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Abstract
The cultural and organizational influences on attitudes toward role ambiguity and role
clarity are evaluated in this paper. Specifically, need for clarity and perceptions of role
ambiguity are analyzed for members of two organizations, one in Germany and the other
in the United States. A global perspective is employed which evaluates the cultural
positioning of respondent's attitudes in diverse settings. The results partially support the
hypothesis that the German respondents would demonstrate a greater need for clarity
than their U.S. counterparts, but are perhaps confounded by between group differences
ambiguity levels within the organizations representing the two countries. The possible
effects of technological advances as they relate to role ambiguity are reviewed, along
with the implications of cultural diversity in the workplace. In addition, the evolving and
recommendations that seem to flow from the global management and role ambiguity
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Role ambiguity has been described by Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, and Rosenthal
(1964) as the single or multiple roles that confront the role incumbent, which may not be
tasks/priorities) or performance levels (the criteria that the role incumbent will be judged
by). Naylor, Pritchard, and Ilgen (1980) state that role ambiguity exists when focal
are aware of their own uncertainty about them. Breaugh & Colihan (1994) have further
refined the definition of role ambiguity to be job ambiguity and indicate that job
ambiguity possesses three distinct aspects: work methods, scheduling, and performance
criteria.
Most research suggests that role ambiguity is indeed negatively correlated with
job satisfaction, job involvement, performance, tension, propensity to leave the job and
job performance variables (Rizzo, House, & Lirtzman 1970; Van Sell, Brief, & Schuler
1981; Fisher & Gitelson 1983; Jackson & Schuler 1985; Singh 1998). Typically, the role
ambiguity and role conflict constructs are discussed together. The present analysis
focuses primarily on role ambiguity, because the literature has shown that role ambiguity
and role conflict have different causes (Keller, 1975) and therefore potentially different
remedies. Sawyer (1992) has even hypothesized that different types of role ambiguity
may have different causes, and Singh & Rhoads (1991) believe that role ambiguity is
role ambiguity may be less difficult to conduct than interventions for role conflict.
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According to Banton (1965), a “role” can be defined as a set of norms or
expectations applied to the incumbent of a particular position by the role incumbent and
the various other role players (role senders) with whom the incumbent must deal to fulfill
the obligations of their position. Kahn et al. (1964) further clarify the role model by
stating that to adequately perform his or her role, a person must know (a) what the
expectations of the role set are (e.g., the rights, duties, and responsibilities), (b) what
activities will fulfill the role responsibilities (means-end knowledge), and (c) what the
consequences of role performance are to self, others, and the organization. According to
Schaubroeck, Ganster, Sime, and Editman (1993), the episodic role-making process is
complicated by poor communication between role senders and role receivers as well as
from turbulence within the task environment, which requires continual modifications in
sent roles. Thus the "role-making" process begins for the role incumbent and the role
Bedeian and Armenakis (1981) and have continued with Sawyer (1992) and Singh,
Verbeke, and Rhoads (1996). Based on their findings and the foundation provided by
these works there are four (4) widely accepted dimensions to role ambiguity, which may
be experienced by the role incumbents, and are based on the role incumbents perspective.
2) Process Ambiguity - How to get things done. The ways of achieving organizational
objectives.
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4) Behavior Ambiguity - How am I expected to act in various situations? What
behaviors will lead to the needed or desired outcomes?
Kahn, et. al. (1964) hypothesized that the presence of three organizational
environment; the "environment" which usually is taken to include everything not under
direct control of the organization is a source of uncertainty for which the organization
tries to compensate."
The type of services that an organization provides may also influence the level of
supplying human services tend to employ larger numbers of specialists than organizations
supplying services with less uncertainty about the appropriate treatment or technique.
