in the real world; play’s context is
the threshold between current reality and future possibilities. Commitment, in play, is
provisional; as such, play processes generate variety not consistency. Building on
theory and research on role transition, we suggest situational conditions that foster
identity play. The paper concludes by drawing implications of a notion of identity play
for future research on identity change and work role transition.

Previous research
Identity and identity work
Identity refers to the various meanings attached to oneself by self and others (Gecas,
1982). These meanings or self-conceptions, are based on the social roles and group
memberships a person holds (social identities) as well as the personal and character
traits they display, and others attribute to them, based on their conduct (personal
identities) (Ashforth, 2001; Gecas, 1982). As such, the self-concept consists of multiple
identities that vary along dimensions including their centrality or importance to the
individual, whether they reflect actual or potential achievement, and their temporal
orientation (i.e. their past, present, or future). The notion of possible selves, the images
one has about who one might become, would like to become, should become, or fears
becoming in the future (Markus and Nurius, 1986), for example, defines identity as
future potential.
Despite this variegated view of the self, most empirical and conceptual treatments of
identity construction in work settings have focused on central, actual, and present
identities (Ashforth et al., 2000; Bartel and Dutton, 2001; Kreiner et al., 2006; Pratt et al.,
2006). Likewise, although theoretical treatments concede to multiple, often fragmented
selves, organizational scholars have mostly examined how people create coherence and
continuity across their various identities, for example, “tailoring” role identities so that
they better fit their sense of self (Ibarra, 1999; Pratt et al., 2006), balancing personal
and social self-definitions (Elsbach, 2003; Kreiner et al., 2006), and weaving narratives
that establish or restore the continuity of identity despite apparent change
(Holland et al., 1998).
Close examination of this line of research reveals that the notion of identity work is
based on two underlying assumptions: the importance of external (public) display of
role-appropriate characteristics, and the desirability of internal identity coherence. As
observed by Goffman (1959), all social roles carry expectations regarding appropriate
 JOCM self-presentations requiring that the people who occupy them appear to have particular
23,1 characteristics; as such, individuals strive to convey social images that conform as
closely as possible to prototypic characteristics of the roles they play (Leary and
Kowalski, 1990), and socialization processes aim at developing “the appropriate
mannerisms, attitudes and social rituals” which signal a cultural “fit” (van Mannen and
Schein, 1979, p. 226). Adherence to these role-related expectations confers legitimacy
12 upon the role-holder (Goffman, 1959).
A primary objective of identity work, therefore, is acting and looking and part, so as
to be granted the claimed identity. But, people also strive to be consistent and authentic
(Swann, 1983; Higgins, 1987); when discrepancies arise between what people “really”
feel and the images they feel are obliged to convey as role occupants (Ibarra, 1999;
Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987), people also engage in identity work to manage or reduce the
discrepancies. Signals that one has either not conformed to role identity expectations or
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violated an internal sense of self are experienced as identity threats; much of the
literature on identity work explores the specific behavioral and cognitive tactics that
people use to maintain and affirm identities under threat conditions (Pratt, 2000; Snow
and Anderson, 1987).

