In the new world of work and organizations, creating and maintaining a positive identity is consequential and challenging for individuals, for groups and for organizations. New challenges for positive identity construction and maintenance require new theory. This edited volume uncovers new topics and new theoretical approaches to identity through the specific focus on positive identities of individuals, groups, organizations and communities. This volume aims to forge new ground in identity research and organizations through a compilation of new frame-breaking chapters on positive identity written by leading identity scholars. In chapters that build theoretical and empirical bridges between identity and growth, authenticity, relationships, hope, sustainability, leadership, resilience, cooperation, and community reputation and other important variables, the authors jumpstart an exciting domain of research on new ways that work organizations are sites of and contributors to identities that are beneficial or valuable to individuals or collectives. This volume invites readers to consider, "When and how does applying a positive lens to the construct of identity generate new insights for organizational researchers?" A unique feature of this volume is that it brings together explorations of identity from multiple levels of analysis: individual, dyadic, group, organization and community. Commentary chapters integrate the chapters within each level of analysis, illuminate core themes and unearth new questions. The volume is designed to accomplish three objectives: To establish Positive Identities and Organizations as an interdisciplinary, multi-level domain of inquiry To integrate a focus on Positive Identity with existing theory and research on identity and organizations To map out a vibrant new research territory in organizational studies . This volume will appeal to an international community of scholars in Management, Psychology, and Sociology, as well as practitioners who seek to generate positive identity-related dynamics, states and outcomes in work organizations.

In the new world of work and organizations, creating and maintaining a positive identity is consequential and challenging for individuals, for groups and for organizations. New challenges for positive identity construction and maintenance require new theory. This edited volume uncovers new topics and new theoretical approaches to identity through the specific focus on positive identities of individuals, groups, organizations and communities. This volume aims to forge new ground in identity research and organizations through a compilation of new frame-breaking chapters on positive identity written by leading identity scholars. In chapters that build theoretical and empirical bridges between identity and growth, authenticity, relationships, hope, sustainability, leadership, resilience, cooperation, and community reputation and other important variables, the authors jumpstart an exciting domain of research on new ways that work organizations are sites of and contributors to identities that are beneficial or valuable to individuals or collectives. This volume invites readers to consider, "When and how does applying a positive lens to the construct of identity generate new insights for organizational researchers?" A unique feature of this volume is that it brings together explorations of identity from multiple levels of analysis: individual, dyadic, group, organization and community. Commentary chapters integrate the chapters within each level of analysis, illuminate core themes and unearth new questions. The volume is designed to accomplish three objectives: To establish Positive Identities and Organizations as an interdisciplinary, multi-level domain of inquiry To integrate a focus on Positive Identity with existing theory and research on identity and organizations To map out a vibrant new research territory in organizational studies . This volume will appeal to an international community of scholars in Management, Psychology, and Sociology, as well as practitioners who seek to generate positive identity-related dynamics, states and outcomes in work organizations.

Conceived as the meanings that individuals attach to their selves, a substantial stockpile of theory related to identities accumulated across the arts, social sciences, and humanities over many decades continues to nourish contemporary research on self-identities in organizations. In times which are more reflexive, narcissistic, and fluid, the identities of participants in organizations are increasingly less fixed and less certain, making identity issues both more salient and more interesting. Particular attention has been given to processes of identity construction, often styled 'identity work'. Research has focused on how, why, and when such processes occur, and their implications for organizing and individual, group, and organizational outcomes. This has resulted in a burgeoning stream of research from discursive, dramaturgical, symbolic, socio-cognitive, and psychodynamic perspectives that most often casts individuals' efforts to fabricate identities as intentional, relational, and consequential. Seemingly intractable debates centred on the nature of identities - their relative stability or fluidity, whether they are best regarded as coherent or fractured, positive (or not), and how they are fabricated within relations of power - combined with other conceptual issues continue to invigorate the field. However, these debates have also led to some scepticism regarding the future potential of identities research. Yet as the chapters in this Handbook demonstrate, there are considerable grounds for optimism that identity, as root metaphor, nexus concept, and means to bridge levels of analysis has significant potential to generate multiple compelling streams of theorizing in organization and management studies.

Scholarship establishes a new field of study in the organizational sciences. Just as positive psychology focuses on exploring optimal individual psychological states rather than pathological ones, Positive Organizational Scholarship focuses attention on optimal organizational states --- the dynamics in organizations that lead to the development of human strength, foster resiliency in employees, make healing, restoration, and reconciliation possible, and cultivate extraordinary individual and organizational performance. While the concept of positive organizational scholarship encompasses the examination of typical and even dysfunctional patterns of behavior, it emphasizes positive deviance from expected patterns. Positive Organizational Scholarship examines the enablers, motivations, and effects associated with remarkably positive phenomena --- how they are facilitated, why they work, how they can be identified, and how researchers and managers can capitalize on them. The contributors do not adopt one particular theory or framework but draw from the full spectrum of organizational theories to understand, explain, and predict the occurrence, causes, and consequences of positivity. Positive Organizational Scholarship rigorously seeks to understand what represents the best of the human condition based on scholarly research and theory. This book invites organizational scholars to build upon and extend the positive organizational phenomena being examined. It provides the definitional, theoretical, and empirical foundations for what will become a cumulative body of enduring work.

An ideal resource for organizational scholars, students, practitioners, and human resource managers, this handbook covers the full spectrum of organizational theories and outcomes that define, explain, and predict the occurrence, causes, and consequences of positivity.

Positive psychological science has experienced extraordinary growth over the past two decades. Research in this area is revealing new strategies and interventions for improving everyday life, health and well-being, work, education, and societies across the globe. Contributions from luminaries in the field provide excellent reviews of the selected topics, summarizing empirical evidence, describing measurement tools, and offering recommendations for improving many aspects of our lives. Comprehensively updated, this second edition not only incorporates the more recent empirical findings; three new chapters on relationships and love, the importance of purpose, and the stimulation of education practice have been added. Focused on peer-reviewed and theory-driven psychological science, this book uniquely establishes a bridge between the intellectual movement for positive psychology and how it works in the real world. This collection of chapters will inspire the reader to creatively find new opportunities to better the human condition, whether these are in our lives, schools, health care settings, or workplaces. This book will be of interest to all psychologists and social scientists, applied researchers, program designers and evaluators, educators, leaders, students, and anyone interested in applying the science of positive psychology to improve everyday life and/or to promote social betterment and justice locally and globally.

This edited volume brings together a select group of leading organizational scholars for the purpose of developing a foundation-setting book on positive relationships at work. Positive Relationships at Work (PRW) is a rich new interdisciplinary domain of inquiry that focuses on the generative processes, relational mechanisms and outcomes associated with positive relationships between people at work. This volume builds a solid foundation for this promising new area of scholarly inquiry and offers a multidisciplinary exploration of how relationships at work become a source of growth, vitality, learning and generative states of human and collective flourishing. A unique feature of the book is the use of a connecting commentator chapter at the end of each section. The Commentator Chapters, written by preeminent scholars, uncover and discuss integrative themes that emerge within sections. The editors approach the topic from multiple levels, each level providing critical, valuable insights into the dynamic process underlying positive relationships at work. These levels are arranged in five parts: an introduction to positive relationships at work; Individuals and Dyads; Groups and Communities; Organizations and Organizing; and a conclusion that offers an engaging invitation and multi-level map for guiding future research. This volume will appeal to academics and practitioners, as well as scholars and graduate students in organizational psychology, management, human resources, and inter-personal communications.