The Department of Management is delighted to share that Rashi Sonal, then PhD candidate in Organisational Behaviour and now LSE Fellow in Management, and Dr Niranjan Janardhanan, Assistant Professor of Management, received the Denny Gioia Award for Best Qualitative Paper from the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division at the Academy of Management Conference that took place between 25-29 July in Copenhagen.  

Their paper, “Crystallizing nebulous identities: identity and image formation and management in contemporary work”, written alongside Professor Elaine Hollensbe of the University of Cincinnati, addresses the question of how independent workers build their professional identity and image without traditional organisational support.

"Content creators that we interviewed often felt that they were pushed and pulled to be different versions of themselves by their online audiences. Our research describes in depth how audiences often built an image of content creators that was somewhat removed from what the content creators themselves intended."
- Dr Niranjan Janardhanan, Assistant Professor of Management

Rashi commented, “my team and I are humbled to receive the Dennis Gioia Award for the Best Qualitative Paper. This project is especially close to my heart as it examines an emerging and exciting context - the creator economy of Instagram. We explored the challenges and opportunities that content creators faced in constructing their professional identity and image as they navigate these processes outside the organisational scaffold."

The award is a huge validation for my abilities as a researcher and that my research is headed in the right direction. The recognition also puts me on the map of qualitative research on identity and the future of work, opening avenues for new collaborations.” 

Dr Janardhanan also thanked his co-authors for their work and reflected on contributing to the paper himself: “We used my own lived experience as a music content creator, as participant observation to supplement the many interviews that Rashi conducted. I'm happy to catalogue my experiences in this paper."

Professor Denny Gioia is one of the pioneers in the field of identity as well as in the art of conducting qualitative research. Winning this award in his name is truly an honour and an endorsement of our ability to conduct qualitative research.”  

Their paper studied Instagram content creators to understand how people working outside traditional organisations construct their work identity and image. The findings highlight how an author’s ‘professional image’ becomes a complex negotiation between who they are, who they want to be seen as, and who their audience think they are. 

The findings are not necessarily limited to content creators but may also apply to consultants, freelancers, entrepreneurs, and anyone building their career independently in an increasingly platform-based economy. 

Friday 12 September 2025