Learning to be a lawyer in transnational law firms: communities of ...

Table 5. Strategies of identity regulation and their impacts on identity and cultures of
work. Strategies in italics are enacted through training based CoP in transnational law firms
Source: Based on Alvesson and Willmott (2002).
Discursive strategy
Language games and Impacts on identity and
cultures of work
Defining the person directly
Defining a person by defining
others
Providing a vocabulary of
motives
Explicating morals and values
Knowledge and skills
Group categorization and
affiliation
Hierarchical location
Establishing and clarifying the
rules of the game
Defining the context
The characteristics desired of the ‘ideal employee’ of
explicitly stated.
An individual or groups is compared to others who
represent ‘ideal’ cultures of work
A language is created to identify and help individuals
interpret the ‘ideal’ culture sought
Values are espoused, often via stories and by
comparison to those values deemed unacceptable, to
help workers orientate themselves towards ‘ideal’
cultures
Education and training as ways of instilling the
competencies needed to perform in line with ‘ideal’
cultures
Dividing up the world into ‘us’ and our identity and
‘them’ and their alterity
Praising individuals and groups that reflect the culture
and values of the firm
Laying out the ‘norms’ of how things are done in an
explicit fashion
Stating clearly the conditions that are sought in the firm
and expectations about how workers align themselves to
this context
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