WEEK NINE: Critical Perspectives on Management and Organisations

Who is the ideal worker?

What is a professional identity?

How do organisations control employee professional identity?

Integrated identity management strategies for multiple audiences

Therefore an "ideal worker" is one who is totally committed to and always available to fulfil his or her work duties.

Employees who embrace this expectation are richly rewarded and given promotional prospects, especially those performing professional or
managerial jobs.

Due to a move towards a 24/7/365 work cycle, employees today are expected to prioritise work ahead of family, personal needs, and even health.

  • Identities comprise of goals, values, beliefs,
    norms, interaction styles, and time horizons that are associated with a given role.
  • Two main forms of professional identities: expected (an employers expectations and beliefs are of paramount importance) and experienced (centres around own expectations and beliefs)
  • Organisations employing professionals expect their
    workers to conform to the ideal worker image - go above and beyond
  • Conflict arises when a worker's experienced professional identity does not meet the ideal worker image - (particularly occurs with the issue of persistent gender inequality in workplace ie expectant mothers

Organisation mechanisms of identity control:

  1. Structure of the work being done: the successful performance of the professional role being contingent upon always prioritising work demands over all other life demands and therefore always being available to the employer eg. employer calls you at 4:30am you have to reply.
  2. Performance evaluations: reinforcing the above structure of work by rewarding those who fulfil requirements.

How do employees cope with conflicting professional identities?

Congruence vs conflict:

If employees expected and experienced and professional identities are in sync then they are congruent they are unlikely to experience conflict.

However, in reality, a large percentage of professionals experience conflict between the two identities. Ongoing conflict between how much they expect from themselves and how much their superiors expect of them - we can see how this would create conflict.

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 conflict is not only restricted to women - changing landscape of the demographic differences of so many professionals.

How do professionals cope with such conflict?
Professionals cope with conflicting identities by adopting some form of stray. ‘Straying’ from the expected identity, they do so by either passing or revealing.

Passing: Intentional or accidental misrepresentation of membership in the favoured group ie. that of the expected professional identity. For example you might ring up your boss to say you are working at home when actually you cannot be bothered getting out of bed.
Specific tools for straying - Personally altering the structure of work (ie. passing):

  • Focussing on cultivating a local client base
  • Working on internal projects to reduce travel time
  • Working from home

Revealing: Intentional or accidental disclosure of non-membership in the favoured group ie. that of the expected professional identity. When revealing you are telling the whole truth. In this case, you call your boss and tell them you are not coming into work because you can't be bothered getting out of bed. This is problematic: thus you can either pass as a member or potentially reveal your non-membership. Truth can actually have you boss recognise you as someone not completely committed to the work at hand.
Specific tools for straying - Seeking assistance in restructuring work in an honest way ie. revealing:

  • Applying for reduced workloads
  • Seeking parental and/or carer’s leave

.


Combining passing and revealing:
Factors influencing the use of passing and/or revealing
when interacting with varied audiences:

  • Audience status - members of the audience superior? Lower down? What direct or indirect influence they have on your day to day activities? More likely to utilise passing with senior audience and revealing to lower or equal status.
  • The closeness of relationship - people pass to those distant and are more revealing to close colleagues.
  • Perceived access to formal accommodations - tend to reveal if we have access to formal accommodations such as parental leave, however, if formal accommodations are not in place likely to pass.
  • Extremity of the conflict experienced - when faced with extreme circumstances at work or personal life circumstances we reveal perhaps because we are ill-equipped to effectively pass.

Spillover or perceptions across audiences: efforts to pass or reveal to one audience (eg. high status) can spill over and influence the perceptions held of the professional and by other audiences (e.g. same or low level).

  • passing to high status audience tends to facilitate passing to equal or low-status audiences
  • revealing to close colleagues often results in informal restructuring of work which enables one to pass to wider high-status audiences
  • revealing to high status audience often results in revealing to broader audiences across the organisation
    cultural considerations are important here

Consequences of using integrated identity management strategies

External perceptions and performance evaluation

Gender Differences
On average:
▪ Women less likely to engage with identity management strategies that allow passing to high-status audiences and are more inclined to reveal
▪ Men are equally likely to use passing as well as
revealing identity management strategies.
▪ Women are more likely to utilise formal
accommodations provided by employer than men
▪ Senior audience perceptions of professionals dictate
the performance evaluation system

High-performance ratings are typically given to those who embrace the expected professional identity - congruence between experienced and expected professional identities. Also those who use passing (especially to senior status audiences) identity management strategies to cope with conflict. This makes sense when you think about it because utilising passing with superiors, in fact, you're removing the burden for them to have to restructure your work by taking productive initiative to do that for them.
Low-performance ratings are given to those who use revealing (especially to senior status audiences) identity management strategies to cope with conflict. Superiors don't want to hear your personal problems and expect you to keep your emotional baggage outside the workplace.
High performance = improved career path
Low performance = unstable career path
You can see why people might fall into a pattern of favouring passing as their professional identity management strategy.

Overall, hiding or sharing personal information (ie. passing and revealing) shows how professionals can control their personal information which in turn dictates whether they use passing or revealing to alter their work structure to cope with their work demands. Typically feedback from management students has been that they employ passing when it comes ta job that they don't particularly value whereas in a position of employment that they see longevity in they are more likely to consider revealing.