The Emergence and Management of Role Ambiguity in a Collegiate Basketball Team

Abstract

Role ambiguity—the lack of clear, consistent information regarding one’s role, responsibilities, or position—is a critical factor in team sports in which alignment of roles is vital to collective performance and team success. However, how role ambiguity evolves over time and is managed is understudied. This qualitative longitudinal investigation examined how role ambiguities emerged and impacted the members of a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I collegiate men’s basketball team. Working within the organizational tensions theoretical framework, data on role ambiguity were collected through participant observation and ethnographic interviews and thematically coded and analyzed. Findings indicated that role ambiguities, such as with player leadership, were influenced by numerous contextual factors and recursively influenced the meanings of some of those factors. These complexities also produced tensions, and members’ attempts to manage these tensions produced dualities that further increased role ambiguity. When members realized they could not resolve ambiguities related to their roles, they concocted unorthodox role management strategies to accomplish their responsibilities amidst the ambiguity.