WORKPLACE SELF-CONCEPT: A NEW CONCEPTUALIZATION OF SELF-CONCEPT IN ORGANIZATIONS

GUO-HUA HUANG Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Department of Management of Organizations Clear Water Bay Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 6220-9512 Fax: (852) 2335-5325

e-mail: mnhgh@ust.hk

KENNETH S. LAW The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Department of Management Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2609-7905 Fax: (852) 2603-5104

e-mail: mnlaw@cuhk.edu.hk

KA-WAI CHAN University of Macau

Faculty of Business Administration Taipa, Macau

Tel: (853) 3974720 Fax: (853) 838320

e-mail: anitakwc@umac.mo

CHI-SUM WONG The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Department of Management Shatin, N.T., Hong Kong

Tel: (852) 2609-7794 Fax: (852) 2603-6840

e-mail: cswong@cuhk.edu.hk

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ABSTRACT

In this study, we conceptualized self-concept as an integration of role identity and self-evaluation.

Based on this conceptualization, we developed a workplace self-concept (WSC) construct that

describes an employee’s self-concept developed around work and organizational experiences.

Using inductive method, we developed an organization-based role-set that includes six

work-related roles. WSC is operationalized as an aggregate of the products of role identification

and role specific self-evaluation across the six roles. We argued that it has incremental

explanatory power for individual work outcomes, above and beyond the existing measures of

self-evaluation constructs (including general self-efficacy, core self-evaluations, and

organization-based self-esteem). We conducted two studies to validate the measure. Study one

used a sample of 111 MBA students and study two used a sample of 201 working people. Results

provide evidence for the validity and utility of WSC in studying individual work outcomes.

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Workplace Self-concept: A New Conceptualization of Self-concept in Organizations

Interest in the idea of the self-concept has a long history in social science research.

Abundant research evidence shows that how individuals view themselves would shape their

attitudes and behaviors. For example, a vast body of research on self-efficacy demonstrated that

people who believe that they can successfully meet task demands perform better than those who

do not (Bandura & Locke, 2003). There is also substantial evidence that the extent to which

individuals define themselves using social identities, such as gender or ethnic identity will

influence how they behave (Burke & Cast, 1998).

The potency of self-concept in studying human behavior being acknowledged, a review of

the literature also discloses great discrepancy about how the self-concept concept is

conceptualized. Because of some historical reasons, research on self-concept varies considerably

across different disciplines and areas. The main difference lies between two streams of research,

sociological and psychological research on self-concept. In psychology, researchers have

developed a number of “self”-related constructs to study an individual’s self-perception, such as

self-esteem (Korman, 1970), self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986), and core self evaluations (Judge,

Locke & Durham, 1997). In sociology (and social psychology rooted in sociology), researchers

have studied the effect of social structures on how individuals perceive themselves, primarily

focusing on individual’s social identity (Burke, 1991). This shows two divergent perspectives:

while psychologists use self-concept to refer to the evaluative aspects of it, such as self-esteem

and self-efficacy (Wylie, 1979), for sociologists and social psychologists, oftentimes it refers to a

structure of identities (Gecas & Burke, 1995). Both aspects, i.e., the evaluative and identity

aspects are important perspectives to study self-concept. Each of them has its strengths and

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limitations in studying human behavior.

Psychologists’ focusing on the evaluative dimension of how an individual view themselves

does not give much consideration of the identity dimension. Self-evaluation is an individual’s

belief about how good s/he is in certain aspect. It deals with the evaluative and emotional

perspectives of the self-concept. Identity is an individual’s self-definition based on his/her social

positions. It is the content aspect of self-concept. As Gecas (1982, pp.4) noted, identity “focuses

on the meanings comprising the self as an object, gives structure and content to self-concept, and

anchors the self to the social systems”. Put simply, the evaluation aspect answers the question of

“How do I perform?” while the identity aspect answers “Who am I?” Both questions are

important components of what an individual’s self-concept is.

Answers to the above two questions involve the “role” of the focal person. The sociological

term “role” refers to a position within a social framework (Mead, 1934; Turner, 1978). Each role

has a particular set of social role expectations for the actor (Katz & Kahn, 1978). The

internalized role expectations become an individual’s identity. To the extent that people identify

with certain roles, that is, they use the roles for self-definition, they use social expectations or

norms of the roles as references to evaluate themselves. Individuals all play multiple roles and

identify themselves with sets of roles. Different self-evaluations may be made when a person

considers his/her different roles. One example helps to illustrate the above discussion. When a

person gives his/her evaluation on “even when things are tough, I can perform quite well” (one

item from the new general self-efficacy scale (Chen, Gully & Eden, 2000)), s/he may think of

him/herself in different roles (e.g. as an employee, a researcher, or a parent). It is possible that

the person only thinks of his/her most important role(s) or thinks of different roles that are made

salient at the time s/he responds to the item. The result is that s/he would ignore self-evaluations

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of some roles in forming his/her overall self-evaluation. Moreover, roles differ in importance to

the focal person. Self-evaluations of the more central roles should have higher “weights” in

forming a person’s overall self-evaluation. Hence, existing measures of individuals’

self-evaluation do not give a full picture of how an individual views him/herself.

Another possibility is that individuals implicitly weighted all of their roles to form an

overall self-evaluation. This involves the question about the development and structure of

general self-evaluation and its relationship with self-evaluations within more specific domains.

Psychologists have studied global self-evaluations (such as global self-esteem and general

self-efficacy) and specific self-evaluations (such as academic self-esteem, task specific

self-efficacy), but the relationship between the two has been inadequately investigated

(Rosenberg et al., 1995). Preliminary efforts in the literature show that they are reciprocally

influenced and developed in an interactive way. There is no strong theory or evidence to accept

or reject the possibility of “implicit-weight” (i.e. an individual’s global self-evaluation is formed

by implicitly weighting his/her specific self-evaluations in various sub-domains). However, we

do know that global self-evaluation does not catch everything in specific self-evaluations

(Rosenberg, 1995). Moreover, even if there are implicit weights in forming the global self-views,

we do not know what the “weights” are and how they are formed. In this study, we propose that

the roles in the relevant role-set of an individual provide a good framework to structure

self-concept. Using roles as a framework, the identity and self-evaluation aspects can be

integrated and we can get a more complete picture of individuals’ self-concept.

The above review of the diverse literatures on self-concept leads to our proposition that

self-concept should be an integration of self-evaluation and identity. This is consistent with

Gecas’ (1982, pp.4) view of the self-concept, which stressed that the distinction between two

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dimensions of the self-concept is elementary and useful: “the content of self-conceptions (e.g.

identities) and self-evaluations (e.g. self-esteem)”. Unfortunately, however, there have been no

studies in the literature that integrate these dimensions in studying the self-concept. One reason

could be that this involves an interdisciplinary integration of the literature – self-evaluations are

mostly studied by psychologists while role and identity is traditionally a subject of sociological

and social psychological research. This multidisciplinary integration is one of the primary goals

of the current study.