Play and playfulness

There is scholarly consensus that the notions of work and play represent different
ways of approaching, or frames for, activities rather than differences in the activities
themselves (Bateson, 1955; Miller, 1973; Glynn, 1994). “Play” is distinguished from
“work” by contrasting its purposes, places, and processes.
In play, the primary drivers of behavior are enjoyment and discovery rather than
goals and objectives (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; March, 1976). As first noted by child
psychologists, however, play also serves as rehearsal, a form of preparation for the
future (Groos, 1901; Miller, 1973; Sutton-Smith, 1997). When children play at being
“mummy,” for example, they are rehearing a possible future identity. Likewise, when
adults play, they are rehearsing future possibilities:
When they play with dolls, children rehearse ways of interacting with people. When they play
with blocks, they teach themselves basic principles of spatial geometry and mechanics. Later
in life they will learn the general properties of the pendulum through swinging on a swing
and all about levers through the playground teeter-totter. Through experimentation [. . .]
children discover principles and develop skills that are relevant in reality beyond play (Senge,
1990, p. 314).
Play, however, requires a relatively safe space to try out new and untested behaviors
(Bruner, 1972; Glynn, 1994; Shrage, 2000; Winnicott, 1975). Many of our ideas about the
relationship between play and psychological safety derive from research on the stages
of maturity and predictable transition periods traversed by children. Children imagine
various possibilities for themselves in the future, and they play out these possibilities
via games, reverie, and make-believe explorations (Winnicott, 1975). The play world
they create defines a region between an objective external reality and the entirely
subjective internal world in which the child prepares for the hard work of making the
illusions real in the external world. The role of the mother is to provide a safety zone in
which the child can give rein to his or her imagination. In that space, the child feels
protected, safe from any danger. He or she can gradually define and test out a newly
emerging self, with the mother’s blessing.
 As March (1976) notes , however, the very experiences children seek out in play Identity work
are the ones organizations are designed to avoid: disequilibrium, novelty, and surprise. and play
Work and play frames are enacted in different physical and psychological settings.
Play activities, for example, are often buffered from work activities by physical
and temporal boundaries such as sabbaticals, time-outs, laboratories, and the like.
Psychologically, play demarcates a space in between external and internal reality, or a
transitional space (Winnicott, 1975; Sutton-Smith, 1997; Spariosu, 1989). This betwixt 13
and between nature of play also distinguishes it from other activities and makes it a
universally recognizable phenomenon (Huizinga, 1955).
A third core distinction between work and play activities concerns their focus on
process versus outcomes; or means versus ends (Miller, 1973). Glynn (1994) found that
individuals engaging in activities framed as “work” tended to have an ends orientation
whereas those engaging in the same activity framed as “play” had a means orientation.
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This focus on means rather than ends is accompanied by a marked difference in the
way the activity is conducted. The ends in play are reached via a crooked line or a
circuitous route, which is often elaborated via the deliberate introduction of obstacles, a
process termed “galumphing” (Miller, 1973). Work, on the other hand, is more likely to
be conducted in a logical or step-by-step manner with the individual constantly
keeping in mind the end outcome.
Once behavior is no longer channeled towards specific goals, the value of efficiency
plummets, and is replaced by the pleasure of taking the circuitous route (March, 1976).
Rationality also loses primacy, making room for other guidelines for decision making
including intuition, emotion and taking a leap of faith; these deviations from normal
operating procedures and rules of conduct facilitate expression and creativity
(Isen, 1999).

