| Exploring identity paradox: How individuals enact dual identification to career and team |
Received:October 16, 2017 Revised:October 16, 2017 |
Key Words: dual identification, paradox, taking charge, paradox mindset, individual social status |
| Author Name | Affiliation | | yuhan Zuo | Zhejiang University | | kun Luan | China University of Petroleum | | xiaoyun Xie* | Zhejiang University |
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Abstract: |
| Organizational members have multiple identities among which personal identities and social identifies co-exist yet often be in conflict with each other. This study is devoted to investigating how individuals cope with the tensions embedded in dual identification. By adopting paradox lens, social categorization theory and identity complexity theory, we capture the identity paradox between career and team identity. Based on this, we then demonstrate that it fuels individuals’ synthesis behavioral solutions (i.e. taking charge behavior) and thus bringing out functional career outcomes (i.e. individual social status within the team). We background our research question in a nuclear power plant in China, where the tensions between career and team identity are particularly salient for the technological professionals there. We conduct a two-wave multi-source survey to collect data and test our model. The results support the enabling effects of identity paradox and the facilitating role of paradox mindset in adding individuals in searching for inclusive and constructive behavioral solution to identity paradox. Our study represents a pioneering empirical investigation into individual level paradox and advances our understanding toward the functional mechanisms of multiple identities in organizational contexts. |
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