Objective of Assigned Reading & Lecture

• Learn one way of analyzing free-form responses to structured oral interviews (e.g., Rudermann et al)

• How to present an empirical study– Notice structure, amt of detail,

presentation style etc.

Research Question

• Effects of Commitment of multiple roles on psychological function and leadership skills– Multiple roles could be occupational,

spousal, parental, citizenship roles

Importance of topic

• Presents a different perspective on the nature & effect of multiple roles– Change approach to coping with and

interpreting involvement in multiple roles

Theoretical BackgroundCompeting Effects of Multiple Roles

• Negative – Depletion of resources for other roles (role

scarcity)

• Positive – Generation of resources for other roles (role

accumulation)• Psychological • Social• Learning

Rationale for negative effects

• Each person has a fixed amount of resources

• Multiple roles decrease the amount of resources available for any one role resulting in poorer psychological functioning

More roles

More opportunities for positive self experiences

Higher level of well being

More role partners

More social support

Skills learned in role 1

Skills used in role 2

Psychological Social Learning

Rationale for positive effects

Summary of contradictory Predictions for having multiple

roles

• Role scarcity => lower psychological functioning

• Role accumulation => higher psychological functioning

Response Rate of Participants

• 74% of women participating in a women-only leadership development program

Demographic Characteristics of Participants

• Average Age=40 – Range=26-57

• 92% White

• Avg. Salary =~78K (SD= ~32k)

• 51% had post-graduate education

• 84% in Fortune 500 corporations

• Rank– Middle =49%, – Upper middle =34% – Exec=17%

Participants’ Educational & Professional experience

• 50% had children under 18 yrs

• 71% in committed relationships

Family Status Characteristics of Participants

Procedure

• Faxed questions to participants a few days before interview

• Pilot tested interview qs on 28 women managers

• Tape-recorded and transcribed each interview

Types of Measures

• Open-ended questions on – Different types of roles managers held– Challenges faced in roles– What are the shared resources?

• e.g., Are there any dimensions/aspects of personal life that enhance your professional life?

Data Analysis

• Developed initial hypotheses about how personal roles contributed to professional roles while conducting pilot interviews and during the official interviews – grounded theory; Glaser & Strauss, 1967

Coding of Interviews• 2 raters read 30 interviews ‘many’ times• Developed excerpts of each P’s answer• Summarized excerpts• Organized summaries & sample quotes • Compared & contrasted quotes and

summaries for each case • Identified 13 patterns & themes• Examined remaining interviews for

add’l themesBased on Boyatzis (1998)

Reduction of Data

• 13 themes reduced to 6 categories

• Reviewed all excerpts to confirm categorization

• Developed codebook explaining 6 themes– 66.7% to 90.9% inter-rater agreement on

coding of themes • Not good according to Boyatzis, 1998

Based on Boyatzis (1998)

Description of Results

• Participants perceived that being in multiple roles improved their psychological functioning, gave them more social resources and contributed to their skill development

Positive Effects of Personal RolesTheme %Sample

Displaying Theme

%Rater Agreement

Interpersonal Skill 42 90.2

Psychological benefits 23 75.9

Emotional Support 19 90.9

Multi-tasking skill 9.7 85.7

Personal Interests 6.5 72.7

Leadership Skill 4.8 66.7

Conclusions

• Six potential types of resources that people can gain from multiple roles

• cannot infer how generalizable or how frequent this finding is– Conduct a survey type study with a larger

sample