Identity play
From theories of adult development (Levinson, 1978), organizational socialization (van
Mannen and Schein, 1979), and individual development (Piaget, 2001; Vygotsky, 1978)
the notion of playful behavior has been frequently described as the underlying
mechanism animating transitions between past and future identities. Although the
concept of identity play has received little empirical attention, the notion that it occurs
at the threshold of current and possible selves (Markus and Nurius, 1986) may be used
to construct a working definition.
Ashforth (1998) posited that individuals hold desired possible selves at a distance,
“playing with” their identification with them until the point when they can adopt
them with confidence that they will be accepted as authentic. The distancing combined
with the “just for fun” element of play facilitates a feeling of safety within which
the individual can freely experiment with the identity in question. Similarly, in
organizational research, Brown and Starkey (2000) conceptualized play as a range of
activities that allow organizational members to explore the threshold between current
reality and future possibilities. Based on these preliminary ideas, we define identity
play as the crafting and provisional trial of immature (i.e. as yet unelaborated) possible
selves. We further develop this notion by distinguishing identity work and play in
terms of their underlying purpose, place, and process.
 JOCM Purpose
23,1 Identity work and play have different purposes. Whereas, identity work fundamentally
seeks the preservation of existing identities or compliance with externally imposed
image requirements, we propose that identity play is concerned with inventing and
reinventing oneself.
In the existing literature, the primary function of identity work is compliance with
14 role requirements and their display rules. This phenomenon is frequently observed as
people make transitions into new organizational roles, when they use identity work to
convey images that conform to prototypic characteristics of those roles (Ibarra, 1999).
But, people evaluate role identities with regard to both external and internal criteria,
seeking role models who are not only successful prototypes but also fit their sense of
self. When these are not available, identity work becomes more constrained. Ely (1995),
for example, found that women lawyer’s in skewed demographic contexts were more
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likely to assume stereotypic gender identities (by either adopting a prototypically male
style, i.e. attempting to pass or overvaluing “female” traits), while women in more
demographically balanced firms were more likely to resist being pigeon-holed into
either category. This notion of defending personal identities from discordant role
expectations has been prominent in research on the professional experience of women
and racial minorities, whose responses to stereotypes profoundly shapes
self-presentation strategies (Ely, 1995; Ibarra and Petriglieri, 2007).
Recent identity work research also explores people’s responses to threats to their
sense of self, documenting how identity work is used to defend personal identities from
excessive or unwanted role expectations. For example, a study of Episcopal priests
found that they used integration and differentiation strategies to manage the balance
between professional and personal identities; integration consisted of recasting the self
as the priest role thereby decreasing the importance of other identities, while
differentiation entailed making a conscious separation of the priest identity from other
identities (Kreiner et al., 2006). Similarly, Pratt et al.’s (2006) study of medical residents
becoming fully qualified doctors showed that “work-identity integrity violations” acted
as triggers for residents to engage in identity work. Violations were defined as
mismatches between residents ideas of “who they were” as professionals and “what
they did.” Physicians who often found themselves having to do social work (in addition
to providing medical treatment) reworked their conception of their physician identity
from that of a “treater” of the sick to a “carer” for the sick. Residents also engaged in
this form of identity customization, which enabled them to approach their desired
identity of a certified professional in their specialization field.
In these examples, certain forms of identity work consist of performing within the
boundaries of an existing professional identity; its primary objective is ensuring a
role-appropriate self-presentation (Goffman, 1959), and as such evaluation criteria are
external: did I secure validation as fully fledged role occupant by those around me?
Other forms of identity work entail making internal assessments, as when people
compare their public persona with their representations of the kind of person they
“really” are or would like to be; as observed Ibarra (1999) conclusions about what
selves to keep or reject depend on feelings of congruence or authenticity. Internal and
external evaluations help them make corrective adjustments to their identity work so
they may eventually reduce discrepancies among their private self-conceptions, the
behaviors that define a successful role performance, and the images they project in
 public as they perform the role. These examples help draw sharper conceptual Identity work
boundaries around the notion of identity play in that they suggest that exploration and play
alone does not imply play.
As outlined in Table I, the distinction between identity work and play that we
propose encompasses both the locus of the evaluation and the purpose of identity work
and play. These two dimensions (goals and evaluation criteria) allow us to maintain the
term identity work for situations in which people strive to maintain authenticity in the 15
face of identity integrity violation (i.e. protecting and defending an established identity)
and situations in which they seek to conform to new role requirements (e.g. trying on a
new, externally imposed identity), reserving the notion of identity play for behavior
aimed at inventing and becoming according to one’s own internal motives and
guidelines. These purposes, as discussed further below, are facilitated by different
places and processes.
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Place
Different settings are conducive to identity work and play. In their study of the identity
work of medical residents, Pratt et al. (2006) acknowledge that “in addition to low-job
discretion, the life-and-death nature of their work may have left these physicians less
willing or able to play with their identities.” While some professional settings require
highly standardized identities, and hence, allow individual role holders less scope for
playing with identities, one can play at work, and work at play (Huizinga, 1955). Hence,
we argue that the conditions that make a setting more or less conducive to play are
largely psychological: we propose that whereas identity work is firmly rooted in
external reality, identity play generally unfolds at the threshold between fantasy and
reality, on the boundary between dreams (i.e. the possible selves in our heads) and
reality (i.e. the concrete possibilities available in the world at any given time).
This notion of threshold is common to a variety of theories of transition. In his
seminal treatment of rites of passage, anthropologist van Gennep (1905) distinguished
three phases: separation, transition, and incorporation. During the middle, transition
phase, which van Gennep called “margin” or limen (which means threshold in Latin),
“subjects pass through a period and area of ambiguity, a sort of social limbo.” While
van Genep’s notion of liminality pertained exclusively to primitive rites, Turner (1969)
extended the concept to a broader range of experiences in which the normal rules of
everyday life are suspended for a concentrated period when “anything goes,” and
curiosity, exploration, frivolity and joie de vivre govern behavior. Turner noted that
these “liminoid” experiences often share dedicated time, space and guiding figures
such that the person in transition can “violate the rules” or experiment with new
identities without fear of danger or sanction.

