Negotiating the Self Between Past and Present: Narratives of Older Women Moving Towards Self-Employment
研究50岁以上女性在考虑自雇时如何通过叙事协商临时自雇身份，涉及年龄、创业和组织局外人身份，并讨论对商业计划实施的影响。
Older people are encouraged into self-employment as a means to extend their working lives; however, both age and gender are thought to constrain the capacity of individuals to take on an enterprising identity. This paper explores the narrative identity work of women over 50 contemplating a move into self-employment. It reveals how they negotiated a provisional self-employed identity in relation to an aged identity, an enterprising identity and an identity as organizational outsider. It discusses the implications of contrasting forms of engagement with these identities for the subsequent enactment of participants’ business plans. The paper briefly considers the implications of its findings for the following areas: enacting and realizing provisional identities; the relationship of self-employment to enterprise; and a process-based conceptualization of age.