Being Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: Role-Based Identity Foils in Organizational Life

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Ashforth, Blake E.; Schinoff, Beth S.; Rogers, Kristie M.; Lange, Donald
• 署名单位: Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Boston College; University of Delaware; Marquette University
• 刊物名称: ORGANIZATION SCIENCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1047-7039
• DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2023.1666
• 发表日期: 2024
• 关键词: identity; identity foils; role identity; identity conflict; ROLE CONFLICT; identification; avoidance; favoritism; compromise; holism

摘要

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.