This chapter discusses interdependence and roles in organizations. It covers types of interdependence like pooled, sequential, reciprocal, and comprehensive interdependence. It also discusses role taking and making, norms and role episodes, communication processes, socialization to new roles, and maintaining quality interpersonal relationships through concepts like equity theory. The key topics covered are types of interdependence, roles and norms, communication barriers, socialization goals and tactics, and responses to inequity.

1. Thomson South Western
Wagner & Hollenbeck 5e
1
Chapter Eight
Interdependence
and
Role Relationships

2. 2
Chapter Overview
 This chapter examines the following topics:
– Patterns of Interdependence and Organizational Roles
• Types of Interdependence
• Implications of Interdependence
• Role Taking and Role Making
• Norms and Role Episodes
– Communication Processes in Interdependent Relationships
• Communication Messages and Media
• Barriers to Effective Communication
– Socialization to New Roles
• Socialization Goals and Tactics
• Designing Socialization Programs
– Quality of Interpersonal Role Relationships
• Equity and Social Comparison
• Distributive, Procedural, and Interactive Justice
• Responses to Inequity
• Managing Inequitable Situations

3. 3
Introduction
 Managers need to know
about various factors that
affect people as they work
together:
– Interdependence
– Specific roles
– Communication
– Socialization
– Equity theory

4. 4
Patterns of Interdependence and
Organizational Roles
 People in organizations
share a rich variety of
connections
 Such connections make
interpersonal relations a
very important aspect of
organizational life

5. 5
Types of Interdependence
 In the workplace, interdependence typically takes one of four
forms:
– Pooled interdependence
• Occurs when people draw resources from a shared source but have
little else in common
• Metropolitan Life Insurance example
– Sequential interdependence
• Comprises a chain of one-way interactions in which people depend
on those individuals who precede them in the chain
• Steelcase example
– Reciprocal interdependence
• A network of two-way relationships ties a collection of people
together
• Sales force and clerical staff example
– Comprehensive interdependence
• Develops in a tight network of interdependence
• The most complex form of interdependence because everyone
involved is reciprocally interdependent with one another
• Colgate-Palmolive and Proctor & Gamble examples

6. 6
Implications of Interdependence
 The type of interdependence that connects people
together in interpersonal relationships has several
important managerial implications:
– A greater potential for conflicts arise as the complexity
of the interdependence grows in moving from pooled to
comprehensive interdependence
– The loss of individuals due to turnover becomes more
important as the intensity of the interdependence
increases
– Comprehensive interdependence can stimulate greater
flexibility and enable groups of people to adapt more
quickly to changing environments than groups unified
by less complex forms of interdependence
– The type of interdependence has implications for the
design of motivational systems

7. 7
Role Taking and Role Making
 Expectations and the behaviors
they presuppose form the roles
that individuals occupy in
interpersonal relations
 The behavioral expectations
that make up roles can
include:
– Formal established task
elements: parts of a role that
arise because the role
occupant is expected to
perform a particular job
• Job descriptions: written
statements of the tasks a job
entails
– Informal emergent task
elements: added on tasks
 Established and
emergent task elements
can be combined in
different ways
– Bureaucratic
prototype: the role
occupant performs few
duties other than those
written in the job
description
– Loose-cannon
prototype: emergent
elements greatly
outnumber the few
established elements

8. 8
Norms and Role Episodes
 The expectations that make up
roles and give shape to
interpersonal relations are
called norms and develop over
time through repeated
interaction
 Norms exist for both the job’s
formal requirements and the
job’s generally agreed-upon
informal rules
 Either type may evolve from a
variety of sources: Precedents,
Carryovers, Explicit statements
from others, and Critical
historical events
 Pivotal norms: adherence is a
requirement if interpersonal
relations are to persist and work
is to be performed without
major interruption
 Peripheral norms: adherence is
more discretionary
 Individual adjustment to norms
leads to four basic behavior
patterns:
– Conformity: a tendency to try to
fit in with others in a loyal but
uncreative way
– Subversive rebellion: people
conceal their rejection of norms
that are critical to the survival of
existing interpersonal relations
by acting in accordance with less
important ones
– Open revolution: breaks out if
role occupants reject both norms
– Creative individualism:
individuals accept pivotal norms
but reject peripheral ones

9. 9
Norms and Role Episodes
 Norms develop through a series of role episodes
 A role set comprises a collection of people who interact
with a role occupant and serve as the source of the norms
that influence that person’s behaviors
 Members of the role set communicate norms to the role
occupant via role-sending messages
 Although the members of an organization communicate the
do’s and don’ts associated with a role through the sent role,
the received role actually has the most immediate influence
on the behavior of the role occupant
 Several types of role conflict can prevent a role receiver
from meeting the expectations of a sender
– Intersender role conflict: places competing, mutually
exclusive demands on the role occupant
– Person-role conflict: some ideas about how the role should be
performed conflict with the role sender’s demands
– Interrole conflict: occupying two roles at once

