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Samenvatting - Roles in networked organizations (880100-M-6)
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Roles in networked organizationsThis course
Assignments/ exams
- Non-graded assignments (pass/fail)
- Graded interview assignments (50%) deadline
- Exam (50%) -> open questions / open book
Workgroup: bespreken van de opdracht en de introductie van the interview assignment.
Lecture 1
Organization: a group of people working together to reach a common goal.
What is a 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.
Which roles do you play? Friend, romantic partner, room mate, citizen, sister, daughter,
employee, etc.
-> you can play roles in private and at work this are different kind of roles
Social role theory (Eagly, 1987)
When individuals approve of a social role they will…
- Conform the role norms
- Punish those who violate role norms
Agents conform to role expectations because…
- The anticipation of rewards (in case of role conformity) and punishments (in case of
noncompliance)
- The satisfaction behaving of in a prosocial way
Changed conditions can render a social role outdated or illegitimate -> role change (slowly)
Roles are often embedded in ‘role sets’ -> every position entails different kind of roles
Secretary: note taker, telephone operator, office supply management, bureaucratic support
employee.
Lecturer: course developer, help desk, convenor of meetings, grading, examination.
Department chair: supervisor; provide feedback/rewards, budget responsible, representative in
board meetings, spokesperson in press.
Types of roles
- Occupational roles: formal positions within organizations
- Gender roles: traditionally female and male
, - Family roles: father, mother, aunt, uncle, grandma etc.
- Social type roles: role that you develop for yourself like “grumpy old men” or “ the know it
al” or “the joker” -> when someone always behaves that way that becomes expected
from that person in social situations.
Role accumulation
You play a lot of roles at the same time. There can be conflicts between roles but performing a
lot of roles can enrich you as a person or other roles.
Dramaturgical metaphor: shakespeare
All the words 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.
2 theoretical perspectives towards roles
- Structural - functional approach: roles provide stability and predictability
- The script is institutionalized & roles are rather statistic
- Role expectations are part of the organization ‘collective memory’
- Roles demarcate appropriate and inappropriate behaviors
- Roles disciplines members because of reward and punishments -> backlash
effect
- Roles facilitate collaboration because they make actions predictable
Scientific management/Taylorism: proposed that everybody did their own job, their own role and
specialized in this job. -> Division of labor & specialization.
Example: fast food restaurants (one person cuts the sandwiches, another one is putting the
toppings on and then one person is doing the cash register).
Roles are independent
You play your role in a network. Interactions between those people come with certain
expectations and if those expectations are unknown than there are awkward situations.
- symbolic - interactionist approach: roles may be dynamic, people may have very
different understandings of the same occupational role
- Roles are more dynamic than the structuralist approach suggest
- No script is available before taking the action takes place
- Scripts are not ‘a given’ and stored in the collective memory but emerge form
interactions
- Employees improvise and adapt role expectations
, - Roles are flexible and negotiated
Roles, image & identity
Salvador Dali: you see him painting his wife that looks at
herself in the mirror.
Woman looking in the mirror // man looking at the woman.
There is an interaction in the painting but he is also playing two
roles: husband and painter.
Importance: is image and identity -> when you are looking in
the mirror what do we see and what do we want that others
see. What are we expressing.
- Roles and Identity: roles and how people construct their identities.
- Roles and image: roles and how others form images of an employee
Role identity theory: people act in certain ways based on who 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”
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
Role centrality and role salience
The importance people give to roles central to their life and identity
- Role centrality: what a person regards as desirable or preferred from his or her own point
of view
, - Role salience: readiness to act out an identity as a consequence of the identity's
properties as a cognitive structure or schema.
-> in these cases, employees choose between enacting one role or another
Roles are ranked in a hierarchy
Role conflict
In practice, you have many different roles, which may conflict.
- Functional roles demands
- Work and personal expectations
Outcome of role conflict: tension between employees, higher
turnover, individual anxiety, and lower employee performance.
Work- nonwork interface
Work roles [identity] family roles
-> is this in balance, what is going to change when you are going
abroad (what has influence on this kind of decision)
Biases and stereotypes
Beside occupational roles, behavior is regulated by gender roles
Sensitivity & strength -> woman
Masculinity, strength, tyranny -> man
Summary
- Roles predict behavior and success behavior
- Role expectations are largely beyond the direct control of management
- More fluid decentralized organizations
- Employees value autonomy
- Role enactment is more challenging than ever because of:
- Nature of work: flex work/gig work; work for multiple employers in multiple roles
- Technology use has faded boundaries between roles (e.g. work/home)
Reading material week 1
Article 1
Role theory perspectives: past, present and future applications of role theories in management
research
Definition role: a role represent a core set of behavioral expectations tied to a social group or
category that defines appropriate and permitted forms of behavior for group members (Biddle,
1986; Koseoglu, Liu & Shalley, 2017)
-> gender roles, career roles, status roles are all examples of roles that impose behavioral
expectations of an individual viewed as a part of these social groups.
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