Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Week 9: Professional Identity (What? (Role identities comprise of (Time…
Week 9: Professional Identity
Ideal worker
Employees are expected to prioritise work over
Family
Personal needs
Health
Totally committed to & always available to fulfil duties
Richly rewarded, esp those performing professionals/ managerial jobs
What?
Forms
Experienced
Own expectations & beliefs
Expected
Employee's expectations & beliefs
Role identities comprise of
Time horizon
Interaction style
Norms
Beliefs
Values
Goals
Professionals are expected to conform to ideal worker image
Conflict arise when
Expected professional identity not the same as ideal worker image
Lead to gender inequality
How to control
Structure of work
Work demand > life demands; being available to employer
Performance evaluations
Reinforce structure of work by rewarding who fulfil expected professional identity requirements
Reward: Promotions, salary increments, non-monetary rewards
Taking both creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of professionals continuously adopting the expected professional identity
How to cope with conflict?
Congruence vs. Conflict
If expected and experienced identity are in sync and congruent, less likely to experience conflict
Large % of professionals experience conflict between the two identities
Researchers focused on women (gender norms), as the main cohort of professionals who experience conflict
Straying from expected identity
Passing
Intentional/ accidental misrepresentation of membership in the favoured group
Revealing
Intentional or accidental disclosure of non-membership in the favoured group
Tools
Personally altering the structure of work (passing)
Focus on cultivating local client
Work on internal projects to reduce time travel
Work from home
Seek assistance in restructuring work (revealing)
Apply for reduced workloads
Seek parental and/or carer's leave
Hiding/sharing personal info (P&R)
How professionals controlled their personal info dictate whether they use passing/revealing to alter work structure
Factors influencing P&R
Audience status
Spillover
Pass/reveal to one audience (high) can spillover & influence the perception held of the professional by other audience (same/low level)
Pass
High status
Tends to facilitate passing to equal/low status audience
Reveal
Same status
Informal re-structuring of work which enables to pass to wider high- status audience
High status
Results in revealing to broader audiences across org.
Closeness of relationship
Pass to distant while revel to close friends (colleagues) & mentors
Perceived access to formal accommodations
Reveal if have access to formal accommodations (parental leave) & pass if not
Extremity of conflict
extreme circumstances in work (excessive demanding project)
personal life (death of close family) reveal while passing on all other circumstances
Consequences
Gender differences
Women
Less likely to engage identity management strategies that allow passing to high status and more likely to reveal
More likely to utilise formal accommodations (parental leave) provided by employer than men
Men
Equally likely to use passing as well as revealing identity management strategies
Senior audience perception of professionals dictate performance evaluation system
High performance rating given to
Those who embrace expected PI (congruent with their expected PI)
Passing (to senior status) identity management strategies to cope
Result in stable & straightforward career paths
Low performance rating given to
Revealing (senior status) to cope with conflict
Results in missing out on promotions and/or unstable career trajectories