Goals for behavior

Protect and Try on and
Evaluation criteria defend identities explore identities
Table I.
Internal criteria (e.g. enjoyment and authenticity) Identity work Identity play Purposes of identity work
External criteria (i.e. fit and obtain identity granting) Identity work Identity work and play
 JOCM In organizational life, certain physical settings delimit a psychological space and time
23,1 that creates safety, provides relief from the pressure of social validation, and
legitimizes exploration (Winnicott, 1975). Spatial boundaries, such as those around
laboratories, scenarios, off-sites, simulations, and role-plays encourage departures
from existing norms and procedures, by allowing people to suspend normal
requirements for consistency and rationality, and, as they play with possibilities,
16 develop new skills or self-images that can be transferred back to the mainstream
(Brown and Starkey, 2000; Shrage, 2000; Schein, 1996; Senge, 1990). Such “safe havens”
“protected milieus” or “holding environments” often have firm boundaries that
keep out the world, so that one may remain open to what will unfold within them
(Louis, 1996).
Similarly, many of the activities that people use to test alternative careers unfold
outside the work setting: an evening course, a weekend project, or an inventor’s garage
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allow people to play with trial identities until it is safe to claim the emerging identity –
publicly and privately – as truly reflecting one’s self (Ibarra, 2003; Kets de Vries and
Korotov, 2007). Temporal boundaries, such as those defined by sabbaticals,
educational programs, vacations and leisure activities buffer people from
institutional obligations, and thus grant license to play with new ways of being
(Turner, 1969). Role exits, for example, are frequently preceded by returning to school
(Ebaugh, 1988) or other forms of “sabbatical” (Ibarra, 2003). When the suspension of
rules is temporary, people can toy safely with possibilities, knowing that they will have
to come back to reality again.
This distinction between the settings for identity work and play requires that we
return our attention to identity’s tense: we argue that identity work takes place in the
reality of the “here and now” while identity play unfolds at the threshold between
present and possible identities. These two dimensions (tense and boundaries) allow us
to continue to use the term identity work to refer to the process of rehearsing a
currently held or clearly defined role identity (e.g. much as a tennis player or apprentice
tennis player would rehearse his/her swing), reserving the notion of identity play for
settings in which the target identity is multiple, unspecified or unknown (Table II).
Process. If identity play aims at change (as opposed to maintenance) and occurs at
the threshold between present and possible selves, then any systematic attempt to
define identity play must consider the process of change, or the transition from current
identities to future possibilities. We propose that whereas identity work is
fundamentally a process in which we engage with a clear end in mind and, as such,
work systematically to attain our goal, identity play is essentially a process of
exploration, in which deviation and detour are common fixtures.
Some contrasting examples from the empirical literature may be useful here. As
discussed above, institutionalized transitions between professional identities require
identity work in order to conform to the social norms and rules that govern how people

Activity boundaries
Identity tense Reality In-between fantasy and reality
Table II.
Places for identity work Possible selves Identity work Identity play
and play Present identities Identity work Identity work
 should conduct themselves in performing a role: by acting the part, people avoid Identity work
sanction and gain inclusion (van Mannen and Schein, 1979). In making the transition and play
from medical student to a fully trained doctor, for example, students learn to adopt the
trappings of a credible physician (Lief and Fox, 1963; Pratt et al., 2006).
Likewise, in alcoholics anonymous recovering alcoholics learn to tell their story “the
AA way” by including canonical elements of plot such as “hitting bottom,” while
newcomers to codependents Anonymous adopt references to dysfunctional families as 17
constant fixture of their life stories (Holland et al., 2001; Irvine, 2000). In each of these
examples, people engage in exploratory behavior in order to improve their
performance. A good performance increases the likelihood that claimed identities
will be granted by significant others. With repeated interaction and revision, a more
coherent identity develops, one that reinforces the role of the claimed identity within
the self-concept and secures the individual full membership in the relevant social
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group. This notion of performance, we argue, is more conducive to identity work,

