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Roles in Networked OrganizationsDr. Joost Verhoeven & Dr. Tatiana Domingues Aguiar
1st lecture
31st Feb
Organization: “a group of people working together to reach a common goal”. We could not
reach a goal without an organization.
Role: a core set of behavioral expectations tied to a social group or category that defines
appropriate and permitted forms of behavior for group members (Anglin et al., 2022). A role
defines what is appropriate and what is misappropriate. Roles are independent. Roles prescribe
behaviors between actors.
Social Role Theory (Eagly, 1987)
When individuals approve of a social role, they will:
o Conform to role norms
o Punish those who violate role norms
Agents conform to role expectations because:
o The anticipation of rewards (in case of role conformity) and punishments (in
case of conformity)
o The satisfaction behaving of in a prosocial way
Changed conditions can render a social role outdated or illegitimate – role change
Which roles do we play?
Member of owner’s association; husband; run buddy; father; friend, neighbor; son; lecturer;
researcher; assessor; thesis supervisor; author; roommate; department member; member steering
group orgcom Nfeca; reviewer …
Roles are often embedded in ‘role sets’:
Secretary
o Note taker
o Telephone operator
o Office supply management
o Bureaucratic support employee
Department chair
o Supervisor: provide feedback, rewards
o Allocating resources
o Representative in board meeting
o Spokesperson in press
Lecturer
o Course developer
o ‘Help desk’
o Convenor of meetings
o Grading
o Examination
…
Types of roles
Occupational roles
Gender roles
Family roles
‘Social type’ roles
Role accumulation (you play all these roles simultaneously, so accumulate roles)
, Role enrichment: you take on new roles in order to satisfy your needs and you enrich
Role conflict: overload of roles, creating a conflict, making you unable to fulfill
requirements
Dramaturgical Metaphor:
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits
and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages”,
Shakespeare.
2 perspectives towards roles:
Structural-functionalist approach
o Roles provide stability and predictability
o The script is institutionalized & roles are rather static
o Role expectations are part of the organizations’ ‘collective memory’
o Roles demarcate appropriate and inappropriate behaviors
o Roles disciplines members because of
‘rewards’
‘punishments’ – backlash effect
o Roles facilitate collaboration because they make actions predictable
Interactional approach/Symbolic Interactionism
o Roles may be dynamic
o People may have very different understandings of the same occupational role
o Roles are more dynamic than the structuralist approach suggests
o No script is available before the action takes place
o Scripts are not ‘a given’ and stored in the collective memory but emerge from
interactions
o Employees improvise & adapt role expectations
Scientific Management/Taylorism: if people specialize in one task, they become really good
at it. Instead of doing every task, if you are only responsible for one task of the production, it’ll
work better and with proficiency.
Roles, Image & Identity
Role identity theory: people act in certain ways based on how they like to see themselves and
how they like to see themselves and how they like to be seen by others when operating in
particular roles.
Role identity: “The cognitive schema, or internal framework, that stores the
information and meaning attached to a role to guide behavior and interpretation of the
role expectations”
o Maintenance
o Individual factors
o Oneself
o Construction/negotiation
o Situational factors
o Others …
Roles help define ‘who we are’
A role is attached to a structural position or occupation
But people may provide different meanings to such a role
Roles also provide the individual with a sense of who one is
Not all roles are equally important
,Roles Identity Salience
The importance people give to roles central to their life
and identity
In these cases, employees choose between enacting one
role or the other
Roles are ‘ranked’ in a hierarchy
Role conflict
In practice, you have many different roles, which may conflict
Functional roles demand
o e.g., Middle-manager you have superior demands and subordinates demands
Work and personal expectations
o e.g., Work long hours you have work expectations and family expectations
Outcomes of role conflict: tension between employees, higher turnover, individual
anxiety, and lower employee performance
Today’s workplace
Roles predict behavior & success of behavior
Role expectations are largely beyond the direct control of management
o More ‘fluid’, decentralized organizations
o Employees value autonomy
Role enactment is more challenging than ever, because of:
o Nature of work: flex work/gig work; Work for multiple employers in multiple
roles
o Technology use has faded boundaries between roles (e.g., work/home)
Lecture 2
6th Feb
Traditional versus ‘boundaryless’ organizations/careers
Inter-organizational collaboration
Flexible work arrangements
Temporary project groups
‘fluent’ or ‘agile’ organizations
Frequent role transitions
Dynamic environment, flexibility required
Protean career
Individual focus: manage own career, own definition of success, own values, and goals
Challenge: knowing one’s dreams, finding coherence, meaning, and purpose
Roles, image, & identity
Role identity
“The cognitive schema, or internal framework, that stores the information and
meaning attached to a role to guide behavior and interpretation of the role expectations”.
Role identity: maintenance; individual factors; oneself; construction/negotiation; situational
factors; others…
, Role transitions
Terminology (Ashforth, 2000)
Inter = between
Intra = within
Interrole transition: move from one role to another
Intrarole transition: change your orientation toward a role you hold
Intraorganizational role transition: change roles within the same organization (e.g.,
promotion, transfer)
Moving from and old role to a new role:
‘Old role’:
Established
Workplace identity
Work meaning
Control
Sense of belonging
‘New’ role:
Redefine
Workplace identity
Work meaning
Control
Sense of belonging
‘Find a new narrative’
Kurt Lewin (Ashford, 2000)
In between: rites of passage
Unfreeze (rites of separation; role exit)
Change (rites of transition)
Refreeze (rites of incorporation; role entry)
Newcomer socialization
Organizational socialization
“The process of learning the behaviors and attitudes necessary for assuming a role in a
position”.
Formal orientation programs
Formal & informal mentoring (buddy programs)
Information package
Intranet
…
Role of information seeking in organizational socializations (Morisson, 1993)
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