Reality bites: managing identity ambiguity in an advertising agency

Creative industries provide a challenging environment for management, especially given the ambiguities inherent in these environments and the need to balance creative work with mundane, yet supportive practices of organizations. Within these environments there are a large number of individuals with high identity needs such as the creatives, and management must thus balance the needs of these creatives with those of other organizational actors, including those responsible for allegedly ‘non-creative” processes. This paper examines an Australian advertising agency and demonstrates how individuals and groups within the organization handle ambiguities and tensions inherent to their work. The case study show how management provide structures and support in order to allow for heedful interactions between two oppositional dimensions of the environment. Therefore managerial action and instituted processes serve to strike a balance between the creative and non-creative work and to guide individuals and groups towards meaningful outcomes.