which facilitates tailoring and strengthening of a held identity.
When engaged in identity play, by contrast, people may rehearse a variety of
possible selves, without necessarily seeking to adopt any of them on a permanent
basis. This circuitous path of identity play can be witnessed in people making career
transitions, a process in which they experiment with a range of provisional selves,
often switching from one to the other and adopting tangential selves mid way through
the process before settling on a new direction (Ibarra, 1999, 2003).
A literature professor/would-be money manager, for example, used a year of MBA
classes to play with a broad palette of possible selves:
She looked at management consulting, knowing it was not for her; she considered whether or
not to apply for other literature jobs; she took on a one-year volunteer project, coaching
high-school instructors to teach literature; she revisited the idea of moving into university
administration; and she investigated a range of finance possibilities (Ibarra, 2003, p. 57).
In a more dramatic example, Schouten (1991) describes how prospective cosmetic
surgery recipients played with possible selves by constructing a foil mask of their
“new” face; this play enabled them to evaluate possible selves and separate fantasy
from reality. In the same way, Bateson (2004, p. 69) argues that there are advantages to
having multiple versions of one’s life story, as different interpretations help people
construct different futures.
As summarized in Table III, what we are calling identity play may be distinguished
from identity work such as the storytelling cited two paragraphs above by the
purposeful search (exploration) for variety rather than consistency (lack of
commitment to the identity being explored). As Miller (1973) observed, rehearsal
aimed at progressive improvement is not play; in our framework, it is committed
exploration of a desired identity. When engaged in identity play, by contrast, an

Exploration
Commitment Performance Rehearsal
Table III.
Produce deliberate variation Identity work Identity play Process of identity work
Produce consistency or progressive improvement Identity work Identity work and play
 JOCM individual welcomes the opportunity to explore numerous possible selves
23,1 corresponding to equally numerous personal and professional possibilities. In a
process that can be characterized as flirtatious, individuals engage in play with a mind
frame of having “no strings attached” to their explorations and experimentations.

The process of identity play in role transition

18 Identity play, we have argued, differs from identity work in its purpose, place and
process. Identity play aims to explore possible selves rather than to claim and be
granted desired or ought selves. Work is conducted in the real world; play’s context is
the threshold between current reality and future possibilities. Commitment, in play, is
provisional; as such, play processes generate variety not consistency. While these
distinctions are useful, the actual process by which identity play is triggered and
enacted still remains unclear.
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Role transitions may be a useful context for beginning to explore identity play
dynamics and moderators for several reasons. First, role transitions and career moves
require re-aligning identity and role expectations (Hall, 1971). Transition points place
new claims on the self (van Mannen, 1997): they are moments in individual
development that precipitate the revision of identity, when the person has to “take
stock, re-evaluate, revise, re-see, and re-judge” (Strauss, 1997, p. 102). Consequently,
role and career transitions can be occasions for identity play, as people test limits and
possibilities when they enact provisional selves.
Transitions also pose challenges to a person’s sense of self: they create gaps or
disconnects between past and future work identities, and between identities claimed
and identities granted in social interactions. These gaps are often experienced as
threats, to which people may respond by either defending the threatened identity, or
alternatively, by exploring new or unknown possibilities. For example, a job loss
requires finding alternatives to a no longer viable possible self, and unemployment is
often experienced as liminality (Ashforth, 2001; Latack and Dozier, 1986; Newman,
1999). The identity threat or stigma associated with layoff (Ashforth, 2001) might
reduce the variety of possible selves considered; alternatively, having more time to
explore alternatives might have the opposite effect. As such, role transitions serve as a
context in which the different objectives of identity work and play maintenance versus
exploration may be further investigated.
A second reason, why role transitions are an apt setting for learning more about the
process of identity play is that the threshold between fantasy and reality – the “place”
for play in our theory – also defines transition periods. The operating principle shared
by the notions of liminal experience and transitional phenomena are psychological
safety, suspension of the rules, and separation from “real life.” Extending these notions
to professional life, a person contemplating a career change must be able to try out
unformed, even risky, identities in a relatively safe and secure environment in which
the rules governing the old career and its associated identity are suspended, and
fledgling selves can be tested without incurring the risks of fully exposing them to the
real world. A focus on role transitions allows us to discern situational conditions under
which people are more and less likely to employ playful approaches.
While people make many professional transitions over the course of their career,
identities may be more likely to come up for revision and questioning at certain critical
junctions. The notion that individual development unfolds as a punctuated equilibrium
 process in which periods of relative stability alternate with moments of fundamental Identity work
change (Gersick, 1991) has been prevalent in the literature on identity. Levinson (1978), and play
for example posited periods of stability in which people worked within established
decision parameters punctuated by transition periods in which they explore
alternatives. Likewise, Yost et al. (1992) suggest cycles of constructing and testing a
variety of new possible selves, which are distinct from cycles of selecting and retaining
possibilities. This logic suggests that identity play and work processes may 19
predominate at different times in a person’s career. In periods of relative identity
stability, people may rely primarily on identity work to protect and balance established
identities, while identity play processes come to the fore at those junctures when
individuals are exploring new professional identities.
As identity play proceeds, individuals provisionally trial and receive feedback on
possible identities. Yost et al. (1992) suggest that this process of attaining evidence from
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the environment winnows out the possible selves, which are nonviable from those,
which are more likely to be selected. During a transition, the movement away from a
range of possibilities towards a specific new identity is accompanied by a growing
commitment to this identity. The switch from flirtation with many possibilities to
commitment, we suggest, may mark the transition from identity play to identity work.