We also aim to contribute to the management literature by studying self-concept that is

specific to the work and organization domain. Because of the reason of “specificity matching”

(Eden, 2001; which means performance will be better predicted when researchers match the

specificity/generality of the efficacy or motivational construct to the specificity/generality of the

performance measure), and the fact that a work organization is an important domain of people’s

lives in modern societies, we expect that there is a self-concept specific to the work and

organization domain, which is more appropriate for studying organizational behavior than global

self-concept or self-concept specific to other domains. This leads to our introduction of a new

construct: the workplace self-concept (WSC), which refers to the totality of the perceptions that

individual has of him/herself at workplace. The development and validation of the WSC

construct is the purpose of this study.

We organize this paper in the following way. We first review research on self-concept and

discuss the importance of integrating self-evaluation and identity in the new conceptualization of

self-concept. We then propose the core construct of WSC and its operationalization. Two studies

are described to demonstrate the construct validity of WSC, focusing on its discriminant validity

with and predictive validity above and beyond other existing constructs (including the general

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self-efficacy, core self-evaluations and organization-based self-esteem). Finally, we conclude

with a discussion on the theoretical contributions to organizational research, practical

implications, limitations, and potential for future research.

SELF-CONCEPT: AN INTEGRATION OF ROLE INDENTIY AND SELF-EVALUATION

Researchers studying the structure of self-concept found evidence that self-concept is a

multidimensional construct (Hattie, 1992) and they used various ways to describe the complex

phenomena. For instance, educational psychologists Marsh and his collaborators examined the

relationship of subjects’ self-evaluations on 12 facets, such as math, verbal, appearance, and

relationship with parents (Marsh & Gouvernet, 1989). Simpson and Boyle (1975) differentiate

three types of self-esteem: (a) global, a general evaluation; (b) situation specific, referring to a

situation such as work versus family; and (c) task specific, which refers to a particular activity.

These self-concept models all have their strengths in studying the phenomena in particular

research settings. However, there is no one clear framework that can apply for self-concept at the

organizational setting. In present study, we posit that the role identity can be such a framework.

In the following, I draw on the literature on role and identity theories to analyze: (a) why role

identity is a good framework for a model of self-concept; (b) how to conceptualize self-concept

through an integration of role identities and role-specific self-evaluations.

To justify why it is meaningful to structure individuals’ self-concept in organizations using

individuals’ roles in work-settings, we can first look at Katz and Kahn’s (1978) model of

organization. In a seminal contribution to the role literature, Katz and Kahn (1978) dedicated a

whole chapter to describing organizations as a role system. The main idea is that roles provide

formal organizations with constancy, in spite of turnover. The organizational behavior of

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individual depends on learning expectations of others, accepting them, and fulfilling them. The

authors proposed a model about the taking of organizational roles based on following steps: role

expectations are evaluative standards applied to the behavior of any person who occupies a given

organizational office or position; the sent-role consists of communications stemming from role

expectations and sent by members of the role-set as attempts to influence the focal person; the

received role is the focal person's perception of the role-sending so addressed, including the

reflexive role expectations that the focal person "sends" to himself or herself; finally, the role

behavior is the response of the focal person to the complex of information and influence thus

received. According to this model, individuals are involved in the ongoing process of role

sending and role behaviors in organizations. Thus, roles can be a good perspective to catch the

primary domains of an individuals’ work and organizational experiences, and hence a good

framework to structure WSC.

The concept of role is one of the most popular ideas in the history of social sciences. Many

influential ideas are reflected in role theory and identity theory. The basic idea of role theory

concerns one of the most important characteristics of social behavior—the fact that human

beings behave in ways that are different and predictable depending on their respective social

positions (Biddle, 1979, 1986; see Biddle, 1986 for a review on different perspectives of role

theory). As social actors, people have multiple roles in a society. The term “role-set” was

introduced by Merton (1957) to refer to “the complement of role relationships which persons

have by virtue of occupying a particular social status.” Associated with each role are certain

expectations that persons in that role are expected to fulfill. Role expectations can be formal

requirement or norms. It refers to “the general expectations of a demand character for all role

incumbents of a system" (Katz & Kahn, 1978). From this perspective, roles are indispensable in

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self-evaluations in that they provide individuals or the role incumbents the references for

appraisal and regulation of their attitudes and behaviors. While role theory suggests the

importance of role in affecting individual behaviors, for its effect to happen, individuals’

acceptance and internalization of the role expectations is required. This is suggested in identity

theory.

In identity theory, roles are external and linked to social positions within the social structure,

whereas identities are internal, consisting of internalized meanings and expectations associated

with roles (Stryker & Burke, 2000). In some sense, both role and identity answers who we are,

but the former answers the question to others, while the latter to ourselves. Identity defined in

this way can also be called role identity, or social role identity, terms we use interchangeably in

this paper. According to identity theory, the multiple identities that an individual has are not of

the same importance to the individual, but are ordered in a hierarchy (Deaux, 1996). One

important dimension around which the multiple identities of an individual can be organized is

identification, which has also been referred to as role embracement, role fusion, or role-person

merger (Ashforth, 2001). It reflects the idea that, as the extent to which the person internalizes

the role and defines him/herself according to the role expectations increases, the identity

becomes more central to the self-definition.

Identification stresses individual’s internalization of role expectations and using it to define

him/herself. The greater an identity is incorporated into an individual’s “self”, the larger the

impact of self-evaluation of that particular identity is on how the individual views him/herself

overall. We refer to role identification as the level of identification with a specific role, and

role-specific self-evaluation as an individual’s evaluation of him/herself in playing a specific role.

To use an example to illustrate, when a person identifies with his role as a parent higher than he

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identifies with his role as an employee, his overall self-concept will be higher when he evaluates

himself as a good parent than when he evaluates himself as a good employee.

The above discussion implies a way to integrate the role identity and self-evaluation

dimensions. That is, self-concept can be operationalized as the aggregate of the product of role

identification and role-specific self-evaluation across all the roles in an individual’s role-set.

WORKPLACE SELF-CONCEPT: A THEORY-BASED MEASURE AND ITS

CONSTRUCT VALIDITY

The Workplace Self-concept construct and its operationalization

Our work and organizational experience constitutes an important domain of our lives. It

partially answers the question of “who we are” and thus constitutes an indispensable part of our

overall self-concept, depending on the meaning of work to our whole “self”. We define this

sub-domain self-concept developed around people’s work and organizational experiences as the

workplace self-concept. We use “workplace” to refer to the domain of an individual’s experience

in the work organization. Within this context, individuals all play multiple roles based on their

organizational membership and they contribute to the organization through working in these

roles. Organizations, as social structures, can be viewed as a system of roles (Katz & Kahn,

1978). Individuals working in organizations can have numerous potential roles. If we can classify

the multiple roles into a small set of categories so that one role-set can cover the work domain

for most individuals, such an organization-based role-set would provide researchers a good

framework to study an individual’s self-concept specific to the work organization domain. As

there are some relevant frameworks about work-related roles in the literature but none of them

can be directly applied in this case, we use inductive methods to develop an organization-based

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role-set. Under the new conceptualization of self-concept proposed above, WSC can then be

operationalized as the aggregate of the products of role identification and role-specific

self-evaluation across the roles in an individual’s organization-based role-set. Symbolically, this

can be expressed in the following formula:

∑ ==

n

1 jjjEIWSC,

where, Ij is role identification of the jth role; Ej is role specific self-evaluation of the jth role; and

n is the total number of roles in an individual’s organization-based role-set.

