Unpacking How Employees Navigate Unfulfilled, Unreasonable, and Unexpected Occupational Ideals

Abstract

Occupations have become stabilizing fixtures of modern-day employment, providing employees with a set of established cultural tools, norms, values, and beliefs that offer meaning to employees and guide their workplace interpretations and action. Yet, as employees perform their occupations “on the ground”, they frequently encounter situations that challenge these occupational meaning systems. This symposium showcases four papers that develop novel theory about how individuals respond to incongruities between situational demands, environmental constraints, and audiences’ expectations, on the one hand, and occupational norms, values, and beliefs, on the other hand. More specifically, we examine (1) how workers counter harmful occupational cultures, (2) how women in male-dominated occupations transcend their status as female “tokens”; (3) how employees respond to labels (e.g., “hero”) cast upon their occupation by external audiences; and (4) how employees manage frequent exposure to tasks that conflict with their occupational ideologies extolling the nature and necessity of the work. Taken together, our papers and discussion endeavor to contribute to and generate future research on contemporary occupational dynamics, as well as deliver actionable insights for managers. Meaning Detachment and Deviation from Invincibility Cultural Scripts among Stunt Performers Presenter: Winnie Jiang; INSEAD Presenter: Karim Ginena; U. of Virginia Darden School of Business Transcending Tokenism: How Women in Male-Dominated Occupations Can Challenge Gendered Work Norms Presenter: Julia DiBenigno; Yale School of Management Heroes from Above and from Below: Workers’ Reactions to the Moralizing of their Work Presenter: Lindsey Cameron; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Presenter: Michel Anteby; Boston U. Questrom School of Business The Music Between the Notes: How Employees Manage Unforeseen Work Realities Presenter: Pascale Fricke; U. of British Columbia Presenter: Natalya Alonso; Haskayne School of Business, U. of Calgary Presenter: Patrick Reilly; U. of British Columbia