From Revolutionary to ordinary: Narratives of professional and organizational alignment in the Chilean Public Prosecutorial Office.

• In Event: Prosecution in the Making IV: The Institution of Justice: Prosecutors, Politics, and Legitimacy

Abstract

Individuals in organizations strive to craft a coherent biographical narrative that aligns their professional identity with their role within the organization. In legal organizations, individuals can face high levels of incoherence between professional and organizational expectations as they progress in their careers. This article draws on narrative analysis to examine individual actors’ narrative construction of alignment, misalignment, and reconciliation of their professional and organizational identities in a prosecutorial office. We use the case of the Chilean Prosecutorial Public Office (CPPO) to describe how prosecutors develop narratives of early alignment and subsequent misalignment between their professional identities –as lawyers– and their organizational identities –as prosecutors. The study sheds light on the interaction between professional and organizational narratives, especially as organizations designed in a massive reform such as the Latin American Criminal Procedure Reforms mature.

Authors

• Javier Wilenmann, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez

• Isabel Arriagada Gajewski, Old Dominion University

• Felipe Aguila, Universidad Adolfo Ibañez / Universidad Católica de Chile