Role ambiguity, role efficacy, and role performance: Multidimensional and mediational relationships within interdependent sport teams.

Abstract

Male secondary school rugby players (N ϭ 271) participated in a study examining role ambiguity, role efficacy, and role performance. A multidimensional measure was used to assess 4 manifestations of role ambiguity in offensive and defensive contexts. Multiple role ambiguity dimensions explained variance in efficacy and performance. Consistent with theorizing by A. Bandura (1997) and R

Role Satisfaction Mediates the Relation between Role Ambiguity and Social Loafing among Elite Women Handball Players

“…The findings also support previous research by Beauchamp et al (2005), who found that clarity about the scope of responsibility was positively associated with role satisfaction. In addition, Beauchamp et al (2002) reported that when athletes were unclear about their scope of responsibilities, they were less able to act appropriately insofar as their role performance was impaired.…”

“…While the RAS scale of Beauchamp et al (2002) measures role ambiguity explicitly in relation to offensive and defensive roles, in the current study, the RAS was modified to remove differentiation between offensive and defensive roles and instead sought to measure role ambiguity per se. Handball as a sport is becoming faster and players at a high level must always have an overview of the way the game is being played.…”

“…Role ambiguity was assessed using an adapted version of the Multidimensional Role Ambiguity Scale (RAS) (Beauchamp et al, 2002). The original RAS consists of two 20-item scales (one for offensive and one for defensive role ambiguity) that measure role ambiguity within 4 different categories, with 5 items per category.…”

“…Whereas a relatively large number of studies have investigated separately the phenomena of social loafing, role ambiguity, and role satisfaction within sports teams (e.g., Beauchamp et al, 2002;Beauchamp et al, 2005;Høigaard, 2006;Karau & Williams, 1993), no empirical research has explored the possible association in sports teams between individuals' perceived role ambiguity, role satisfaction, and their own propensity to loaf.…”

“…Role ambiguity is a lack of clear information regarding the expectations associated with one's position (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosental, 1964). Research has shown that role ambiguity has a negative effect on the group's performance (Beauchamp, Bray, Eys, & Carron, 2002), on player's satisfaction (Eys, Carron, Bray, & Beauchamp, 2003), on task cohesion and task self-efficacy (Eys & Carron, 2001), and on player's desire to be part of the team . Role satisfaction refers to the degree to which an athlete is satisfied with his/her formal task-related role .…”