Role concept and analysis

Role concept and analysis
Role refers to a set of expected behaviour patterns attributed to someone occupying a given position in an
organization. Role and position are different concepts. Role is a position a person occupies in an
organization and it is an obligational concept . Position is a relational and power related concept.
The concept of role widens the meaning of work and relationship of the employee with other significant
persons in the system. There are few important aspect of role such as role stagnation, inter-role distance,
role set conflict (which has various forms such as role ambiguity, role expectation conflict, role overload, role
erosion, role inadequacy, personal inadequacy etc.)
Important aspect of Role
Role stagnation When a person is promoted, he assumes a new role but if he fails in the new role, he
experiences role stagnation, even though he occupies a new role. In turn this causes
role stress. A senior clerk, when promoted as officer, may find himself in such a
situation, at times.
Inter-role distance If an individual occupies more than one role, there could be conflicts between the
roles. A branch manager also performs the role of husband and father at home.
When he is not able to give time to family, this creates stress.
Role set conflicts Different people have different expectation from one role. There is possibility of
incompatibility amongst expectation of others. It may then result into role ambiguity, role
expectation conflict, role overload etc.
Role ambiguity
When the individual is not clear about the expectations from him about the role this
is called role ambiguity. It may be in relation to activities, responsibilities, priorities or
general expectations.
Role expectation
conflict
When there are conflicting expectations or demand from a role, the role occupant
experiences conflict and stress. These expectations may come from boss, customer,seers
or subordinates.
Role overload When a role occupants finds that there are toomany expectations from the role. it may
occur when the role occupant lacks power or where there are large variations in the
expected output.
Role erosion
.
Where the role occupants finds that certain functions that he is perform are being
performed by someone else, having a different rol. It is individual's subjective feeling. In a
small bank an additional post of general manager has been created. earlier there was one
GMonly. The existing GM may start feeling that there is role erosion.
Resource inadequacy When the resources required for performance of a role are not adequacy, the role
occupant may experience the resource inadequacy.
When the role occupant finds that he does not have adequate skills, knowledge or
experience to perform the role effectively.
Personal inadequacy
Role isolation When role occupant finds that certain roles are closer to him and other at a distance,
the main criteria being the frequency and ease with which he could perform the role.