The proposed WSC construct involves three components: role identification (identity

aspect), role-specific self-evaluation (self-evaluation aspect), and an organization-based role-set.

While the identity and self-evaluation components can be operationalized following existing

literature, there are few studies that systematically studied the multiple roles in organizational

settings1. Using inductive approach (Hinkin, 1998) as presented in study 1 in the method part, we

identified an organization-based role-set that includes six types of roles. Each of the roles is

defined in terms of its reference (or role-sender) and the role expectations: (1) An employee role,

which more precisely refers to a member of the work organization. The reference of this role is

the organization as a whole. In general, an organization’s expectations for its members include

commitment and effectiveness; (2) a colleague role, the reference of which is the other members

of the organization. This role is associated with expectations such as being cooperative and

supportive to other colleagues; (3) a supervisor role, the reference of which is the focal person’s

subordinate(s). This role is associated with the formal requirements of a supervisor job and even

more importantly, some general or informal expectations for a leader such as being supportive to

and caring subordinates; (4) a subordinate role, the reference of which is the focal person’s

supervisor. Expectations for this role may vary a lot, depending on the situational context such as

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job characteristics and leadership style. However, in general, subordinates by definition, are

supposed to fulfill leader’s command (either in formal or informal forms) and be loyal to the

leader; (5) a group member role, the reference of which is the whole group or other members in

the group. Groups can be any organizationally formed group(s) such as project teams. Generally,

expectations for this role can be represented in the word of “team-spirit” which implies various

attitudinal and behavioral expectations such as being cooperative, and knowledge sharing. The

emerging of this role is consistent with the fact that organizations nowadays are using

teams/groups increasingly; and (6) an occupation role. I define this role as the job content part of

an individual’s work experience within an organization. The reference of this role is the

occupational group and role expectations come from the incumbents’ organizations and the

occupational norms. For instance, a professor role involves fulfilling research and teaching jobs

in an institution. Expectations for a professor are defined by the institution and the general norms

or standards in the academic community as well. Table 1 summarizes the referents and examples

of the role expectations associated with each role in this organization-based role-set.

--------------------------------- Insert Table 1 about here.

--------------------------------- This organization-based role-set is the best result generated from a study using inductive

approach. The content validity evidence for it is analyzed in the method part. In addition, several

clarifications need to be made with regard to this role-set. First, the six roles are defined within

the work organization domain. They are either formally defined by the organization (such as

supervisor, and subordinate roles) or can be easily conceived and defined by individuals (such as

colleague role). This set of roles is derived from a quite comprehensive set of roles. They

represent the most important roles in work settings, although they may not be all-inclusive.

Second, although each of the roles has clear referent, there are some overlaps among some

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of the roles in terms of the role expectations. This is unavoidable and understandable,

considering that the final goal of all the work-related roles is the effective functioning of the

organization. For example, while the employee and subordinate roles are both associated with

following rules and be loyal, the former emphasizes organizational rules and commitment to the

whole organization while the latter stresses following supervisor’s directions and loyalty to the

supervisor. As another example, cooperativeness and helping behaviors are emphasized for both

the colleague and group member role, but the spheres of influence differ for the two roles – one

is all the other organizational members in general and another is the particular group members in

which one belongs to.

Finally, we do not explicitly define the role expectations for each role because it is difficult,

if not impossible, to have a complete list of what is expected of each and every role. This is not a

problem, however. Although specific role expectations may vary across situations and

individuals, each role is associated with some general socially defined expectations, as listed in

the examples in table 1. Moreover, what we focus on in the present study is not the social

expectations per se, but the internalized role expectations, that is, identity. Individuals identify

with the roles and evaluate their role-specific performances based on their own understanding of

roles (which is inevitably constrained by the socially defined meaning of the role), and the effect

of WSC is based on the level of identification and evaluation.

After the role-set being identified, measures for role identifications and role-specific

self-evaluations can be developed for the six roles. Identification has been measured in the

literature with various foci, such as identification with gender, ethnic group, and organization.

We developed 5 items for measuring identification with each of the six roles by adopting existing

measures and revising the foci of the items. Thus there are 30 items for measuring the role

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identification components of WSC. Self-evaluation as a general concept can be measured from

many aspects, such as self-esteem (including global and specific self-esteem) and self-efficacy

(including general and task-specific self-esteem) and there are a lot of tools in the literature. For

WSC, the self-evaluations are role-specific. The reference of appraisal is clearly the role

expectations for each specific role. Although multi-item scales can be developed to measure how

individuals rate themselves for each of the roles, in its simplest form (which is always desirable

for a measurement tool), a single item asking respondents how well they play each of the roles

can do (e.g., Rosenberg et al., 1995). We measure role-specific self-evaluation using one item for

each of the six roles. Thus there are 6 items for measuring the self-evaluation components of

WSC. A complete list of the 36 items is shown in APPENDIX .

Construct Validity of Workplace Self-concept

Now we have discussed the definition and operationalization of the proposed WSC

construct. Next, we discuss its construct validity. Following guidelines for construct validation

(Schwab, 1980), we validate the proposed WSC construct through examining its content validity,

convergent validity, discriminant validity, and criterion validity.

Two issues need to be addressed for the content validity of WSC. Firstly, whether the two

dimensions, role identity and self-evaluation, represent individuals’ self-concept well. This is a

theoretical issue. Our conceptualization of self-concept as an integration of the two aspects is

based on a broad review of the literature, which suggests those two are essential aspects of

individuals’ perceptions about “self”. The way we integrate the two dimensions is based on role

and identities theories. Secondly, the proposed operationalization should cover the content

domain of WSC as we defined. It is very important that the organization-based role-set reflects

the domain of an individual’s work and organizational experience. In other words, the six roles

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should cover the most important role relationships in work organizational settings. It is even

more important considering the lack of theoretical guidance and previous measures in the

literature. Content validity in this respect can partially be assessed by the procedures and results

of the inductive method we used to develop the role-set. The basic requirements are, first, the

role-set should be identified from a pool of work-related roles that has sufficient diversity and

range; second, the roles included in the final role-set should have clear meaning and be

distinguishable from each other.

To examine whether WSC converge with similar measures (convergent validity) and also

can be distinguished from existing measures (discriminant validity), we examine the relationship

between WSC and the following variables: organization-based self-esteem (OBSE, Pierce et al.,

1989), the general self-efficacy (Chen et al., 2001), and core self-evaluations (Judge et al., 1997).