Discussion
This paper contributes to the burgeoning organizational literature on identity by
introducing the notion of identity play, an idea suggested in existing treatments of
change (Brown and Starkey, 2000; Schouten, 1991) but rarely fully articulated or
systematically linked to the transition processes that unfold in organizational life.
We argue that identity work and play are complementary, yet distinct notions that
differ by purpose, place, and process. Our arguments do not suggest supplanting one
notion with the other, but rather suggest future research and theorizing that takes into
account these important distinctions between the two. We suggested that studying role
transitions allows us to discern conditions under which people are more and less likely
to employ playful approaches. A closer look at when and why people play with
possible selves will in turn allow us to more precisely articulate features of the process
of identity play. What makes play effective, and the conditions under which it matters
for identity outcomes have not yet been explored.
Our arguments are consistent with the perspective that identity is a project to be
worked on (Czarniawska, 1997; Harre, 1983), and contribute to the emerging interest in
the inherent dynamism of identity by proposing specific mechanisms through which
the self is revised and reinvented. Several of the most promising directions, we see for
future research are outlined below.

Implications for research

In our view, one of the more interesting implications of this perspective stems from the
fact that our notion of identity play is based on a view of identity anchored in
future possibilities rather than past histories and current identities. This notion of
possible selves constitutes a manner of self-definition that potentially allows people to
be more playful with their selves for several reasons. First, by shifting the locus of
identity from past or present to the future, and from behavior to cognition, a notion of
possible selves frees identity from the constraints of social validation. Second, as a list
 JOCM of possibilities rather than an account, explanation or story, the concept of possible
23,1 selves loosens the constraints of coherence and continuity, freeing people to process or
communicate identity relevant information outside the conventions of logical and
causal sequence, as well as to report aspects of themselves that are independent rather
than connected. Once identity is in play, i.e. open to question and change, a playful, as
opposed to rational or efficient, posture facilitates discovery. Future studies are needed
20 to discover the range of the means by which possible selves are created, embellished,
redefined, and adjusted.
If identity work and play tend to take place in different settings, further research
exploring the temporal and spatial features that encourage identity play may be
productive. The current variety of post-graduate and adult education programs, which
include evening, weekend and multi-session courses, provide an excellent laboratory in
which to explore diverse settings for identity play, such as time periods that are fixed or
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open-ended, or differing degrees of physical and social encapsulation (Greil and Rudy,
1984). For example, several authors have begun to incorporate Winnicott’s (1975)
concepts of “transitional space” and “holding environment” in their description of
business school courses as places that facilitate professional and even personal
transitions (Dubouloy, 2004; Ibarra, 2003; Kets de Vries and Korotov, 2007; Petriglieri
and Petriglieri, 2008). Gaining a clearer understanding of conditions under which
settings may or may not function as identity “playspaces” is an important topic for
future work. Whether and in what ways individuals differentially harness these spaces
is also a subject for further inquiry.
Since playing with and exploring possible identities is not an activity which occurs
in isolation, the roles that referent others take in identity play is a further promising
area for future research. The guidance of elders is an essential component of most
transition rituals (Strauss, 1977). In career transitions, guiding figures make room for
play by creating a safe zone within which the change idea can be nurtured (Levinson,
1978), and by providing separation from the web of routine professional interactions in
which the person has been embedded (Ibarra, 2003). The strong bond that develops
between the person in transition and the guiding figure forms a transitional space
within which a possible self-starts becoming a reality (Strauss, 1977). Peer groups may
be equally if not more important as they shape people’s expectations about the range of