This draws one to conclude that professional roles are permitted greater discretion and
are supported by the authority of professional codes of conduct, which would reduce
whether or not the presence of ambiguity should be considered a "bad" thing. Ambiguity
can be both "good" (resulting in productive stress), also called eustress by Selye (1976)
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and "bad" (the lack of stress or too much stress which results in dysfunction), also known
nature, we must attempt to determine the point at which ambiguity causes distress. One
avenue to consider is in evaluating an individual’s need for clarity. Lyons (1971) defines
role clarity as the "subjective feeling of having as much or not as much role relevant
communications, which affect ambiguity levels and tolerance for ambiguity (Hofstede,
1980). The construct of role ambiguity has been shown to have relationships with several
of the cultural variables that Hofstede proposed and measured. Specifically, uncertainty
avoidance may be related to roles and role ambiguity and to a lesser extent, individualism
and power distance. Hofstede (1994) defined uncertainty avoidance as "the degree to
The present study will rely upon the foundational work of Hofstede in developing
and testing hypotheses with cultural attributes to determine if the participants from
Germany and the United States who were surveyed possess a differing need for clarity
and hold differing perceptions about roles and role ambiguity. The power distance
variable defined by Hofstede (1994) reflects "the degree of inequality among people,
often is related to the inherent position power of managers and those in leadership roles.
Employees in high power distance cultures often look to management to solve problems.
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In low power distance cultures, like both Germany and the United States, the reduction of
the European Economic Community (EC) in global trade and the German's influence
over EC trade issues. According to Peterson et. al. (1995), recent decades have seen a
domiciled and foreign direct investment (FDI) occurs in both countries, which will
continue to bring these cultures together within organizational confines. In addition, this
type of comparative study can be used to develop predictions about the ways in which
people and managers from different cultures handle uncertainty. This is supported by
Senkar & Zeira (1992) who state that "The examination of role conflict and role
ambiguity theories in a multinational context can be fruitful for at least two reasons:
First, it may serve to extend the scope and relevance of role theory beyond the
role communications.
technical vs. managerial roles. Management roles have historically been viewed as
predominantly boundary spanning in nature (Singh 1998), where technical roles with
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greater clarity are less subject to ambiguity, but in some cases having greater conflicting
roles and responsibilities. According to Miles (1976), persons occupying interunit and
expected to experience greater degrees of role conflict than persons linking different
levels of a hierarchy within the same organizational context. On the other hand, persons
roles.
The purpose of this paper is to review the global role ambiguity findings available
to date, to compare two similar organizations in two cultures, to compare managerial and
technical staffers on the perceived need for clarity and tolerance for ambiguity, and to
define parameters for continuing the study of role ambiguity and role clarity in both
domestic and international settings. This study while limited in scope is global in nature
and while its generalizability may be limited the consequences of the findings will
hopefully enhance and shape our understanding of the cultural implications of role
processes.
Method
organizations (one in Germany and the other in the United States) that maintain
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organizations provide a wide range of engineering and management solutions to diverse
customer bases.
clarity of the instructions and the questions in the instrument. Comments and suggestions
obtained from the pretest served as a basis for fine-tuning items, for evaluating the time
necessary to complete the survey, and the final presentations of the questionnaire.
German. The German version of the questionnaire was provided to the German
nature of the items and precision in the definition of terms to assure context was
maintained. The English version was composed and then translated into German, with
subsequent back-translation and the German version was amended where it was deemed
necessary.
Fifty questionnaire packages containing the cover letter to the participants, the
survey instruments, and return envelopes were provided to a Human Resources Manager
companies. The Human Resource Manager sent an electronic mail notice to respondents,
explaining to them the purpose of the study and encouraging their participation.
