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Managerial behavior in a multiplex role system

Cornell University

This article uses ethnographic data gathered from a parent cooperative nursery school to examine the strategies managers use to resolve role conflict in a multiplex role system, that is, a setting in which the relationship between managers and the people they supervise is based on more than one set of roles. In the organization under study, teachers functioned as both managers of, and service providers to, the parent volunteers they were charged with supervising. Parents' volunteer worker role was subject to conflict with and interruption by the expectations of their organizational client role, which constrained teachers' ability to direct parents' work in the classroom. Managerial effectiveness required responding to the demands and expectations of both sets of roles through a process of adaptive self-regulation. Teachers used several discrepancy detection strategies to gather information on parent volunteers' relative role salience, role transition readiness, and volunteer skills. Based on the information obtained, they devised discrepancy reduction strategies to focus parents' attention on the desired role for task performance and to reduce discrepancies between parents' expectations for managerial behavior and their own actions. The most effective teachers were able to develop personal relationships with parent volunteers, elicit knowledge about parents' role expectations and capabilities, and respond to the expectations of parents' multiple roles on an individualized basis.

Key Words: adaptive self-regulation • cooperatives • ethnography • managerial behavior • multiplex relationships • parents • role conflict • teachers • voluntary organizations

Human Relations, Vol. 55, No. 10, 1163-1188 (2002)
DOI: 10.1177/0018726702055010079


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