CHAPTER FOUR: SENSE OF COHERENCE (SOC)
4.5 Types of stressors examined in the study
4.5.3 Function vagueness and role conflict
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the day. The response choices from items 1-7 are Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Quite often, and Always, while Never, Once or twice, Once or twice per month, Once or twice per week, and Everyday are the response choices for items 8 to 10. Items 1-7 are based on a 5-point scale ranging from 1= Never and 5 = Always, while items 8-10 are based on a five point scale ranging from 1=Never and 5 = every day.
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According to the role theory, if expected behaviours from an individual are not consistent, the individual may feel stressed, experience dissatisfaction and perform more dismally than if there were no clashes in expectations ( Lambert, Hogan, Paoline, & Clarke, 2005). It could therefore be said that role clash is an outcome of the contravention of the two traditional principles (unity of command and single accountability) which reduces personal satisfaction and reduced efficiency in the organisation (Bolino & Turnley, 2005; Rizzo et al., 1970).
Role theory as well as traditional organisation theory considers function vagueness. From the traditional theory perspective, each position created in the organisational structure has a specific group of assignments or duties (Zheng, Yang & Maclean, 2010). The intention for such specific definition of tasks or the requirements of each role is to permit management to allocate proper rewards and or punishment to subordinates for performing specific tasks as well as to give direction to junior personnel. Where a worker does not understand the boundaries of his/her authority to decide or perform a task, what his/her expected target performance is, or how/she is to be evaluated, the employee will not be quick in deciding about his/her job but rather depend on trials in trying to satisfy the expectations of management (Rizzo et al., 1970).
In the same manner, role theory posits that function vagueness (absence of pertinent information concerning a particular position in the organisation) (Kahn et al., 1964), could result in an employee using coping behaviours to try and solve challenges in order to escape stress sources, or else they could find ways of defending themselves which naturally distorts the real situation. Therefore, the role theory suggests that function vagueness could result in the possibility of an individual being dissatisfied with task performance, or exhibit worry, have distorted reality and subsequently perform dismally (Rizzo et al., 1970). The present study is based on a municipality which naturally has multiple sources of authority as explained in Chapter two. Many studies show that multiple authority has the capacity to upset a person’s alignment to the workplace or career by placing a demand on the individual to choose between the two (Etzioni, 1959; Evan, 1962; Gouldner, 1957; Malczewski, 2014). It is also reported in the literature that professional employees in organisations that have multiple authority often experience stress due to the fact that they are caught in the clash (La Porte, 1965, 2015).
According to Tang and Chang (2010), function vagueness and function clash belong to the class of the most broadly examined role stress elements; and this informs the reason for their pertinence and examination in the present study. From the literature on role theory, function vagueness is explained to mean the absence of precision and predictability with respect to an
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employee’s functions and responsibilities (Beehr, 1976; Kahn et al., 1964; Tang & Chang, 2010). Role clash, according to the role theory, is an outcome of two or more groups of needs which are not compatible but involve issues associated to one individual (Kahn et al., 1964;
Katz & Kahn, 1978).
The outcomes of function vagueness and role conflict on employee behaviours and work- associated mannerisms have been considerably researched. The literature on role theory reveals that when the actual behaviour of an individual in an organisation is not consistent with what others expect of him/her, the individual will be in a situation of role conflict which causes him/her to feel stressed, experience dissatisfaction and become less efficient at performing his/her role. The reverse would have been the situation if there were no inconsistencies in expectations (Hamner & Tosi, 1974; Hasan & Akter, 2014). Hamner and Tosi (1974) further report, that function vagueness is an outcome of the absence of necessary information concerning what an individual’s task is. According to Netemeyer et al. (1990), citing Jackson and Schuler (1985) and Fisher and Gitelson’s (1983) meta-analyses, the effect of function vagueness and role conflict on behaviours and attitudes associated to work is all-encompassing.
The present study posits that work stressors may affect an employee’s ability to achieve balance through SOC. It also suggests that a professional employee with strong SOC confronted with clashing roles or function vagueness will be able to cope better with these work stressors than the individual employee with weak SOC.