Approximately one week after the initial distribution of the questionnaires, a reminder
was sent to respondents through e-mail by the HR Manager. Of the 50 distributed to the
German organization, 28 were returned and of the 50 distributed to the U.S. organization
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30 were returned. None of the questionnaires were determined to be unusable due to
incomplete responses. A total of 58 surveys were included in the final analysis, thus
Instrumentation
The instruments used in this study were selected after an extensive review of the
literature on role ambiguity and role clarity. For each of the instruments and questions
selected, operationalized constructs were adopted from the research. In each case
multiple item scales were used to evaluate the constructs. The role ambiguity scale
(known as the Rizzo, House & Lirtzman or RHL scale) developed by Rizzo, et al. (1970)
has been the most widely used (used in 85% of the studies according to Jackson &
Schuler 1985) by researchers studying role stress (role ambiguity, role conflict, and role
overload). The RHL questionnaire consists of 30 items, 15 of which deal with role
ambiguity and 15 with role conflict. According to Schuler, Aldag, and Brief (1977) the
RHL scales have been shown to have sufficient reliability and construct validity to
The present study employed 12 of the original role ambiguity questions from the
Rizzo, et. al. (1970) work. The respondents were given five alternatives ranging from
"Never" to "Nearly all of the time" with a Likert type scale. One item was duplicated in
the original study and therefore omitted, and the other two omitted items have been
shown to not adequately measure the intended construct. The reported Cronbach alpha
levels for the modified scale have been reported as ranging from .65 to .82 (See
References). Additional instruments were utilized to evaluate role clarity and need for
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clarity. The instruments used to measure these role clarity constructs were developed and
tested by Lyons (1971). The Role Clarity Index (alpha = .70) is composed of four five-
alternative items ranging from "Never" to "Nearly all of the time" and the Need-for-
Clarity Index (alpha = .82) consists of four questions, each again with five-alternatives
ranging from "Not important at all" to "Very important". The instruments employed in
Hypotheses
The following discussion is used to propose hypotheses for study. Drawing upon
the role ambiguity and role clarity literature and keeping Hofstede's (1980) work in mind,
Hypothesis # 1 - The role ambiguity levels for the German respondents and the
ambiguity levels.
Hypothesis # 2 - The role clarity levels for the German respondents and the
clarity levels.
respondents.
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Hypothesis # 3b - Need for clarity will be greater in Germany than in the United
States.
Hypothesis # 4b - The reported role ambiguity levels will be higher for those
technical positions.
Results
The tool employed in the data analysis was the Analysis of Variance model or
(ANOVA). This model was chosen to assist in determining whether differences in the
means of the self-reported items exist. The ANOVA model evaluates the differences
within each group and then evaluates the differences between groups. For this
hypotheses enumerated above several groupings were used. First, the German and U.S.
groups were identified, and second the managerial and technical/analytical groups were
identified and evaluated. The ANOVA printouts are attached in the appendices. An
alpha level of .05 is assumed throughout the analysis and presentation of findings.
for questions 1 – 13, which evaluated role ambiguity levels, no significant differences in
reported role ambiguity levels between the German and U.S. respondent pools were
found.
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Hypothesis #2 was affirmed. After comparing the mean responses for questions
14, 15, and 16, no statistically significant differences were found between the German
and U.S. groups in their current levels of clarity about their roles within the organization.
Hypothesis #3a was partially supported. The German respondent group reported
greater need for clarity on item twenty, which measured the importance of knowing how
well the role incumbent was performing. The mean values for questions 17, 18, and 19
showed no difference between the German and U.S. groups on self-reported need for
clarity. Hypothesis #3b was weakly supported by the findings addressed above.
The managerial respondents did report greater need for clarity for that item, however, no
Hypothesis #4b was partially supported. Weak support was provided by the mean
responses in question twelve. The managerial group did report having to work with
vague directives and orders more often than the technical/analytical group.
Discussion
This research project affirmed that reported role clarity and role ambiguity levels
are similar in Germany and the U.S. This speaks partially to the globalization of
management models and to the perceptions and training of the professionals surveyed for
this project. Weak and partial support was found to demonstrate that the German
respondents prefer clarity. This finding is somewhat counter to the findings of Hofstede
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(1980) who ranked the German higher in uncertainty avoidance (need for clarity) than the
U.S. This begs the following question: have the work environments and situations faced
by role incumbents changed in the past 20 years or are the types of professionals
surveyed in the projects significantly different? In addition, one would expect people in
managerial positions, which are inherently less structured than technically oriented
positions to report higher levels of role ambiguity, again this finding is very weakly
Limitations
The study is limited in several ways. First, the small number of participants
restricts the generalizability of the findings. Second, further analysis is needed on the
pre-existing differences between the groups with respect to management training and
development activities, which could impact the attitudes, and behaviors of the
participants. Further analysis is also needed to determine the potential moderating effects
of age, tenure, and education levels on need for clarity attitudes and respondent
perceptions of ambiguity.
