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Critical Perspectives on Management and Organisations (How do employees…
Critical Perspectives on
Management and
Organisations
An ideal worker & the
professional identity
Who is an ‘ideal worker’?
24/7/365 work cycle - expected to prioritise work
ahead of family, personal needs, and health
totally committed to and always available to fulfil his or
her work duties.
Embrace this expectation are richly rewarded.
What is a professional identity?
Role identities comprise of goals, values, beliefs,
norms, interaction styles, and time horizons
associated with a given role
Two main forms of professional identities:
--> Expected: employer expectations and beliefs
--> Experienced: own expectations and beliefs
Expect their workers to conform to the ideal worker image
If their experienced professional identity does not meet the ideal worker image (i.e. expected professional identity) conflict arises.
Leads to persisting gender inequality.
How do organisations control
employees’ professional
identity?
Organisational mechanisms of identity control
Structure of work
--> prioritising work demands over all other life demands and therefore always being available to the employer
Performance evaluations
–>Reinforcing the above structure of work by
rewarding (e.g. promotions, salary increments)
Taken together, the structure of work and the
performance evaluation system creates a selffulfilling
prophecy of professionals continuously
adopting the ‘expected’ professional identity
How do employees cope
with conflicting
professional identities?
Congruence vs. conflict
If an employee’s expected and experienced professional identities are in sync and congruent
they are unlikely to experience conflict
However, a large percentage of professionals
experience conflict between the two identities
Women (based on popular gender norms),
especially those with young children as being the
main cohort of professionals who would experience
conflict.
How do professionals cope with conflict?
Professionals cope with conflicting identities
by ‘straying’ from the expected identity (i.e.
ideal worker image)
They do so by either passing or revealing
--> Passing: intentional or accidental
misrepresentation of membership in the
favoured group (i.e. expected professional
identity)
–> Revealing: intentional or accidental disclosure
of non-membership in the favoured group (i.e.
expected professional identity)
Tools for straying
Personally altering the structure of work (i.e.
passing)
Focusing on cultivating a local client base
– Working on internal projects to reduce travel time
– Working from home
Seeking assistance in restructuring work (i.e.
revealing)
– Applying for reduced workloads
– Seeking parental and/or carer’s leave
Hiding or sharing personal information (i.e.
passing and revealing)
– How professionals controlled their personal
information dictate whether they use passing or
revealing to alter work structure to cope
Integrated identity
management strategies for
multiple audiences
Combining passing and revealing
Factors influencing the use of passing and/or
revealing when interacting with audiences
Audience status: Pass to high-status while revealing to same-status
audiences
Closeness of relationship: Pass to those distant while revealing to close friends
(colleagues) and mentors
Perceived access to formal accommodations: Reveal if having access to formal accommodations
Extremity of the conflict experienced: When faced with extreme circumstances in work (e.g.
excessively demanding project) or personal life (e.g.
death of a close family member) reveal while passing
on all other circumstances
Spillover of perceptions across audiences
Efforts to pass or reveal to one audience
(e.g. high-status) can spillover and influence
the perceptions held of the professional by
other audiences.
Passing to high-status audiences tends to
facilitate passing to equal- or low-status
audiences
Revealing to close colleagues often results in
informal re-structuring of work which enables
one to pass to wider high-status audiences
Revealing to high-status audiences often
results in revealing to broader audiences
across the organisation
Consequences of using
integrated identity
management strategies
for professionals
Gender differentiation.
ON AVERAGE:
Women less likely to engage to identity
management strategies
Men are equally likely to use passing
Often attributed to women being
more likely to utilise formal accommodations
(e.g. parental leave) provided by employer than men
Senior audience perceptions of professionals
dictate the performance evaluation system
External perceptions and performance evaluation
High performance ratings given to:
Those who embrace the expected professional identity
(i.e. congruent with their experienced professional
identity)
Those who use passing (especially to senior-status
audiences) identity management strategies to cope with conflict
Low performance rating given to those who use
revealing (especially to senior-status audiences)
identity management strategies to cope with conflict
High performance rating results in stable and
straightforward career paths and at times accelerated
advancement while low performance ratings results
in missing out on promotions and/or unstable career
trajectories