From Hippies to Suits: Nested Paradoxical Tensions in CSR Consultants’ Identity Work

Individuals have multiple identities, yet empirical investigation into responses of individuals to the tensions arising from these multiple expectations is scant. This paper draws on paradox theory to investigate how professionals seek to resolve multiple conflicting demands in their identity work. To address this question, we conducted 30 interviews with corporate social responsibility (CSR) consultants, an ideal case of a tensional vocation. We identify five nested paradoxes in individuals’ everyday roles and practices that are actively managed in their identity work. We find both unproductive strategies suppressing these tensions and productive ones aimed at successfully coping and ‘living with’ the paradoxes. These latter strategies are socially enacted in the relationship consultants have with their clients, thus they are relational. We build a model of individual identity construction in the face of nested paradoxical tensions, and, in so doing, we identify micro-dynamics in identity work, gain insight into how managing everyday complexity in solving wicked problems influence identity construction. Through this, we advance the theory on multiple identities in contemporary occupations.