These variables are chosen because of several reasons. (1) They are relatively established

constructs about self-evaluation in the literature. (2) They represent some different theoretical

arguments about self-evaluation. Self-efficacy is about an individual’s belief about the

probability that s/he can successfully meet task demands; self-esteem is about the worthiness that

an individual attaches to him/herself; and core self-evaluations is argued to be a more

fundamental latent variable underlying self-efficacy and self-esteem (together with neuroticism

and locus of control). (3) They represent self-evaluation at different levels. While general

self-efficacy and core self-evaluations are “global” concepts, OBSE is specific to the

organization domain, which is particularly relevant to the present study.

To examine whether the relationship between WSC and other variables demonstrates

convergent and discriminant validity, we first look at the level of correlations among them. We

expect that the correlations between WSC and other variables (including general self-efficacy,

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OBSE, and core self evaluations) are moderate and lower than the correlations among the three

self-evaluations variables. We also examine whether WSC predicts work-related outcomes after

controlling those existing variables, that is, to see the incremental validity of WSC. Detailed

reasoning for the incremental contribution of WSC is presented in hypothesis development part.

We examine criterion-related validity of WSC by looking at how it is associated with three

criteria: (1) satisfaction with one’s overall work experience, (2) job performance, and (3)

prosocial work behaviors. These three criteria are chosen because there are well-established

instruments for them in the literature. We discuss the theoretical reasons underlie the

relationships between WSC and the three criterion variables in the next.

Theory and Hypotheses

Theoretical reasons for the above criterion validity can be analyzed from the two

dimensions respectively and integratively. From the perspective of the role identity dimension,

three theoretical approaches can be applied to explain the relationship between WSC and the

criteria. They are: role theory, identity theory, and social identity theory. These theories

combined suggest a positive relationship between the role identifications components of WSC

and individuals’ work outcomes. As discussed above, according to role theory, each role has

certain social expectations. These role expectations consist of the (role-senders’) preferences

with respect to specific behaviors, as well as personal characteristics or style, ideas about what

the person should be, should think, or should believe (Katz & Kahn, 1978, pp. 190). To the

degree that a person values or identifies with some role, s/he internalizes the social role

expectations and uses them as references for their self-appraisal and regulation. In this way, these

role expectations would shape the attitudes, behaviors, or other characteristics of an individual.

Although the six roles included in the WSC role-set have different references and role

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expectations, they are all organization-based and each has certain “organizational expectations”

due to their relevance to the effectiveness of organizations. Though the occupation role may go

beyond a specific organization, role expectations of an occupation are usually required by the

organization. Individual efforts such as meeting occupational standards and developing

occupational skills are usually in line with organizational expectations and benefit organizations.

(There are cases when one’s pursuing of occupational development conflicts with organizational

expectation. In such cases, people may choose to leave but not to lower their job performance.)

These organizational expectations, once internalized by an individual, will shape the individual’s

work attitudes and behaviors.

From the perspective of self-evaluation dimension, there are solid theoretical bases and

substantial evidence linking self-evaluation to individual outcomes (Pierce & Gardner, 2004). To

address the reasons why self-evaluation is central to the explanation of human attitudes and

behaviors, scholars have identified several motivational mechanisms. As Baumeister (1997,

pp.690), who treated self-concept mostly from the self-evaluation perspective, noted, “the two

main motivations regarding self-concept are consistency and favorability.” Self-consistency

theory (Korman, 1970) is built on the once-dominant social psychological theories of cognitive

consistency (Festinger, 1957; Heider, 1958). It argues that all other things being equal,

individuals will engage in and find satisfying those behaviors that maximize their sense of

cognitive balance or consistency. According to Korman, (1970), people have a need to align their

level of performance with their self-esteem. He posited that individuals will be motivated to

perform on a task or job in a manner that is consistent with the self-image with which they

approach the task or job situation.

As an alternative to self-consistence theory, self-enhancement theory posits that low as well

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as high self-esteem individuals have basic needs to enhance, instead of being consistent with,

their level of self-esteem (Dipboye, 1977). In other words, people strive to think well of

themselves. Apparently, self-consistency and self-enhancement theories would give the same

prediction for people who hold positive views about themselves – motivation to be consistent or

to further enhance their current self-evaluations would both lead to positive outcomes. However,

when it comes to those who hold negative views about themselves, the two theories give

different explanations – they will either behave at a low level to be consistent with the low

self-evaluation (according to self-consistency argument), or strive to enhance their

self-evaluation (according to self-enhancement argument). Regarding this inconsistency

prediction, scholars have found evidence that both of them are viable explanations depending on

different situations (Swann et al., 1987). The consensus now seems to be that individuals, with

either high or low self-esteem, all desire for self-esteem and strive for it. However, people with

low self-esteem want to success as high self-esteem persons do, but are simply less confident that

they will be able to do so (Baumeister, 1999). Scholars now identified that the broadest

motivational pattern associated with low self-esteem seems to be one of self-protection

(Baumeister, 1999; Korman, 2001), which argues that “people with low self-esteem worry about

failure, rejection, humiliation, and other unpleasant outcomes, and they seem to go through life

watching out for such dangers and trying to minimize them” (Baumeister, 1999, pp. 357).

Proponents of self-enhancement theory argue that, for the failure of those who has low

self-evaluations, it may reflect a rational decision to exert low effort to prevent further erosion of

their self-esteem rather than an irrational consistency with the self-perception of inadequacy

(Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003). Thus, although the motivational process for people with

low self-evaluation as predicted by self-enhancement theory may differ from that predicted by

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the consistency theory, their prediction on performance outcomes can be consistent – other things

being equal, people with positive views about themselves have better outcomes than these who

hold negative views.

In summary, the above discussion shows that both the identity and self-evaluation

dimension are positively associated with desirable work outcomes. In our conceptualization of

WSC, both identification and self-evaluation are role-specific and are anchored in six roles. Role

identifications motivate individuals’ efforts toward fulfilling role expectations for each of the six

roles, which include such things as positive attitudes toward the work and organizational

experience and higher performance. Role-specific self-evaluations motivate individuals to strive

for consistent or enhanced self-views with respect to each of the six work roles. These two

mechanisms combined suggest a positive association between WSC and individuals’ attitudinal

and behavior outcomes. Based on this, we develop the following hypotheses to be tested for the

relationships between WSC and the criterion variables.

WSC and job performance. A central corollary of self-consistency theory is that people

have a need to align their level of performance with their self-evaluation. Performance levels that

are inconsistent with self-evaluations cause conflict in one’s cognition. Such a need to be

consistent becomes an inner drive for one to achieve performance at a certain level.

Self-enhancement theory predicts that low self-evaluation people may, in accord with predictions

of consistency theory, withhold effort so that there is no further erosion to their self-esteem.

From the role identity perspective, three of the six roles in WSC, the employee, subordinate, and

occupation roles directly involve expectations about high job performance of the focal person.

