The Enterprising Self in an Age of Precarious Employment: Personal Branding as Entrepreneurial Ideology

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 05. Identity

Abstract

Especially in the wake of the new economy, scholars have paid close attention to the phenomenon we might call “enterprise.” Yet little of this energy has been devoted to the ways in which entrepreneurialism might constitute an ideology. In this paper I fasten on one particular strand of entpreneurialism, examining a species of the self-help literature that has sought to redefine the meaning of paid employment: the literature on career advice and personal branding. Based on fieldwork and interviews with 75 interviewees, roughly half of whom held highly precarious positions in the labor market, I examine how employees and job seekers respond to the theory and practice of personal branding. Though a variety of responses emerge, the predominant response is one that speaks to the seductive power of this discourse, which functions as a type of market voluntarism. The paper offers some speculative comments about the factors that account for variations in employee subjectivity and the conceptions of the employment relationship that are likely to emerging in coming years.

Author

• Steven Vallas, Northeastern University