Identity work in female‐led creative businesses

• DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12357
• Publication Date: 2019-02-28T17:22:38Z
• Authors: Lynn Martin; Bob Jerrard; Lucy Wright
• Keywords: Realm; Intuition; Creative work

This study explores the identity work carried out by three female owner‐managers in creative industry businesses, identified Government reports as a discriminatory industrial sector for women UK. Through development of narratives owners and other participants, observation practice review online offline materials, cases emerged. These showed overlapping, different identities developed performed through work. Each presented rational logical persona business leaders despite showing extensive use intuition gut feeling both entrepreneurial aspects business. Intuition were seen inappropriate at they belonged to home sphere, emotionally based therefore automatically unreliable. While occupying male stereotypes avoiding realm emotion work, these expressed femininity their emphasis on maternal, ‘being good mother' desired ideal being embedded well practice.