People who identify with these roles internalize the social expectations and, as a result, are

motivated to perform better. Based on the above argument, I hypothesize that:

20

Hypothesis 1. Workplace self-concept is positively related to job performance.

WSC and prosocial work behaviors. Prosocial work behaviors in organizational context are

those behaviors that are not required for one’s job performance but are important for

organizational effectiveness. Such behaviors as caring co-workers and being cooperative with

others are sometimes called “extra role behaviors” in the literature when the “in-role” refers

specifically to the job performance. They are in fact important role expectations for the employee,

colleague and group member roles. Individuals who value or identify with these roles will have

the motivation to make those “extra” (though not “extra” in terms of role expectations of these

roles) efforts to meet such expectations. From the self-consistency perspective, individuals who

perceive themselves as good colleagues, and group member, would be motivated to perform such

behaviors so that their high self-evaluations would be maintained. From the self-protection

perspective, because performing such behavior requires individuals being initiative, it is less

likely that people with low self-evaluation will perform such behaviors in fear of rejection or

failure (Baumeister, 1999), compared with those with high self-evaluation.

Hypothesis 2. Workplace self-concept is positively related to prosocial work behaviors.

WSC and job satisfaction. The organization-based role-set in WSC covers the major part of

the domain of individual’s work organizational experiences. As a result, it should reflect

individuals’ attitude toward the work domain. The overall job satisfaction has five facets:

satisfaction with the work itself, pay, supervision, coworker, and opportunity for promotion

(Hackman & Oldham, 1975). Each of these facets is directly related with one or more of the six

roles. In particular, the occupation role is more related with the facet of work content, the

subordinate role with the supervision facet, and the colleague and group member role with the

coworker facet of the job. Identification with these roles would lead to satisfaction with the

21

corresponding job facets. For instance, a high identification with one’s professional role means

that the individual accepts the meaning of the job, which is a source of intrinsic work motivation,

which in turn leads to satisfaction with the “work itself” facet directly or indirectly through a

higher job performance. From the self-evaluation perspective, those who evaluate themselves

high would generate attitudes that are consistent with their positive self-views while it is less

likely that those who evaluate themselves low will be satisfied with the specific facets or the

overall job.

Hypothesis 3. Workplace self-concept is positively related to job satisfaction.

WSC and career satisfaction. In addition to the above three criterion variables, we also

examine the relationship between WSC and career outcome, particularly career satisfaction in

this study. Career satisfaction (Greenhaus, Parasuraman & Wormley, 1990) refers to the overall

reaction of individuals to their chosen careers. The occupation role in WSC builds a link between

WSC and individuals’ career outcome. Individuals who identify with this role internalize the

social expectations of their particular occupation, which intrinsically promotes positive attitudes

toward their career. From the self-evaluation perspective, those who have high self-evaluations in

their occupation role will have more positive attitudes toward their career, as people tend to find

satisfying those things they believe they do well in. Although the above discussion is grounded in

the occupation role, other roles, such as the employee, subordinate, and group member roles

could also be associated with career attitudes because career experience usually cannot be

separated from organizational experiences.

Hypothesis 4. Workplace self-concept is positively related to career satisfaction.

In summary, the above hypotheses propose that WSC is positively associated with desirable

work-related outcomes. We further argue that WSC has added value in predicting these outcomes

22

above and beyond existing self-related constructs, including general self-efficacy (Chen et al.,

2001), core self evaluations (Judge et al., 1997), and OBSE (Pierce et al., 1989). There are three

reasons for the incremental contribution of WSC. First, WSC has role identity components. Role

identity theories suggest a direct effect of role identity on work outcomes. Secondly, we

developed an organization-based role-set which covers the domain of individual work

organization experiences. Each of the six roles in our WSC model brings some particular

information of one’s self in the work and organizational context. Explicitly including these six

roles would help to catch more complete information about how individuals view themselves at

workplace. Thus we expect that WSC has incremental predictive power on work attitudes and

behaviors above and beyond the effects of general self-efficacy, core self evaluations, and

organization-based self-esteem.

METHOD

To validate the proposed WSC construct, we conducted three studies. Study 1 was to

develop and validate the organization-based role-set. Studies 2 and 3 were to examine the

convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related construct validity.

Study 1

Sample and measure of study 1

A class of 35 part-time MBA students from a large university in Shanghai and another class

of 34 part-time EMBA students from Taiwan participate in the survey during class time.

Participants in the first sample are 25 to 35 years old and on average have 2 to 5 years work

experience. Participants in the second sample are more experienced and older (average job tenure

is more than 10 years and average age is about 40). There were about 50% and 30% of male

respondents in the first and second sample respectively. All the participants worked in different

23

companies in various industries. Thus the sample is quite diverse in terms of age, gender,

occupation, and organizational type.

Instruction in the survey questionnaire (in Chinese) says “We all have various roles in our

work. In some sense, those roles answer the question of ‘who am I’. For instance, ‘I am an

accountant’, ‘I am a leader’, etc. Each of those roles constitutes a part of our self-concept at work

to some extent. Now, please consider: what are the major roles that you have in your work?

Please list each of them in the following. ”

Procedure and results of study 1

The survey resulted in 538 role items (281 from the first sample, and 257 from the second

sample). On average, each participant named 6.8 roles. Two doctoral students in OB/HR who

know nothing about this study first independently sorted the items into work-related role

categories that they think are meaningful and fit. They then discussed to get an agreement. In

their final categorization, 21 items were considered as unclear or irrelevant (such as “communist

party member”, and “young people”). It included the following five categories (examples are

cited from the survey results): (1) formal functional roles based on job content or occupation

(e.g., accountant, department technical consultant); (2) formal roles based on hierarchy

(supervisor and subordinate) (e.g., department manager, assistant of my supervisor); (3) formal

role as an employee (e.g., employee, a member of xxx (company name)); (4) formal or informal

role as a team or group member (e.g., project team member, helper of my group); (5) informal

roles based on social networks in the organization (e.g., colleague, friend, social activity

coordinator).

We compared this categorization with the existing frameworks and revised it into six types

of roles so that each of them has a clear reference and relatively clear role expectations (results

24

presented in The workplace self-concept construct and its operationalization section). The first

author discussed with the two sorters and they agreed that this categorization was consistent with

their categorization approach and clearer. Following this, we asked another two management

doctoral students to independently categorize all the 538 roles into the six roles with a seventh

category as “unclear/irrelevant”. (The sorting results are available upon request). Inter-rater

agreement between the two raters, using weighted kappa coefficient calculated with SPSS, is .66.

This result can be interpreted as substantial inter-rater reliability (Landis & Koch, 1977). Thus,

the six roles represent most of the roles in work context and can be reasonably distinguished

from each other, which provides evidence for the content validity of WSC.

