Identity transform

Abstract: A strongly identified workforce presents a paradox during times of radical organizational change. Though it may bind people together behind the change initiative, strong organizationwide identification often blinds and potentially blocks the view of new possibilities. Prior research on identity change has tended to either ignore the paradox or resolve it by advocating some middle ground such as hybrid organizational identities or group-level identifications. This paper presents an identity transformation model that capitalizes on the paradoxical tensions over time by unpacking the processes by which individual and organizational levels of identity interact. It operationalizes the model by suggesting linguistic markers that describe the different stages of the process and rhetorical techniques that leaders can use to guide people through the process. To illustrate the model and its application, the paper highlights moments across a 10-year period at Tech-Co, a high-technology company undergoing a significant identity transformation.

Abstract: A common way for researchers to think about mutual help organizations is as alternative treatments for people with problems in living. This approach, illustrated here in the context of a series of empirical studies conducted by the author, views people as service seekers. Although much can be gained from research in which there is collaboration between professionals and the self-help community, there remains a need for work that uses theories and methods consistent with the experiences of the members and the ethos of the organizations. A different way to understand mutual help organizations is to view them as normative narrative communities where identity transformation takes place. This approach forces us to listen to the personal stories that people tell about their lives. It has several advantages, including the reduction of professional centrism and the explicit linking of individual lives to community processes. A narrative studies framework also has the advantage of tying mutual help to a great deal...

Abstract: A transformation description language (TDL) for specifying how data is to be manipulated in a data warehousing application. The TDL is comprised of a source for storing raw data, one or more transformation objects for processing the raw data according to predefined instructions, and a target for storing the processed data. A mapping is used for directing the data flow between the I/O ports corresponding to the source, the plurality of transformation objects, and the target. The mapping specifies the connectivity between the source, transformation, and target objects as well as the order of these connections. There are a number of different transformations which can be performed to manipulate the data. Some such transformations include: an aggregator transformation, an expression transformation, a filter transformation, a lookup transformation, a query transformation, a sequence transformation, a stored procedure transformation, and an update strategy transformation.