Duality and Social Position: Role expectations of people who combine outsider-ness and insider-ness in organizational change
研究分析了加拿大医院的同伴辅导计划，揭示兼具局外人与局内人身份者如何通过建立和践行双重角色及角色期望来推动组织变革，对理解社会位置与变革机制有重要启示。
A person’s social position shapes whether and how they can influence organizational change. While prior research establishes people whose social position combines outsider-ness and insider-ness as important change agents, we know little about how they influence change. We analyse a peer coaching initiative in Canadian hospitals to explain how outsider-insiders – in this case, organizational outsiders with professional proximity – advance change. Peer coaches were able to influence change by establishing and enacting a dual outsider-insider role and associated role expectations. We advance theory by showing that role expectations emphasizing duality that are rooted in social position, but created through social interaction, are a key mechanism by which the potential of outsider-insider social positions can be activated and mobilized to influence change. We advance theory on social position generally by highlighting the potential for integrating a symbolic interactionist perspective – focused on role expectations – into Bourdieu’s theory of fields.