As important as the divergent uncertainty-management practices were for Individual and Organization Bank, work practices should not be analyzed only by examining how they accomplish business activities. Work practices do influence how people accomplish tasks, but they also contribute to a business by changing participants in fundamental ways. As Martin Packer (2001; see also Packer and Goicoechea, 2000) has argued, we must attend not only to epistemology but also to ontology – not only to what people come to know but also to who they become. Different organizational practices require participants to use different sets of tools and engage in different activities. As a result, participants change as people. They develop a different sense of identity and exhibit distinct cognitive, motivational, and relational tendencies. Because Individual and Organization Bank used very different work practices, Individual Bankers and Organization Bankers developed into different kinds of people. This section describes how by following newcomers during their first two years with each bank.

We describe four time periods: recruiting, which took place a year before the bankers started their new jobs and lasted for about six months; five weeks of introductory training; the bankers' first six months on the job; and the period from six months to two years of service. The recruiting data were obtained during a one-year exploratory study. We classified the second, third, and fourth time periods into these three segments based on bankers' observations about important transitions.