Pandey and Wright (2006) are of the opinion that much of whatever is known concerning a professional manager in the public sector’s daily life is not a result of an understanding of how his/her world operates as seen from his/her point of view. They further report that literature on the bureaucratic systems and control concentrates on fitting governmental behaviour to the leader’s desires (Moe, 1987; Waterman, Rouse, & Wright, 2004; Wood & Waterman, 1994) rather than the stresses which confront the professional employee in the civil service in the course of performing his/her duties, as well as the diverse and clashing indicators arising from multiple sources in the political environment. The scholars posit that unarguably, diverse and clashing sources of governmental influences cause significant function vagueness to the professional level employee in the public sector (Pandey & Wright, 2006).
In order to achieve goals, municipal government and governments generally face a lot of ambiguities arising from the political environment. This is supported by Pandey and Wright (2006) position that a large part of the evidence on the causes and results of institutional
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vagueness of goals in the public sector confuses the established way of doing things (Rainey
& Bozeman, 2000). They suggest that there is a need to examine the seeming linkage between the managerial situation and the political environment because according to them, some misunderstood behaviours among managers may be a result of function vagueness due to clashing and differing effects of many political bosses. Professional employees at a municipality are exposed to two different levels of authority, namely administrative and political. For instance a manager in the engineering department could be assessed as not delivering on performance by the administrative authority when all the while, he/she was waiting for a political authority to approve the commencement of the project. In line with this argument, Hamner and Tosi (1974) posit that where a worker does not understand what his role actually is, and what power he has or the manner of evaluation he/she is going to be evaluated under, such an employee will be reluctant to make decisions in line with the organisational goals. Therefore if the goal of the organisation is vaguely stated, the individual employee job function will be vaguely perceived.
Wright and Kim (2004) proposed a broad framework to support the argument that a straight forward connection exists between function vagueness and organisational goal vagueness.
Based on Locke and Latham (1990) goal-setting model, Wright and Kim (2004) contend that a well-articulated organisational goal assists employees to have focus and lessens the need to look for options. On the other hand, he argued that unclear, ambiguous, multi-dimensional and clashing goals cause confusion among employees in their search for options that lead to solutions. Pandey and Wright (2006) suggest that organisational goal vagueness could impact indirectly on function vagueness as a result of its influence on the structure of an organisation.
When organisational goals are unclear, the need to install devices to instil values and ways of controlling for acceptable behaviours arise. Some of the controls utilise the organisational structure (Chun & Rainey, 2005; Rainey, 1989). According to Chun and Rainey (2004), bureaucracy (red tape) and centralisation are two outcomes of ambiguous organisational goals.
Pandey and Wright (2006) suggest that the third consequence of organisational goal ambiguity is ‘routinisation’. They further report that the classical organisational structure of a bureaucratic system is reflected by these three factors.
In addition, the proposition by Kahn et al. (1964) that the features of organisational components demonstrated in the framing of the structure adds to function vagueness, has been supported by empirical evidence. Features of the organisation like centralised decision making hierarchies
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(House & Rizzo, 1972; Morris, Steers, & Koch, 1979; Nicholson & Goh, 1983), plus formalities (Ramaswami, Agarwal, & Bhargava, 1993) are reported to heighten function vagueness. This situation is explained by the fact that as autonomy (control) is key in the association among leaders and managers (Moe, 1984), its worthiness hinges on the theory that leaders understand and support what they desire that the managers do (Behn, 1995). Pandey and Wright (2006), citing Meyer (1979) and Rainey (1983), report that even though at a given instance, professional managers in the public sector may feel that their daily roles are clearly expressed with respect to compliance to standards and procedures, in another situation, they may be unsure of their overall functions in the institution as a result of the fact that set standards and procedures look like they are in conflict with each other or with expected policy results.
However, Ramaswami et al. (1993) suggest that where workers carry out complicated assignments; these tasks may not be simply coded or made as a routine without various exceptional clauses. Also, attempts to create flawless standards about what is expected of employees by the instrument of a bureaucratic organisational system could heighten vagueness around the already complicated and confusing experiences of employees at work (Warwick, 1975; Lynn, 1981). This implies that if there is clarity in organisational goals, the individual will be focused and not under pressure. It could be assumed that when organisational goals are unclear, the employee could be under pressure with respect to reporting, role performance and target achievement (Mesmer-Magnus & Viswesvaran, 2005). This condition could result in stress that may impair coherence and achievement of balance. Therefore, the present study assumes that function vagueness (role ambiguity) is a stressor in the workplace that could adversely task and impair an individual employee’s sense of coherence thereby hampering the achievement of meaningful WLB.
