IBARRA, Herminia <br/><br/>
Provisional selves :  experimenting with image and identity in professional adaptation 

 - Ithaca :  Johnson Graduate School of Management,  December 1999 
<br/><br/> This article describes how people adapt to new roles by experimenting with provisional selves that serve as trials for possible but not yet fully elaborated professional identitites. Qualitative data collected from professionals in transition to more senior roles reveal that adaptation involves three basic tasks:(1) observing role models to identify potential identities, (2) experimenting  with provisional selves, and (3) evaluating experimeting against internal standards and external feedback. Choices within tasks are guided by ana evolving repertory  that includes images about the kind of professional one might  become  and the styles, skills, atitudes, and routines available to the person for constructing those identities. A conceptual framwork is proposed in which individual and situational factors influence adaptation behaviors indirectly by shaping the repertory of possibilities that guides selfconstruction