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Communication 3nineTOO Managing Multiple Roles |
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Managing Multiple Roles
Caryn E. Medved and Julie Apker
Case Overview
This case study explores how Marcus Hernandez, an internal communication manager in a newly merged hospital, communicates to create, develop, and change his family and work roles. The case follows Marcus over a four-month time period in which he encounters significant professional and personal role conflict. At the heart of this clash is Marcus’ desire to become a more active father in the lives of his young twin daughters, while at the same time fulfilling the challenges of a new, fast-paced job. With the help of a supportive coworker and an understanding supervisor, Marcus is able to manage his work and family responsibilities, but the results of his “balancing act” are not always positive. Over time, Marcus experiences stress and burnout that leads him to question his commitment to the hospital. In the end, Marcus faces a difficult decision between the two most important (yet conflicting) parts of his life—his career and his children. Which will he choose?
Learning Objective
The case illustrates the communication issues related to roles and role conflict experienced by employees trying to balance work and family responsibilities, especially during times of personal and professional change.
Keywords and Definitions
Alternative work arrangement—unconventional ways of fulfilling work requirements other than traditional “9 to 5” work schedules and work locations, for example, telecommuting, part-time work schedules, flex-time arrangements, or job sharing.
Managed care—a component of the health care system where organizations such as HMOs (health maintenance organizations) act as intermediaries between health care providers and patients.
Merger—the legal combination or integration of two or more organizational entities.
Employee attitude survey—surveys that organizations give to employees on an annual or periodic basis attempting to better understand attitudes about work climate, job satisfaction, communication satisfaction and/or effectiveness, along with general employee work attitudes.
Key Case Concepts
Role—sets of behaviors that persons expect from occupants of a particular position that stem from formal organizational expectations and individual experiences.
Role conflict—a clash between two or more competing and/or divergent role requirements.
Role negotiation—interactions designed to modify the expectations of others about how a role should be performed and evaluated.
Work/family conflict—a stressor that involves conflicting work and family role requirements.
Stress—factors in a person’s environment that are hard to manage and can also cause negative personal and organizational outcomes.
Burnout—chronic strain which results from work and nonwork pressures that can lead to reduced personal accomplishment, depersonalization of others, and emotional exhaustion.
The concept of “role” has figured prominently in social research exploring individual behavior in organizations (see Katz & Kahn, 1978; Zurcher, 1983). Organizational roles are constituted by expectations for verbal and non-verbal behaviors; for example, we may communicate in a more formal style, dress in different clothing, or use our time in particular ways at the workplace that are different from our personal or home lives. This case examines the communicative issues related to role development and explores how individuals in home and work settings experience role conflict and ambiguity in ways that can lead to stress and burnout.
Learning what behavior is expected for a particular organizational role partly occurs through socialization. Information about how to talk, think, or behave is communicated through institutionalized means, such as a formal job description, but also through the interpersonal process of “role sending” (Katz & Kahn, 1978) where supervisors and other role-set members (Miller, Joseph, & Apker, 2000) provide role information. The transition from being a college student to being a new organizational member, for example, may be guided by a formal job description but also by a supervisor or by co-workers. A more experienced employee may help a new recruit understand an organization’s culture, norms, and rules. Through “role taking,” a leader will assign particular responsibilities to test out a new employee’s abilities. As role development continues, the employee seeks to modify their role with a supervisor or co-worker in an exchange process called “role making.” Finally, role expectations become understood by both parties through “role routinization” (Graen & Scandura, 1987).
As demonstrated in this case, roles can be renegotiated over time, as employees actively shape their organizational roles and seek approval for role modifications from supervisors and coworkers (Graen, 1976; Miller et al., 1996). Changes in organizational roles occur for many different reasons, such as mergers and acquisitions, planned internal change efforts, or even employee needs/desires. An employee, for example, may change her work hours or responsibilities to make time to care for a sick parent. Or, an organizational merger may cause an employee to modify existing role tasks in order to avoid duplicating the work of others. In instances such as these, an open supervisor-employee relationship is an important precondition to effective role negotiation (Miller, Johnson, Hart & Peterson, 1999).
Individuals may experience role-conflict stressors as part of the role development and negotiation process and these stressors may significantly affect workers’ home and work responsibilities. Conflict may be “intra-role” when two or more responsibilities within the same role are contradictory. “Inter-role” conflict may occur when role expectations in one domain of life are incommensurate with demands from another sphere of life, as in home/work conflict.
The clash between work and family lives often takes three forms: time-based, behavioral-based, or emotion-based (Greenhaus & Buettell, 1985). Time-based conflict results when the obligations for one role don’t allow individuals to meet time commitments for another role. For example, a working father cannot be at his daughter’s softball game and in a meeting at the same time. When behaviors seen as acceptable in one area of our lives are viewed as acceptable in other spheres of our lives, behavior-based conflict can occur. For instance, a mother who gives her husband a “performance appraisal” to rate his contribution to household labor may experience behavior-based conflict. Finally, emotional conflict can occur, for example, when an employee is ineffective at work because he is distracted and worried about a sick family member.
