Critical perspectives on Management and Organisations
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 professional’s experience conflict between the two identities
Historically, researchers and practitioners focused on women, especially those with young children as being the main cohort of professionals who would experience conflict, recent research indicates that conflict is not only restricted to them
How do professionals cope with conflict?
Professionals cope with conflicting identities by ‘straying’ from the expected identity
They do so by either passing or revealing
o Passing: intentional or accidental misrepresentation of membership in the favoured group (i.e. expected professional identity)
o 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)
o Focusing on cultivating a local client base
o Working on internal projects to reduce travel time
o Working from home
Seeking assistance in restructuring work (i.e. revealing)
o Applying for reduced workloads
o Seeking parental and/or carer’s leave
Hiding or sharing personal information
o How professionals controlled their personal information
Integrated identity management strategies for multiple audiences
Combining passing and revealing
Factors influencing the use of passing and/or revealing when interacting with audiences
o Audience status
Pass to high-status while revealing to same-status audiences
o Closeness of relationship
Pass to those distant while revealing to close friends (colleagues) and mentors
o Perceived access to formal accommodations
Reveal if having access to formal accommodations (e.g. parental leave) and pass if not
o 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
Spill over of perceptions across audiences
Efforts to pass or reveal to one audience can spill over and influence the perceptions held the professional by other audiences
o Passing to high-status audiences tends to facilitate passing to equal- or low-status audiences
o Revealing to close colleagues often results in informal re-structuring of work which enables one to pass to wider high-status audiences
o 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 differences
On average:
o Women less likely to engage to identity management strategies that allows passing to high-status audiences and more likely to reveal
o Men are equally likely to use passing as well as revealing identity management strategies
The reasons for the above patterns are complex – 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:
o Those who embrace the expected professional identity (i.e. congruent with their experienced professional identity)
o 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 identity management strategies to cope with conflict
High performance rating results in stables and straight forward career paths and at times accelerated advancement while low performance ratings results in missing out on promotions and/or unstable career trajectories
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How do organisations control employees' professional dientity
Taken together, the structure of work and the performance evaluation system creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of professional continuously adopting the ‘expected’ professional identity
o Reinforcing the above structure of work by rewarding (e.g. promotions, salary increments, non-monetary rewards – stars) those who fulfil such ‘expected’ professional identity requirements
Performance evaluations
o The successful performance of the professional role been contingent upon always prioritising work demands over all other life demands and therefore always being available to the employer
Structure of work
Organisational mechanisms of identity control
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An ideal worker & the professional identity
What is a professional identity?
When a worker’s experienced professional identity does not meet the ideal worker image conflict arises
Organisations employing professionals expect their workers to conform to the ideal worker image
o Experienced: own expectations and beliefs
o Expected: employer expectations and beliefs
Two main forms of professional identities:
Role identities comprise of goals, values, beliefs, norms, interaction styles and time horizons associated with a given role
Who is an ‘ideal’ worker?
Working full-time (male), who has access to a full-time carer (female)
Due to a 24/7/365 work cycle, employees today are expected to prioritise work ahead of family, personal needs, and even health
One who is totally committed to and always available to fulfil his or her work duties
Employees who embrace this expectation is richly rewarded, especially those performing professional or managerial jobs