10. 10
Communication Processes in
Interdependent Relationships
 A detailed representation
of the process of
communication breaks it
into three general stages:
– Encoding information into
a message
– Transmitting the message
via a medium
– Decoding information
from the received message

11. 11
Communication Messages
and Media
 Encoding is the process by which a communicator’s
abstract idea is translated into the symbols of language and
thus a message can be transmitted to someone else
 The medium is the carrier of the message
 Oral communication relies predominantly on the sense of
hearing
 Written communication is sometimes preferred over oral
communication
 To complete the process, the message sent must be decoded,
which is a process in which the message is translated in the
mind of the receiver
 Unfortunately, many things can go wrong and render
communication ineffective
– Noise: refers to the factors that can distort a message

12. 12
Barriers to Effective
Communication
 A variety of organizational,
interpersonal, and individual
factors can hinder communication
within groups or organizations
– The nature of the physical space
– Credibility of the source
– Power imbalance
• Upward communications
• “Shooting the messenger” or
surrounding oneself with “yes”
people
– Jargon: informal language
shared by long-tenured, central
members of units

13. 13
Socialization to New Roles
 Socialization is the procedure through which people
acquire the social knowledge and skills necessary to
correctly assume new roles in a group or an
organization
 Socialization is an ongoing process and occurs
whenever an individual moves into a new role within
the group or organization
 Roles are considered new so long as they differ from
the previous one on any one of three dimensions:
– Functional dimension: reflects differences in the tasks
performed by members
– Hierarchical dimension: concerns the distribution of
rank and authority
– Inclusionary dimension: reflects the degree to which an
employee finds himself or herself at the center or on the
periphery of things

14. 14
Socialization to New Roles
 Socialization occurs
whenever an individual
crosses boundaries in any of
the three dimensions
 Socialization is likely to be
particularly intense when a
person crosses all three
boundaries at once

15. 15
Socialization Goals and Tactics
 Some organizations
may pursue a role
custodianship where
recipients of
socialization may take a
caretaker’s stance
toward their roles
 When an organization
hopes that recipients of
socialization will
change, it may have
role innovation as a
goal
 Firms can use any of
several tactics in
socializing new
members, each of which
has different effects:
– Collective-individual
– Sequential-random
– Serial-disjunctive
– Divestiture-
investiture

16. 16
Socialization Goals and Tactics
 In collective socialization, recipients are put in groups and go
through socialization experiences together
 In individual socialization, members are put through unique
experiences one at a time
 Sequential socialization takes new members through a set
sequence of discrete, identifiable steps leading to the target role
 Random socialization processes are those in which learning
experiences have no apparent logic or structure
 Serial socialization has experienced members of the organization
teach individuals about the roles they will assume
 Disjunctive socialization is where new members must learn for
themselves how to handle a new role
 Divestiture socialization ignores or denies the value of an
individual's personal identity
 Investiture socialization affirms the value to the organization of
the recruit’s personal characteristics

17. 17
Designing Socialization Programs
 The strategy employed in designing a
socialization program depends on the
goals of that program
– French Foreign Legion example
 A good program will teach new role
occupants much about the group or
organization to which membership is
sought
 If conducted properly, it will enhance
the understanding of the person’s role
and increase commitment to the
organization’s goals

18. 18
Quality of Interpersonal
Relationships
 Given the importance of role
relationships within
organizations, it is critical to
have a framework whereby the
quality of these relationships
can be judged and enhanced
 Equity theory is a theory of
social exchange that focuses on
the “give and take” of various
relationships

19. 19
Equity and Social Comparisons
 Equity theory holds that people make
judgments about relational fairness by
forming a ratio of their perceived
investments and perceived rewards
 It does not require that outcomes or
inputs be equal for equity to exist

20. 20
Distributive, Procedural, and
Interactive Justice
 Equity theory provides a
simple framework for
understanding how people
decide whether they are being
treated fairly in their
relationships
 It can prove difficult to achieve
widespread perceptions of
justice in organizations for
several reasons:
– Based on individual perception
– Difficult to predict who will be
chosen as the reference person
– People are sensitive to the
procedures through which
allocation decisions are made
and the manner in which these
decisions are communicated
 Three kinds of justice perceptions
can be distinguished:
– Distributional justice: refers
to the judgments that people
make with respect to
input/outcome ratios
experienced relative to the
experiences of others
– Procedural justice:
procedures used to make
decisions are consistent,
unbiased, accurate,
correctable, representative,
and ethical
– Interactional justice: focuses
on the interpersonal nature of
the implementation of the
outcomes

21. 21
Responses to Inequity
 Perceptions of inequity create
unpleasant emotions
 The tension associated with
inequity may motivate the
person to take any of several
actions in response:
– Alter personal inputs
– Alter personal outcomes
– Cognitive distortion
– Change the behavior of the
reference person
– Leaving an inequitable situation

22. 22
Managing Inequitable Situations
 There will inevitably be situations in
which mangers are faced with
employees who feel they have been
treated unfairly
 In these circumstances, mangers
can:
– Try to change the actual source
of the inequity
– Change the aggrieved person’s
perceptions of the situation
– Provide excuses and apologies