Positive Identity Construction: Insights from Classical and Contemporary Theoretical Perspectives

This chapter presents a framework for innovation-inspired positive organization development (IPOD); IPOD is presented as both a radical break from the problem solving approaches that have come to dominate the field, as well as a homecoming to OD’s original affirmative spirit. The converging fields that inform the theory and practice of IPOD are detailed: appreciative inquiry, positive organizational scholarship, positive psychology, design theory, and the rise of sustainable enterprises. The theory of change underlying IPOD is articulated, including the three stages in creating strengths-based organizational innovation: the elevation-and-extension of strengths, the broadening-and-building of capacity, and the establishment of the new-and-eclipsing of the old. Recent work from the city of Cleveland, Ohio, illustrates how these stages unfold. The chapter concludes with an agenda for evolving the field of IPOD, calling for a focus on designing positive institutions that refract and magnify our highest human strengths outward into society

Navigating the Self in Diverse Work Contexts

Navigating the self is critical for working in a diverse world, in which different identities interact in social space. This chapter presents five theoretical perspectives on how individuals navigate the self in diverse organizational contexts—social identity, critical identity, (role) identity, narrative-as-identity, and identity work. We review these five prominent theoretical perspectives on identity processes in diverse contexts to explicate various ways in which individuals actively participate in the co-construction of their identities in diverse contexts. As a next step in research, identity, diversity, and relationship scholars are encouraged to inquire into the generativity of proposed tactics for navigating the self in order to identify pathways for cultivating more positive identities in diverse work settings. The examination of positive relational identities is considered a promising path for further inquiry in this domain

Cynicism in Negotiation: When Communication Increases Buyers’ Skepticism

The economic literature on negotiation shows that strategic concerns can be a barrier to agreement, even when the buyer values the good more than the seller. Yet behavioral research demonstrates that human interaction can overcome these strategic concerns through communication. We show that there is also a downside of this human interaction: cynicism. Across two studies we focus on a seller-buyer interaction in which the buyer has uncertain knowledge about the goods for sale, but has a positive expected payoff from saying “yes” to the available transaction. Study 1 shows that most buyers accept offers made by computers, but that acceptance rates drop significantly when offers are made by human sellers who communicate directly with buyers. Study 2 clarifies that this effect results from allowing human sellers to communicate with buyers, and shows that such communication focuses the buyers’ attention on the seller’s trustworthiness. The mere situation of negotiated interaction increases buyers’ attention to the sellers’ self-serving motives and, consequently, buyers’ cynicism. Unaware of this downside of interaction, sellers actually prefer to have the opportunity to communicate with buyers

In Our Own Backyard: When a Less Inclusive Community Challenges Organizational Inclusion

Purpose: This paper aims to build insight into how the local community impacts an organization’s ability to develop an inclusive culture. The paper offers a framework of inclusion discontinuities between an organization and its community, then using the case of teaching hospitals, aims to empirically demonstrate how individuals and organizations perceive and deal with inconsistencies in responses to diversity at the organizational-and community-levels. Design/methodology/approach: A multi-method qualitative study was conducted in hospitals located in the same city. Focus groups were conducted with 11 medical trainees from underrepresented backgrounds and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 10 hospital leaders involved with diversity efforts at two hospitals. Data analysis followed an iterative approach built from Miles and Huberman (1994). Findings: The findings demonstrate how discontinuity between the organizations efforts to create an inclusive environment and the community’s response to diversity and difference creates challenges for leaders in retaining and supporting minority individuals, and for trainees in feeling like they could build a life within, and outside of, their organizations. Based on findings from the data, the paper offers insights into how organizations can build their capacity to address these challenges. Research limitations/implications: Future research should build upon this work by further examining how inclusion discontinuities between communities and organizations impact individuals and organizations. Practical implications: The paper includes in-depth insight into how organizations can build their capacity to address such a deep-rooted challenge that comes from a less inclusive community. Originality/value: This paper contributes to an understanding of how forces from the community outside an organization can shape internal efforts toward fostering inclusion

Out of the Box? How Managing a subordinate\u27s Multiple Identities Affects the Quality of a Manager-Subordinate Relationship

Positive manager-subordinate relationships are invaluable to organizations because they enable positive employee attitudes, citizenship behaviors, task performance, and more effective organizations. Yet extant theory provides a limited perspective on the factors that create these types of relationships. We highlight the important role subordinates also play in affecting the resource pool and propose that a subordinate’s multiple identities can provide him or her with access to knowledge and social capital resources that can be utilized for work-based tasks and activities. A manager and a subordinate may prefer similar or different strategies for managing the subordinate’s multiple identities, however, which can affect resource utilization and the quality of the manager-subordinate relationship. Our variance model summarizes our predictions about the effect of managers’ and subordinates’ strategy choices on the quality of manager-subordinate relationships. In doing so we integrate three divergent relational theories (leader-member exchange theory, relational-cultural theory, and a positive organizational scholarship perspective on positive relationships at work) and offer new insights on the quality of manager-subordinate relationships

