Critical Perspectives on Management & Organisation

Ideal Worker

The one who is totally committed to and always available to fulfils his or her work duties

What is Professional identity

Role identities comprise of goals, values, beliefs, norms, interaction style, and time horizons associated with a given role

Experienced - Own expectations and beliefs

Expected - Employer expectations and beliefs

Organisational mechanisms of identity control

Performance evaluations - Reinforcing the above structure of work by rewarding ( promotions )those who fulfil such 'expected' professional identity requirements

Structure of work - 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

Taken together, the structure of work and the performance evaluation system creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of proressionals continuously adopting the 'expected' professional identity

How do professionals cope with conflict ?

Professionals cope with conflicting identities by 'straying' from the expected identity( Ideal worker image )

Passing - Intentional or accidental misrepresentation of membership in the favoured group (expected professional identity

Revealing - Intentional or accidental disclosure of non-membership in the favoured group (Expected professional identity

Tools for straying

Seeking assistance in restructuring work (Revealing) - Applying for reduced workloads, seeking parental and carer's leave

Hiding or sharing personal information ( passing & revealing ) - How professionals controlled their personal information dictate whether they use passing or revealing to alter work structure to cope

Personally altering the structure of work (Passing) - Working from home, working on internal projects to reduce travel time

Factors influencing the use of passing and revealing when interacting with audiences

Closeness to relationship - Perceived access to formal accomodations

Perceived access to formal accommodations - Reveal if having access to formal accommodations ( parental leave ) and pass if not

Audience status - Pass to high status while revealing to same-status audiences

Extremity of the conflict experienced - When faced with extreme circumstances in work or personal life ( death of a close family member) reveal while passing all other circumstances

Passing to high-status audiences tends to facilitate passing to equal- or low-status audiences

Revealing to close colleagues often results in informal re-structureing of work which enables one to pass to wider high-status audiences

Revealing to high-status audiences often results in revealing to broader audiences accross the organisations

Gender Differences

Women less likely to engage to identity management strategies that allows passing to high-status audiences and more likely to reveal

Men are equally likely to use passing as well as revealing identity management strategies

High performance rating given to

Those who embrace the expected professional identity ( congruent with thier experienced professional identity )

Those who use passing 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 stable and straightforward career paths and at times accelerated advancement while low performance rating resuls in missing out on promotions and unstable career trajections