possibilities open to them (Gersick et al., 2000). While playing a role in the stabilization
of existing identities, peer groups can also motivate and encourage us to play with
alternatives (Higgins, 2001; Ibarra, 2003). What form of social support best facilitate
identity play is a pertinent question.
We suggest one reason, why individuals might engage in identity play is that they
seek alternatives to a professional identity they have come to doubt (Ebaugh, 1988).
This doubting and questioning of a professional identity is often associated with, or
triggered by, a specific event (Lee and Mitchell, 1994). While some triggers may be
experiences as identity threats and, as such, motivate defensive behavior, other
triggers (or other interpretations of the same triggers) may evoke a more playful
response. For example, involuntary career transition, sparked by an unexpected job
loss, may not provide sufficient psychological safety to allow for identity play.
Research to parse out the conditions under which identity work and play are triggered
will be vital to furthering our understanding of the fine distinctions between the
two concepts.
 If identity play is primarily conducted in settings, which are somewhat removed Identity work
from day-to-day life, further research is needed to explore the means individuals and play
employ to create bridges from the play world back to reality. One such tool may be that
of constructing and sharing self-narratives (Gergen, 1994; McAdams, 1996). As
professional transitions by definition challenge a person’s identity continuity (Louis,
1980), self-narratives may be employed to weave connections across the gap between
the old and new professional identity, as such restoring a sense of coherent identity. 21
Thus, narrative may be one such tool which complements and supports identity play.
Identity work conducted in a professional setting often involves tailoring ones
identity to a prototypic role identity (Kreiner et al., 2006), a process heavily dependent
on role modeling (Ibarra, 1999; Pratt et al., 2006). Settings in which suitable role models
are not available to supply the raw material for identity work may be conducive to the
more exploratory and experimental process of identity play, or instead, less conducive
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if the environment is perceived as threatening. One interesting context in which to

explore these alternative hypotheses pertains to how women craft a suitable
professional identity when working in settings in which they are a demographic
minority (Ibarra and Petriglieri, 2007).
To date, conceptualization of identity’s multiplicity and dynamism has focused on
identity work as the process by which individual’s adapt, tailor, maintain, and change
their identities. This focus, while providing much insight into the process of change,
has largely overlooked the multiple, often incoherent and variable nature of the self as
well as the process of exploration and discovery necessary for creating new identities.
Recently, life and professional trajectories, which frequently involve many movements,
require us to repeatedly change identities as we move from one life and career stage to
another. The concept of identity play provides a useful starting point from which we
can deepen out understanding of this continuous evolution of identities.

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 About the authors Identity work
Herminia Ibarra is the Cora Chaired Professor of Leadership and Learning, Professor of
Organizational Behavior, and Faculty Director of the INSEAD Leadership Initiative. She is a and play
member of the INSEAD Board. An expert on professional careers and leadership development,
her articles on these topics are published in leading journals. At INSEAD, she directs The
Leadership Transition, an executive programme for managers moving into bigger leadership
roles, and Women Leading Change in Global Business, INSEAD’s leadership programme for
executive women. She lectures and consults internationally on talent management, leadership 25
development, and women’s careers. Herminia Ibarra is the corresponding author and can be
contacted at: herminia.ibarra@insead.edu
Jennifer L. Petriglieri is a PhD candidate in Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. Her
academic interests focus on the areas of identity dynamics and leadership development. Her
current research investigates, the role of identity threat in career transitions and variations in
identity work strategies. In addition to working towards her doctorate, she contributes regularly
to executive education programs offered at IMD and Copenhagen Business School.
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