Study 2

Participants and Procedures of study 2

One hundred and thirteen part-time MBA students at a university in east China participated

anonymously in the survey during class time, which took about 25 minutes. The mean age of the

participants was 32 years old. Seventy-two per cent were male. All the participants were

employed in for-profit firms or local government departments. Most of them played all six roles

in WSC. Two participants were not supervisors (we ask respondents to put zero for the roles that

are not applicable to them) and were deleted, which resulted in a sample size of 111. We did this

because our measure of WSC is an aggregation across all roles. It is not fairly comparable for

people whose numbers of roles are different. We discuss this issue in later part in this paper.

Measures of study 2

Workplace self-concept. WSC is the aggregate of the products of role identification and

role-specific self-evaluation of each of the six roles in the organization-based role-set. Role

identification was measured using 5-item scales for each of the six roles, which were developed

25

and adapted from existing identification measures (e.g., Sidanius et al. 2004). The five items for

the employee role, for example, are: “I often tell others that I am an employee of my

organization”; “I uses ‘we’ instead of ‘I” when I mention my organization to others”; “I feel

close to other members of my organization”; “I often think of ‘I am an employee of xx (name of

your work organization)’, when I say or do something” “In many situations, I think of myself as

an employee of my organization.” Items are rated on a 7-point scale. Identification with other

roles is measured by replacing “employee” with other roles and changing the wording wherever

necessary. We measured role-specific self-evaluation using the simplest way, by asking

respondents to rate how they perform in each of the six roles on a 10-point scale. The final score

of WSC is the sum of the six products of role identification and role specific self-evaluations for

each of the six roles. All items are listed in APPENDIX .

Other variables. Criterion variable Job satisfaction was measured by the six-item measure

from the Job Diagnostic Survey (Hackman & Oldham, 1975), which measures satisfaction with

five aspects of the job (the work itself, pay, supervisor, coworker, and promotion) and overall

satisfaction with the job (α = .85). We measured general self-efficacy using the eight-item New

General Self-efficacy Scale (NGSE) by Chen et al. (2001), which was developed based on

previous theory-based measures and validated through several studies. A sample item is “I will

be able to achieve most of the goals that I have set for myself.” (α = .93). Core self-evaluations

were measured by the recently developed twelve-item Core Self-Evaluations Scale (CSES) by

Judge and his colleagues (Judge et al., 2003). A sample item is “I am confident I get the success I

deserve in life.” The internal consistency of this measure is .70, which was lower than what

Judge et al. reported (about .85). OBSE was measured with the ten-item instrument developed by

Pierce et al. (1989). The instructions ask the respondent to think about his/her relationship with

26

his/her employing organization and to indicate the degree to which he/she has “come to believe

in each of the following statements”. Some sample items are “I count around here” and “I am

taken seriously around here.” (α = .92). The response format of all the above measures was a

7-point Likert-type scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree). To make the survey easy for

participants, we translated all English measures into Chinese, following the standard

translation-back translation procedure (Brislin, 1980).

We also included five demographic variables because of their potential effects on work

attitudes and behaviors: (1) age, measured by the years; (2) gender (1=male, 2=female); (3) level

of education (Below middle school, Middle school, College, Bachelor, Master, and Doctoral

were coded from 1 to 6); (4), (5) organizational tenure and job tenure (open question asking

respondents to indicate their tenure with their current organizations and jobs in terms of the

number of years and months).

Results and discussion of study 2

Descriptive statistics and the correlations among measures are shown in Table 2. All

measures had acceptable reliability in terms of internal consistency. It should be noted that,

because I conceptualize WSC as an aggregate model (Law, Wong, & Mobley, 1998), that is, the

six role facets (as a product of role identification and role specific self-evaluation) are formative

indicators of WSC, it does not have reliability alpha. For the same reason, we did not conduct

confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) for WSC and the three self-evaluation variables to examine

the discriminant validity of WSC. We did a CFA to examine the structure of the role

identification measure. A model which specified a six factor solution to the 30 items (five items

for each of the six roles) produced acceptable fit indexes on this sample (RMSEA = .08; NNFI

= .93, CFI = .96), which demonstrated that identification measure for the six roles can be

27

differentiated. Table 2 shows that WSC had a moderate level of correlation with the three

self-evaluation constructs (r = .40 to .57, p < .01), which was a little lower than the correlations

among the three. This demonstrates that WSC had some commonality with but is distinct from

these established constructs, providing evidence for convergent and discriminant validity.

------------------------------- Insert Table 2 about here. -------------------------------

We conducted hierarchical regression analyses to test whether WSC is associated with job

satisfaction after controlling the effect of control variables and the three self-evaluation

constructs. Results in Table 3 demonstrated the effect of WSC above and beyond existing

variables. Thus, evidence for discriminant and criterion-related validity was found.

---------------------------------------------- Insert Tables 3 about here.

---------------------------------------------- To gather further evidence for the validity of the new conceptualization of WSC, we

conducted another set of analyses to test whether the six interaction terms has incremental

predictive power over the identification and self-evaluation dimension alone (argument for

multiplicative model). Results show that above the main effects of self-evaluation dimension (six

role specific self-evaluation terms as one block in the regression) and role identification

dimension (six role identification terms as one block), the six interaction terms representing the

six role facets still have significant effect on job satisfaction (results available upon request).

Results from study 2 provided evidence for the convergent, discriminant, and

criterion-related validity of WSC. However, all the results of this study were based on self-report

measures, which may cause common method variance biases. To address such concerns and to

examine the effect of WSC on a larger set of outcomes, we conducted study three to further

validate WSC.

Study 3

28

Participants and Procedures of study 3

We collected data from three sources in this study. We measured behavioral outcomes in this

study, including the supervisor’s rating of the subject’s job performance and a coworker’s rating

of the subject’s prosocial behaviors. Different from study 2, we only included general

self-efficacy and OBSE to examine the discriminant and incremental predictive validity of WSC.

Core self-evaluations scale was dropped because it did not indicate satisfactory reliability and

predictive validity in study 2.

Each set of questionnaires in this study include three versions, which were rated

respectively by: 1) the respondent him/herself, 2) the respondent’s immediate supervisor, 3) one

of the respondent’s coworkers. Data were collected by 19 part-time MBA students in a top

university in Macau. Students were divided into four groups and did the data collection as part of

a group term project. They earned extra credit in a course for this data collection. Students were

asked to take the survey questionnaires back to their own companies and distribute the

questionnaires to their colleagues. The colleague sent the supervisor survey to his/her immediate

manager (each manager rated only one subordinate) and the coworker questionnaire to one of

his/her familiar coworkers. All questionnaires were sealed in envelopes by the corresponding

respondents and returned to the students and then to the instructor. All questionnaires were

completed anonymously, but they were coded so that they could be matched together. Students

collected a total of 212 sets of questionnaires. There were three unusable cases. Nine participants

who indicated they did not play the supervisor role were deleted, resulting in a final sample size

of 201. The mean age of the respondents in the final sample was 28 years old. Fifty-two per cent

were female. More than 80 per cent of the participants had a college or higher education level.

