Introduction

The significance of identity in GSAs

In the ongoing processes of globalization, transformations in individual and group identities are a subject of much contemporary debate. Giddens (1991) writes that while globalization can be understood at an institutional level, changes that occur as a result of it can directly impact at the individual level. He writes: ‘transformations in self-identity and globalisation are the two poles of the dialectic of the local and the global’ (1991: 32). Thus, a distinctive feature of contemporary life is this increasing interconnection between the two extremes of globalizing influences on the one hand and personal dispositions on the other. Evolution of organizational identity goes hand in hand with transformations of individual identities, which has a strong association with the ‘rootedness’ or a sense of ‘place’ that individuals experience (Godkin 1980). As will be discussed in chapter 6 on the dialectics of space and place, ongoing social transformations impact the sense of place with manifold influences on individual identity. Castells (1997) also emphasizes the dialectical relation between the net that metaphorically represents a universal instrumentalism based on the network logic of society and the self that is rooted in historic, particularistic identities that primarily are socially and geographically place-dependent. Individuals respond to the relentless pressure of feeling uprooted in the globalizing world through what Castells describes as the ‘power of identity’.