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Duality & social position: Role expectations of people who combine outsider-ness and insider-ness in organizational change

Nigam, A. ORCID: 0000-0002-6772-9643, Sackett, E. & Golden, B. (2022). Duality & social position: Role expectations of people who combine outsider-ness and insider-ness in organizational change. Organization Studies, 43(3), pp. 413-435. doi: 10.1177/0170840621989004

Abstract

A person’s social position shapes whether and how they can influence organizational change. While prior research establishes people whose social position combines outsider-ness and insider-ness as important change agents, we know little about how they influence change. We analyse a peer coaching initiative in Canadian hospitals to explain how outsider-insiders — in this case, organizational outsiders with professional proximity—advance change. Peer coaches were able to influence change by establishing and enacting a dual outsider-insider role and associated role expectations. We advance theory by showing that role expectations emphasizing duality that are rooted in social position, but created through social interaction, are a key mechanism by which the potential of outsider-insider social positions can be activated and mobilized to influence change. We advance theory on social position generally by highlighting the potential for integrating a symbolic interactionist perspective—focused on role expectations—into Bourdieu’s theory of fields.

Publication Type: Article
Additional Information: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments: Bayes Business School > Management
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