Out of the Box? How Managing a Subordinate’s Multiple Identities Affects the Quality of a Manager-Subordinate Relationship

Abstract

Positive manager-subordinate relationships are invaluable to organizations because they enable positive employee attitudes, citizenship behaviors, task performance, and more effective organizations. Yet extant theory provides a limited perspective on the factors that create these types of relationships. We highlight the important role subordinates also play in affecting the resource pool and propose that a subordinate's multiple identities can provide him or her with access to knowledge and social capital resources that can be utilized for work-based tasks and activities. A manager and a subordinate may prefer similar or different strategies for managing the subordinate's multiple identities, however, which can affect resource utilization and the quality of the manager-subordinate relationship. Our variance model summarizes our predictions about the effect of managers' and subordinates' strategy choices on the quality of manager-subordinate relationships. In doing so we integrate three divergent relational theories (leader-member exchange theory, relational-cultural theory, and a positive organizational scholarship perspective on positive relationships at work) and offer new insights on the quality of manager-subordinate relationships. KeywordsIdentity, diversity, resources, relationships, leader-member exchange, relational cultural theory, positive organizational scholarship Disciplines Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods CommentsAt the time of publication, author Stephanie J. Creary was affiliated with Cornell University. Currently, she is a faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania. Antioch University E-mail: lroberts3@antioch.edu 1 We would like to thank our action editor, Christine Quinn Trank, and our three anonymous reviewers for their feedback and support. We appreciate the feedback we received from audiences at the CGO at Simmons School of Management, the GRO seminar group at Harvard Business School, the Work, Identity and Meaning group at the Boston College Carroll School of Management, the 2012 Positive Relationships at Work Microcommunity research meeting, and the 2013 Academy of Management meeting. Special thanks to Rachel Arnett, Stacy Blake-Beard, Hannah Riley Bowles, Boram Do, Jane Dutton, Robin Ely, Joyce Fletcher, Oscar Holmes IV, Tsedal Neeley, Michael Pratt, Lakshmi Ramarajan, and Andrea Tunarosa for their support. We are grateful to the GDO Division for awarding an earlier version of this paper the Division's Best Student Paper at the 2013 Academy of Management meeting. 2 OUT OF THE BOX? HOW MANAGING A SUBORDINATE'S MULTIPLE IDENTITIES AFFECTS THE QUALITY OF A MANAGER-SUBORDINATE RELATIONSHIP ABSTRACT:Positive manager-subordinate relationships are invaluable to organizations because they enable positive employee attitudes, citizenship behaviors, task performance, and more effective organizations. Yet, extant theory provides a limited perspective on the factors that create these types of relationships. In this paper, we highlight the important role that subordinates al...

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