Other Considerations
satisfaction (Witt, 1992). This finding begs several questions: Are there potential
linkages between ambiguity levels and role incumbent participation in the decision-
clarification, role negotiation, and PDM are needed to make these finer distinctions. As
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noted by Witt (1992), PDM efforts have been based on the notions that workers want to
participate and that the outcomes of such participation are good for both the organization
and the worker and, at least in some nations, for the society as well. Further work in this
area needs to address these linkages - especially as relates to PDM, job satisfaction, and
role ambiguity.
they can assist in the delivery of role clarification. Lim & Teo's (1999) findings support
the notion that rapid technological changes have resulted in significant changes in the
One has to wonder what impact technology will have on role ambiguity. Will
opportunities like e-mail, teleconferencing, and information access via company Intranets
or the Internet (on-line) provide employees with information that will help to reduce or
moderate their levels of role ambiguity or will ambiguity only be worse? This is an
important question, since the level of information available today is cited in most stress
on organizations and these effects will probably continue in the future (Johnson, 1994).
The research in the area of role stress/ambiguity and cultural diversity must be updated to
reflect this moving target. As role incumbents become more diverse the question
becomes: What will be the impact on role ambiguity? Clearly, one would have to guess
that greater communication and/or understanding problems will occur. As our view of
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role ambiguity is remolded by these demographic variables, one has to wonder if current
ambiguity remedies may need to be modified for this new mix of incumbents? Work in
Summary
As reported by Lyons (1971) "The need for clarity is a general need, and the
This statement supports the generalizability of the findings presented here and presents us
To summarize, the stated purpose of this paper was to review the global role
compare managerial and technical staffers on the perceived need for clarity and tolerance
for ambiguity, and to define parameters for continuing the study of role ambiguity and
role clarity, to define the parameters for continuing study, and to explore the nature and
need for clarity in organizations and organizational communications. The review and
discussion has posed some interesting questions that need further research and study.
Future Research
The impact of technology on work roles, role senders, role incumbents, and role
ambiguity needs to be researched further. Many studies have been conducted in the area
of roles, and role stress, but the characteristics and behaviors of the role senders seem to
have gotten lost. We need to begin studying the nature of role senders and their influence
on the role incumbents and the impact of their participation, or lack thereof, on role
ambiguity.
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The implications of the changing mix of people in organizations must be
investigated further as it relates to roles and role clarity. At present, one can only guess,
and warrants continued study. It has been found to exist in a wide variety of
organizations and remains an on-going problem. Fisher and Gitelson (1983) note that the
organizations. They further note that whereas the costs of turnover and substandard
performance are obvious, the costs of attitudinal difficulties are less direct and just
beginning to be understood.
Role transitions as studied by Black (1988) are another area, which warrants
further study. As roles evolve and change over time within the same organization and
perhaps job classification levels of ambiguity and conflict will rise and fall naturally.
Black (1988) notes that throughout the course of a career, an individual must make
inter-company job changes. He further argues that individuals can adjust by altering the
new role that they are faced with to better match themselves or by altering their own
attitudes and behaviors to better match the new role expectations. An additional area of
interest would be an evaluation of reported need for clarity and the participant's
personality type. Personality type has been studied in depth, but few if any linkages have
been made between need for clarity or ambiguity tolerance and personality style. This
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type of study could illuminate further avenues for managerial intervention in trying to
strictly an individual construct or one that can be employed in the study of teams. Would
the introduction of self-directed teams impact reported ambiguity levels? In addition, the
possible moderating effects of working in a team based environment and the removal of
the formal hierarchical structure and reporting lines would likely have an effect on
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