A study conducted by Erera (1989) at the local Department of Social Services in New York, reports that practices and policies adopted by the government at the state level was responsible for function vagueness among middle level professionals. The managers in that study report that the reason for this vagueness was attributable to ambiguity, constant changes in governmental policies and irrelevance (Pandey & Wright, 2006). These elements are significant indicators of stressors. Antonovsky (1987) refers to SOC as an individual’s ability to comprehend and meaningfully manage stress. Gist and Mitchell (1992), cited in Zhao, Seibert, and Hills (2005), report that most individuals who think that their work is beyond their control (indicating a high level of ambiguity and role conflict) manifest weak self-efficacy
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(Tang & Chang, 2010). The present study assumes that function ambiguity and role conflict are stressors capable of adversely affecting an employee’s SOC. In this context, the researcher assumes that individuals with strong SOC may effectively cope with stressors and achieve WLB, while those with weak SOC may be unable to meaningfully comprehend and manage stressors, and therefore report work-life imbalance.
Studies have shown that the association between function vagueness and satisfaction with work as well as function clash and satisfaction with work is a negative correlation (Kahn et al., 1964;
Rizzo et al., 1970). Tang and Chang (2010) report that function vagueness and role clash have also been identified in accounting literature as having negative association to satisfaction with work (Gregson, Wendell, & Aono, 1994; Rebele & Michaels, 1990; Ussahawanitchakit, 2008).
Other researchers that confirm this same report are Wu and Norman (2006), Tarrant and Sabo (2010), Chang and Hancock (2003), Jackson and Schuler (1985), Chen, Chen, Tsai and Lo (2009), Karadal, Ay, and Cuhadar (2008) and (W.-H. Ho, Chang, Shih, & Liang, 2009). It also has negative association with performance of tasks among team members (Cordery et al., 2010). Although Tang and Chang (2010) report that it has rarely been reported that positive association exists between stress and satisfaction with work, function vagueness has been indicated to be important in its role as a cause of some attitudinal factors that are job-related such as involvement with work, job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour (Kahn et al., 1964; Pandey & Wright, 2006; Rizzo et al., 1970).
As much as these foregoing associations’ project function vagueness is an imperative factor, of more importance is the view in this study that it could affect an individual’s SOC.
The present study postulates that since literature supports that negative correlation exists between role conflict and function vagueness and job satisfaction, it could be implied that individual employees experiencing role conflict and role ambiguity will experience work-life imbalance. This is because satisfaction with work and family is a major indicator of WLB in this study.
However, little or no studies have been conducted on the interface between function vagueness/role conflict and SOC, and the implication of such interface on WLB and the use of WLBS at a workplace. Therefore, the present study is valuable in enriching literature with the findings on the connection between WLB and SOC at a municipality in South Africa.
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Since the introduction of the function vagueness (role ambiguity) construct by Kahn et al.
(1964), studies on the sources and effects of the concept mushroomed (Abramis, 1994; Jackson
& Schuler, 1985; Tubre & Collins, 2000). Most of these studies used Rizzo, House and Lirtzman’s (1970) measuring scale for role ambiguity. Rizzo et al.’s (1970) work sprang from Kahn et al. (1964) even though their thought on the concept of role vagueness was slightly different.
In this study, function vagueness and role conflict are measured with a 17-item scale adapted from Rizzo et al.’s (1970) 30-item scale where 15-items measured role ambiguity and the other 15-items measured role conflict. Items examining performance and evaluation by superiors are not included in the study since the respondents are superior officers. The items measuring role conflict highlight authorisations linked to role conduct, therefore they are connected to function vagueness elements involving the forecast of the results of an individual’s conduct. However, the root cause of role clashes stated in the literature (for instance, multiple authority), is not particularly included among the items. Items measuring function vagueness highlight absolute tasks, power, and association with other individuals, time allocation and the capacity to forecast authorisations as results of conduct. Among the items on the scale are: “I have enough time to complete my work” and “I work under incompatible policies and guidelines.” The responses on these items are based on a 7-point discrepancy responsive scale ranging from 1) very false to 7) very true.
The next section discusses family and the stressors emanating from that sphere of life.