As illustrated in this case, contradictory expectations between family and work roles can lead to the experience of burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, lack of personal accomplishment, and depersonalization. Emotional exhaustion is a chronic condition where employees feel fatigued, “used up,” or discouraged with their work. A lack of personal accomplishment can be seen when employees no longer see themselves as effective in doing their jobs. Depersonalization may be seen in communication that negatively characterizes others or by expecting “the worst.” Such symptoms of burnout can lead to problematic individual and organizational outcomes, such as greater risk to illness and disease, reduced job satisfaction and increased job turnover.
Discussion Questions
1. What organizational issues were causing stress and burnout for Marcus?
2. What family issues were causing stress and burnout for Marcus?
3. How would you describe the role negotiation process between Marcus and Lorie?
4. Describe how you think the conversation between Marcus and Tameka might go?
Discussion Questions
1. How would you describe the relationship between Marcus and his boss, Tameka? What did they say or do that led you to describe their relationship in this way?
2. What sources of work and family stress does Marcus experience through this case? What symptoms of burnout does he exhibit? How is this burnout seen in Marcus’s interactions with his colleagues?
3. How do Marcus and Lorie negotiate their new roles through interaction?
4. How can the recommendations developed and implemented by Marcus and Lorie potentially help hospital employees manage their own role conflict, job stress, and burnout?
5. To what extent do you think organizations are ethically responsible for helping employees manage personal and professional role conflict?
6. What web resources for managing stress and burnout could be added to the hospital intranet and/or e-newsletter?
7. In what ways are today’s organizations helping their employees manage work and family responsibilities? Identify 1–2 organizations that are innovators in aiding workers to balance family and job responsibilities. Describe these organizations’ programs or policies.
8. What are the professional barriers that employees perceive that may prevent them from taking advantage of organizational programs or policies designed to help them manage work and family responsibilities?
References and Resources
Apker, J. (2001). Role development in the managed care era: A case of hospital-based nursing. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 29, 117–136.
Buzzanell (1994). Gaining a voice: Feminist organizational communication theorizing. Management Communication Quarterly, 7, 339–383.
Buzzanell, P. M., Goldzwig, S. (1991). Linear and nonlinear career models: Metaphors, paradigms, and ideologies. Management Communication Quarterly, 4, 466–505.
Graen, G. B. (1976). Role-making within complex organizations. In M. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 1201–1245). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Graen, G. B., & Scandura, T. A. (1987). Toward a psychology of dyadic organizing. Research in Organizational Behavior, 9, 175–208.
Greenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles. Academy of Management Review, 10, 76–88.
Hochschild, A. R. (1997). The time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Katz, D., & Kahn, R. L. (1978). The social psychology of organizations (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Kirby, E. L., Golden, A. G., Medved, C. E., Jorgenson, J., Buzzanell, P. M. (2003). Exploring organizational communication problematics for empowerment: Challenging and revisioning the discourse of work and family research. Kalbfleisch, P. J. (Ed.) Communication Yearbook, 27, 1–43.
Miller, K. I., Joseph, L., & Apker, J. (2000). Strategic ambiguity in the role development process. Journal of Applied Communication Research,28,193–214.
Ray, E. B., & Miller, K. I. (1991). The influence of communication structure and social support on job stress and burnout. Management Communication Quarterly, 4, 506–527.
Miller, V. D., Jablin, F. M., Casey, M. K., Lamphear-Van Horn, M., & Ethington, C. (1996). The maternity leave as a role negotiation process. Journal of Managerial Issues, 8, 286–309.
Zurcher, L. (1983). Social roles: Conformity, conflict, and creativity. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Graen, G. B., & Scandura, T. A. (1987). Toward a psychology of dyadic organizing. Research in Organizational Behavior, 9, 175–208.
Kirby, E. L., Golden, A. G., Medved, C. E., Jorgenson, J., Buzzanell, P. M. (2003). Exploring organizational communication problematics for empowerment: Challenging and revisioning the discourse of work and family research. Kalbfleisch, P. J. (Ed.) Communication Yearbook, 27, 1–43.
Miller, K. I., Joseph, L., & Apker, J. (2000). Strategic ambiguity in the role development process. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 28, 193–214.
Hochschild, A. R. (1997). The time bind: When work becomes home and home becomes work. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Web Resources
Society of Human Resource Managers (SHRM) Professional Association: <www.shrm.org>
Public Relations Society of America: <www.prsa.org>
Work and Families Institute: <www.familiesandworkinst.org>
Work and Family Connection: <www.workfamily.org>