Abstract
Soldier-medic. Undercover police officer. Collaborative divorce attorney. Certain jobs require an individual to enact antithetical sets of role expectations (to do X and not-X), such as saving a life and taking a life, in the case of a soldier-medic. Despite their important consequences, we lack a unifying framework for such antithetical expectations and their implied identity foils—where one is expected to be both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (a lifesaver and a life-taker). To this end, we build theory on how and why antithetical expectations and their implied identity foils arise in organizations. We offer a model of the responses through which individuals tend to manage these seemingly impossible binds—avoidance, favoritism, gray compromise, black-and-white compromise, and holism—and discuss the conditions under which a given response is likely. We conclude that this respective order of responses predicts more positive outcomes (i.e., clarifying the identities, fostering resources, enabling complementary or synergistic solutions) and less negative outcomes (i.e., impaired jobholder performance and credibility, increased cynicism) for individuals and their organizations. We theorize that, given certain conditions, the extreme role-based conflict caused by identity foils is best addressed by the response of holism.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 232-258 |
Number of pages | 27 |
Journal | Organization Science |
Volume | 35 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jan 2024 |
Keywords
- avoidance
- compromise
- favoritism
- holism
- identification
- identity
- identity conflict
- identity foils
- role conflict
- role identity
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Strategy and Management
- Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management
- Management of Technology and Innovation