Human Relations

Although researchers have discussed the relationships between personality and inter-role conflict and enrichment, little research explores why these relationships exist. This study examines the role of perceptions of support as one such mechanism. We expect that individuals with more positive core self-evaluations will perceive greater levels of support, which will enable them to avoid inter-role conflict and take advantage of opportunities for inter-role enrichment. In the current study, the inter-role conflict and enrichment faced by student-parents managing the demands of school and their parenting responsibilities are examined. Student-parents with more positive core self-evaluations were found to perceive and seek out greater levels of support, which related to more effective management of multiple life roles. Based on our findings, we argue that future research should continue to investigate the mechanisms by which personality affects the management of multiple life roles. Suggestions as to how practitioners can utilize the findings from this study to help individuals more effectively manage the demands of multiple life roles are provided.

The importance of translating knowledge across occupational boundaries is frequently identified as a means of generating innovation and improving performance. The creation of the multidisciplinary team is an institutional response to enable such translation and synergy, yet few studies examine the processes of knowledge generation and translation in such teams. This article offers a case study that analyses these processes in decisions about the diagnosis and treatment of patients. Polanyi’s concept of tacit integration is used to reveal how meaning is developed and manifest in team decisions and to examine how the discursive resources embedded in tacit knowledge shape clinical practice. We highlight the foundations and dynamics that privilege the knowledge of some team members to be reconstituted as multidisciplinary group practice. Privileged knowledge then becomes embedded in the practices of the group. We conclude that the creation of a multidisciplinary structure may support rather than challenge existing power hierarchies.

The intention of this article is to explore and develop Wilfred Bion’s theory of groups, and to contribute to its wider application across the social sciences. Bion suggested that groups operate simultaneously in two strictly contrasting ways, based on distinctive mental states, which he called ‘basic-assumption mentality’ and ‘work-group mentality’. He believed that these mentalities determine a group’s capacity to achieve its purposes. However, the development of these ideas has tended to focus on the regressive tendency in group functioning — on basic-assumption mentality. This article attempts to redress the balance by ascribing equal importance to the notion of work-group mentality. First, it extends Bion’s framework, developing the concept of the ‘work group’ in parallel with the ‘basic assumptions’; second, it considers the dynamic relationship between these two mentalities, in order, finally, to explore the application of Bion’s ideas via a case example.

This article presents an exploratory account of how medical professionals understand the relationship between new technology and their professional identities. Drawing on interview data with senior surgeons from a variety of surgical disciplines, the article draws attention to how new technologies provide occasions for the evaluation of existing intra- and inter-professional relationships, and professional identity as a whole. In particular, the role of changing insider/outsider dynamics is emphasized, as is the importance of recognizing professional identity as in constant flux at micro-, meta- and macro-levels. The implications for existing theory are discussed, and further research questions identified.

This study explored supervisors’ explanations for performance ratings assigned to subordinates. It was suggested that supervisors may emphasize a different set of factors across groups in arriving at an overall evaluation that would reflect different implicit theories of performance for different ethnic groups. Operationally, these differences were predicted to be reflected as differences across groups in the factors cited by supervisors in justifying their performance ratings of subordinates. The study also examined the consistency between these assigned ratings and the written justifications. Using a sample of bank staff, supervisors’ written summaries of subordinate performance were content analyzed to identify the types of comments made across groups and the match or mismatch with overall ratings. Hypotheses received partial support.The results are interpreted in light of the literature on group differences in performance ratings, and implications for future research and practice are discussed.