Out of Service?

Abstract

This work focuses on an Occupational Identity Existential Threat (OIET): the experience of a possible permanent loss of an individual’s ability to claim, enact, or draw meaning from a valued occupational identity. OIETs occur among members when their occupation is in such decline that it may not survive. Identity threats from occupational demise can affect entire collectives and impact not only individuals’ identities but their relationships at and with their work; and consequently, can have important consequences on occupational members’ lives. Yet, our current theories are ill-equipped to understand how individuals experience these threats as they tend to focus on non-existential threats coming from clear losses. To address how occupational members experience an OIET, I followed a grounded theory approach and conducted an inductive qualitative study of Les Clefs d’Or concierges in the USA. I have completed about 130hrs of observations and I collected a total of 101 interviews (with 85 informants) over a period of two and a half years, plus longitudinal interviews with key occupational actors. At the occupational level, I find that the leadership of the occupation entered a ‘survival’ mode by providing support to their members, as well as narratives generating hopefulness for the maintenance of their occupation. At the individual level, I uncover several paths that Les Clefs d’Or members followed when faced with OIET: withdrawing, waiting, searching and defending. Each path had distinct outcomes on how individuals related to the occupation, as well as their mental health and relationships with other members. Finally, I describe the theoretical and practical implications of this work.