ARTICLE CRITIQUE

The Local Selves of Global Workers: The Social Construction of National Identity in the Face of Organizational Globalization

The Local Selves of Global Workers: The Social Construction of National Identity in the Face of Organizational Globalization

Introduction

Although globalization is not a recent phenomenon, the observation of its manifestations and resulting impacts, are now subjects of many tests. In an era of globalization, there is a problem of tolerance against the diverse members within an organization. Hence, there is a need for an in-depth analysis and understanding of the formation of national identity in an era of globalization. The idea of national identity is particularly questionable in Europe and Americas. Hispanic or indigenous movements have clearly failed to reflect the true diversity of cultural and racial influences that make up the societies of the region. Traditionally, America is connected to almost all regions and cultures in the world. Ailon-Souday and Kunda (2003) stress the need for similar studies but of “other times and places.” They argue if the need to study the meanings attributed to national identity in later and more advanced stages of organizational change than they have done. This paper provides a critical review of Ailon and Kunda's article The Local Selves of Global Workers: The Social Construction of National Identity in the Face of Organizational Globalization. The paper first provides a brief summary of the article. Following the summary, the paper critically explores the strengths and weaknesses of the article. This is followed by the critical reflections of other authors on the subject. A brief conclusion is presented highlighting the issues pertaining to the subject.

Brief Summary

In an article titled The Local Selves of Global Workers: The Social Construction of National Identity in the Face of Organizational Globalization, Ailon & Kunda explores the resistance of organizational members and forces in denfending the identity losses. For this purpose, the authors study their earlier ethnographic data relating to a merger of two high tech firms: Isrocom and Amerotech. These firms have been competing with each other in the high-tech market. The researchers conducted over 130 unstructured interviews to explore the issues of identity conflicts in the post merger firm. The data was gathered for about one year. Isracom members appeared to give particular importance to their national identity in their everyday lives. The data was analysed to identify the underlying themes of national identities in the studied population. The recurrent themes were noted to refute or support the hypothesis. The findings of the research constituted these themes. Specifically, two of the social processes observed in the research showed the members' struggle for global status and local separateness. Furthermore, the Israeli element of culture could be separated from the labeling of American partners from Amerotech. For Israelis, the sense of inferiority was evident, mainly because of the earlier stereotyping of Americans as ideal people. The overall conclusion of the article, according to Ailon & Kunda, is that the ideals of organizational globalization could not be accepted within the contexts of objective and ...