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Qualitative data collected in a rehabilitation unit of a large hospital reveal how organization members used dress to represent and negotiate a web of issues inherent to the hybrid identities of the unit and the nursing profession. As different issues were considered, dress took on various and often contradictory meanings. Thus, a seemingly simple symbol such as organizational dress is shown here to reveal the complex notion of social identity, which is argued to comprise multiple layers of meaning. We discuss the implications of this thesis for theory and research on organizational identity, organizational symbolism, organizational dress, and ambivalence.
Patients who wear pajamas, and see hospital garb around them think of themselves as sick. If they and their caretakers wear street clothes, patients will think of themselves as moving out of the sick role, and into rehabilitation. They will be ready for life outside the hospital. This is the rehab philosophy, and this is what makes this unit unique.
Head nurse of a rehabilitation unit; emphasis ours We are medical and health professionals. We do professional work. We take care of sick patients, we deal with their bodily fluids, and get their slime all over us. So we should all look like medical professionals, we should be dressed in scrubs. Nurse on the evening shift of the same unit; emphasis ours
These two women both work on the same hospital rehabilitation (rehab) unit. Yet their portrayals of who they are and whom they care for are as dramatically different as the dress each proposes to wear. In this article, we focus on the role that dress served for members of this organization. We argue that these descriptions of "appropriate" attire were not incidental; rather, our analysis suggests that dress served as a symbol that facilitated the organization and discussion of multiple issues relating to a central question: Who are we as nurses on this unit? That is, dress served as a convenient and useful window allowing members of the organization to look at the multiple and competing social identities inherent to their organization (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Dutton & Dukerich, 1991; Tajfel & Turner, 1985). Social identities, broadly defined, refer to those self-categorizations that individuals use to denote their sense of belonging (i.e., identification)...