Because there were both Chinese and English native speakers in the sample, We distributed

29

questionnaires in both languages. For the Chinese version, all English measures were translated

following the standard translation-back translation procedure (Brislin, 1980).

Measures of study 3

All the variables in study 2 were included in study 3 using the same measures, except that

the core self-evaluations scale was not included.

Other variables (in addition to variables measured in study 2). Job performance was

measured by the eleven-item scale of task performance complied by Tsui, Pearce, Porter and

Tripoli (1997). It asks supervisors to rate, from low to high on a 5-point scale, employees’

performance on eleven aspects, such as work quantity, quality, efficiency, creativity, and so on.

(α = .92). As one measure for prosocial behavior, one of the coworkers who were familiar with

the participant rated the participant’s interpersonal cooperation, on a seven-point scale, using the

tool in McAllister’s (1995) measure of citizenship behaviors. It has seven items on peer

affiliative behavior and three items on peer assistance-oriented behavior. This 10-item scale has

been used to measure cooperation (e.g., Bartel, 2001). A sample item is “(He/she) tries not to

make things more difficult for others at work.” (α = .93). We measured Career satisfaction using

a five-item measure developed by Greenhaus et al. (1990), which measured respondents’

satisfaction with their progress in meeting their overall career goal, income, advancement, and

development of new skills goals in their careers. A sample item is “I am satisfied with the

progress I have made toward meeting my overall career goals.” (α = .91). The response format

was a seven-point Likert-type scale.

Results and discussion of study 3

Descriptive statistics and the correlations among measures are shown in Table 4. All

measures had high internal consistency reliability. Similar to study 2, WSC correlated

30

moderately with general self-efficacy (r = .52) and OBSE (r = .50). WSC was significantly

correlated with all the outcome variables. As in study 2, we did a CFA to examine how well the

items used to measure role identification with the six roles can be differentiated into six factors.

Results show that the six factor model fits the data (RMSEA = .08; NNFI = .95, CFI = .97),

which demonstrated that identification measure for the six roles can be differentiated.

---------------------------------------------- Insert Tables 4 about here.

----------------------------------------------

To investigate criterion and incremental predictive validity, we conducted a series of

hierarchical regression analyses. Results are shown in Table 5. Models 1 through 6 show that

WSC had incremental predictive power for the two self-reported criteria, after controlling for the

demographic variables and the two self-evaluation variables. Models 7 through 9 show that WSC

had incremental predictive power for job performance after controlling for general self-efficacy

and OBSE together (β = .18, ∆R2 = .02, p < .05). Models 10 through 12 show WSC had

incremental predictive power for interpersonal cooperation (β = .19, ∆R2 = .02, p < .05), after

controlling the two self-evaluation constructs altogether. Together, the above results demonstrate

discriminant and criterion-related validity of WSC.

---------------------------------------------- Insert Tables 5 about here.

---------------------------------------------- As in study 2, we also tested the incremental effect of WSC over the self-evaluation only

and the identification-only measures. Similar results were produced as in study 2 – the six

interaction terms as a block has effect on all the outcome variables after controlling for

demographic variables, general self-efficacy and OBSE, the six self-evaluation terms, and the six

identification terms (not reported, available upon request).

Results from study 3 further demonstrated the validity of WSC and its relationship with

31

work outcomes. WSC had incremental predictive power for supervisor rated job performance

and coworker rated cooperative behaviors above and beyond general self-efficacy and OBSE.

Although the amount of incremental variances explained by WSC are not large, the result is

notable considering the strong controlling and the different data sources (without controlling

general self-efficacy and OBSE, the variances explained by WSC are comparable to that by

general self-efficacy and much larger than by OBSE in this sample).

GENERAL DISCUSSION

In this study, we developed and validated a workplace self-concept construct that includes

two dimensions, self-evaluation and role identity, integrated through a set of work-related roles

in organizational settings. Our arguments for the effect of WSC on individual work outcomes are

built on solid theories, primarily the role identity theories and self-consistency and

self-enhancement theories. Results from two studies demonstrated that our proposed WSC

measure had discriminant and incremental predictive validity. It predicted individual overall job

satisfaction, job performance, prosocial work behaviors, and career satisfaction above and

beyond the effect of existing self-evaluation constructs, including general self-efficacy, core

self-evaluations, and organization-based self-esteem. This incremental validity is notable,

considering the substantial evidence of the impact of these self-evaluation constructs in studying

individual outcomes in the literature.

Findings from this study have important implications for practitioners. Industrial and

organizational psychologists have argued for the effectiveness of influencing employee

productivity through influencing their “performance-relevant cognitions”, such as self-esteem

and job efficacy (e.g., Brockner, 1988). Our findings provide support for this argument and, more

32

notably, add to it by highlighting the importance of employees’ social identities based on their

roles in organizations. According to results of this study, managers should attend not only to an

employee’s self-evaluation, but also to his/her organization-based role-set, and to the importance

of each of his/her role identities. Some straightforward implications that can be derived from this

are, for example, enhancing employees’ self-evaluations in the roles that they value most,

conveying organizations’ desired role expectations more clearly and strongly, and encouraging

employees to attach more importance to the roles that they can perform well than to other roles.

Because this study is an exploratory effort in studying organizational behavior from the

workplace self-concept perspective, it has a number of limitations that require further research

efforts. The first challenge is in the operationalization of WSC. Although there are theoretical

reasons for integrating the identity and self-evaluation components and the organization-based

role-set in the measure, it is still a question how to operationalize each of these elements. We

used only one item to ask individual’s self-evaluation of each role. This is the most direct and

concise way but may cause some concern for reliability. Future study may use multiple items for

this measure. For the organization-based role-set, this study suggested six roles. The limitation is

that WSC measured this way is only comparable among individuals who have the same role-set.

Future studies need to adjust the role-set to be included in WSC measure according to specific

sample.

The second limitation is that our two studies are cross-sectional in nature, which does not

enable us to make conclusions on “causal” relationships. However, this does not change our

conclusions on the validity of WSC. Although self-consistency/enhancement theories suggest

attitudes and behaviors as outcomes of people’s self-perceptions, they do not exclude the

influences of these “outcomes” on self-perceptions. There could be dynamic process going on

33

outside the model studied here. In fact, the reciprocal relationship between self-evaluation and

behavior has long been noted in the literature (Mruk, 1999). This being said, longitudinal studies

are still desirable in helping us to get more sense on the dynamics between WSC and work

outcomes. In addition, because the WSC model is specified as an aggregate model, we cannot

determine its internal consistency reliability. It is important that future studies get test-retest

reliability of the measure through longitudinal design.

Finally, we call for studies that investigate the organizational antecedents of WSC.

Psychologists generally accept that the self-concept is relatively stable but changeable.

Considering the fact that work and organizational experience constitute an important domain of

people’s lives, it is reasonable to expect that the organization shapes individual’s self-concepts,

through affecting the elements of WSC. If future research establishes the impact of

organizational practices and characteristics in shaping employees’ WSC, that would be a strong

demonstration of the utility of WSC in studying organizational behavior and its important

implications on management practices.