Sex difference and intra-operative tidal volume: Insights from the LAS VEGAS study

BACKGROUND: One key element of lung-protective ventilation is the use of a low tidal volume (VT). A sex difference in use of low tidal volume ventilation (LTVV) has been described in critically ill ICU patients.OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to determine whether a sex difference in use of LTVV also exists in operating room patients, and if present what factors drive this difference.DESIGN, PATIENTS AND SETTING: This is a posthoc analysis of LAS VEGAS, a 1-week worldwide observational study in adults requiring intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery in 146 hospitals in 29 countries.MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Women and men were compared with respect to use of LTVV, defined as VT of 8 ml kg-1 or less predicted bodyweight (PBW). A VT was deemed 'default' if the set VT was a round number. A mediation analysis assessed which factors may explain the sex difference in use of LTVV during intra-operative ventilation.RESULTS: This analysis includes 9864 patients, of whom 5425 (55%) were women. A default VT was often set, both in women and men; mode VT was 500 ml. Median [IQR] VT was higher in women than in men (8.6 [7.7 to 9.6] vs. 7.6 [6.8 to 8.4] ml kg-1 PBW, P < 0.001). Compared with men, women were twice as likely not to receive LTVV [68.8 vs. 36.0%; relative risk ratio 2.1 (95% CI 1.9 to 2.1), P < 0.001]. In the mediation analysis, patients' height and actual body weight (ABW) explained 81 and 18% of the sex difference in use of LTVV, respectively; it was not explained by the use of a default VT.CONCLUSION: In this worldwide cohort of patients receiving intra-operative ventilation during general anaesthesia for surgery, women received a higher VT than men during intra-operative ventilation. The risk for a female not to receive LTVV during surgery was double that of males. Height and ABW were the two mediators of the sex difference in use of LTVV.TRIAL REGISTRATION: The study was registered at Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01601223

Resourcefulness In Action: The Case Of Global Diversity Management

In this essay, I highlight “social identity resourcing” as a generative mechanism whereby individuals’ social identities are used as assets to develop a vision and strategy for global diversity management. Social identity resourcing includes two forms: harnessing and integrating. Harnessing refers to practices that enable organizational members to share their perspectives on how global diversity management should be approached. Integrating reflects the actual use of different perspectives to implement a global vision and strategy for diversity management. In doing so, this essay departs from past research on global diversity management which focuses revealing the differences between a global and a multi-domestic (i.e., country-level) approach to diversity management (e.g., Nishii & Ozbilgin, 2007; Sippola & Smale, 2007) or highlighting a conceptual framework for managing global diversity (Mor Barak, 2014). Instead, this essay draws on both diversity management research (Ely & Thomas, 2001; Ramarajan & Thomas, 2010; Thomas & Ely, 1996) and a positive organizational scholarship (POS) perspective (Feldman, 2004; Fredrickson & Dutton, 2008; Sonenshein, 2014) to reveal a social identity-based mechanism that promotes individual and collective flourishing in global organizations

Leading Diversity in Organizations: Evidence-Based Tips, Strategies, and Takeaways

Multiple evidence-based strategies employed by multiple people with varying degrees of control over organizational decision-making are instrumental to leading diversity effectively in organizations. In this document, I offer a variety of research-supported strategies that individual contributors, manager/leaders, and senior managers/executives can use to improve diversity and inclusion in their organizations. There is also a pretty extensive bibliography following the table

The Construction of Professional Identity

[Excerpt] The classification of ‘professions’ has been a debated topic (Abbott, 1988; Friedson 2001), with several researchers putting forth varying criteria which distinguish a profession from other occupations. Previously, an individual would be considered a professional only once they had completed and attained all of the training, certifications and credentials of a professional occupation and, of course, internalized this profession’s values and norms (Wilensky, 1964). Recently, researchers have begun to relax the criteria for classifying professional occupations, insisting only that the occupation be skill- or education-based (Benveniste, 1987; Ibarra, 1999). Furthermore, in today’s workplace, which is burgeoning with independent knowledge workers, the term ‘profession’ is often used as an adjective rather than a noun, describing how individuals carry out their work with knowledge and skill rather than the specific kind of work they do (see Chapter 9 in this book)