Individual Identity and Cultural Unlocking –Consequences of Changing Performance Management in Organizations

The purpose of the present paper is to examine new performance management patterns in regard to their consequences for the individual identity of organizational members. In modern societies values and norms of individual performance and success play a crucial role for the constitution of individual identity. Related to the German context the paper shows that the present tendency of the “finalization” of performance criteria and their simultaneously increasing “fluid” or “dynamic” character question conventional notions about “good” performance and “justified” social and material success. Therefore, these tendencies...