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TABLE 1 The Organization-based Role-set Developed in Study 1

Role Referent of Role Role expectations (examples)

Employee Organization as a whole Commitment, performance, citizenship behavior, etc.

Colleague Other members in the organization

Being cooperative, supportive, friendly, etc.

Supervisor Subordinate(s) Being supportive, leading, caring, etc.Subordinate Supervisor Following command, loyalty, etc. Group member Other members in group Being cooperative, contribution to

group task, etc. Occupation Occupational group Performance, meeting occupational

standards, developing occupational skills, etc.

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TABLE 2 Correlations among variables of Study Twoa

Variable Mean S.D. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 1. Age 32.21 4.17 -- 2. Gender (1=M; 2=F) 1.28 .45 -.31** -- 3. Education 4.23 .47 -.15 .10 -- 4. Organization tenure 84.89 44.60 .33** -.07 -.04 -- 5. Job tenure 41.35 30.90 .15 .08 -.16 .46** -- 6. General self-efficacy 5.59 .78 -.02 .06 .07 -.04 -.13 (.93) 7. Core self evaluations 4.56 .58 .04 -.07 -.03 -.01 -.11 .58** (.70) 8. OBSE 4.926 .93 .19 -.03 .02 .02 -.12 .63** .45** (.92) 9. WSC 213.58 63.74 .25* -.15 .08 .18 .01 .51** .40** .57** -- 10. Job satisfaction 4.42 .93 .06 -.08 .03 .02 -.17 .30** .16 .41** .43** (.85)a n = 111 * p < .05 ** p < .01

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TABLE 3 Results of Hierarchical Regression with Job Satisfaction of Study Twoa

Job Satisfaction Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6 Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 Model 10

Age .04 -.06 .03 -.06 .03 -.06 -.04 -.08 -.04 -.09 Gender (1=M; 2=F) -.10 -.06 -.10 -.06 -.09 -.06 -.11 -.07 -.12 -.08 Education .01 -.04 .00 -.04 .01 -.04 .01 -.03 -.00 -.04 Organization tenure .12 .07 .12 .08 .12 .07 .11 .08 .11 .08 Job tenure -.22 + -.20 + -.20+ -.20+ -.21+ -.21+ -.16 -.17 -.17 -.18+ General self-efficacy .24* .03 .06 -.02 Core self evaluations .08 -.09 -.11 -.14 OBSE .37** .20+ .38** .25+ WSC .43** .41** .46** .31** .35** ∆R2 .06 .17** .06* .11** .01 .17** .13** .06** .14** .07** ∆F 1.07 18.82** 5.58* 12.39** .63 18.77** 14.46** 6.86** 5.04** 7.88** Adjusted model R2 .00 .17 .05 .16 .00 .17 .13 .19 .12 .19 a n = 111 + p < .10

* p < .05 ** p < .01

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TABLE 4 Correlations among variables of Study Threea

Variable Mean S.D 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. Age 28.30 7.73 2. Gender (1=M; 2=F) 1.55 0.50 -.15* 3. Education 3.59 1.07 -0.10 -0.10 4. Organization tenure 43.76 46.20 .46** 0.01 -0.11 5. Job tenure 29.12 29.55 .38** 0.05 -.28** .67** 6. General self-efficacy 4.90 0.86 0.06 0.00 0.11 0.12 -0.07 (.92) 7. OBSE 4.45 0.95 .21** -0.03 0.07 .15* 0.08 .53** (.93) 8. WSC 166.99 65.43 0.00 0.05 .14* 0.09 -0.06 .52** .50** 9. Job satisfaction 4.64 0.97 .14* 0.06 0.01 0.06 0.04 .52** .53** .53** (.86) 10. Career satisfaction 4.39 1.09 0.13 0.12 0.03 0.09 0.02 .59** .64** .54** .71** (.91) 11. Job performances 3.61 0.58 0.01 0.05 -0.01 0.09 0.04 .37** .17* .31** .33** .29** (.92) 12. interpersonal Cooperationc 4.86 0.83 -0.06 0.05 0.06 0.00 -0.06 .26** .18** .30** .27** .27** .35** (.93)

a n = 201 s Supervisor rating c Coworker rating * p < .05 ** p < .01

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TABLE 5 Results of the Regression Analyses of Study Threea

Job Satisfaction Career Satisfaction Job Performances Cooperativenessc Model

1 Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Model 5

Model 6

Model 7

Model 8

Model 9

Model 10

Model 11

Model 12

Age 0.13 0.08 0.11 0.11 0.04 0.05 -0.05 -0.05 -0.03 -0.11 -0.12 -0.10 Gender (1=M; 2=F) 0.07 0.06 0.05 0.14 0.13* 0.12* 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.04 0.04 0.03

Education 0.04 -0.02 -0.04 0.04 -0.03 -0.05 0.02 -0.01 -0.02 0.05 0.03 0.01 Organization tenure 0.10 -0.05 -0.10 0.16 -0.03 -0.06 0.19 + 0.08 0.06 0.19 + 0.12 0.09

Job tenure -0.07 0.06 0.09 -0.15 -0.01 0.02 -0.09 0.02 0.04 -0.11 -0.03 -0.01 General self-efficacy 0.38** 0.27** 0.39** 0.33** 0.42** 0.35** 0.27** 0.20*

OBSE 0.30** 0.21** 0.42** 0.37** -0.05 -0.11 0.03 -0.02 WSC 0.29** 0.18** 0.18* 0.19* ∆R2 0.03 0.32** 0.06** 0.05 0.46** 0.02** 0.02 0.14** 0.02* 0.03 0.08** 0.02* ∆F 1.05 41.66** 15.64** 1.63 80.61** 7.51** 0.73 14.58** 4.21* 1.10 7.48** 4.65* Adjusted model R2 0.00 0.32 0.37 0.02 0.49 0.51 -0.01 0.13 0.15 0.00 0.07 0.09

aN = 201 sSupervisor rating;

cCoworker rating + p < .10; * p < .05; ** p < .01

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NOTE: 1. An extensive review of the literatures resulted in three frameworks about work-related roles that are relevant. One notable effort is found in research on role performance. Noticing the critical job and organizational changes in recent decades, researchers emphasized work roles as the fundamental structural components of organizations and developed the concept of role performance (Murphy & Jackson, 1999). Welbourne, Johnson, and Erez (1998), drawing on role theory and identity theory, developed a multidimensional measure of role performance that includes five role domains. The first two roles are what conventional job performance models cover—the job and organization roles. The third role is the career role that involves obtaining the necessary skills to progress through one’s organization and career. The team role is another additional work role that requires employees working well with other team members. Finally, they also included the innovator role, which implies that employees need to come up with creative ideas and behave innovatively. There are two other frameworks in the literature that might be relevant to organization-based role-sets. One is the work-role identification framework proposed by the Meaning of Work (MOW) International Research Team framework (1987), which included six work roles – task, company, product/service, co-workers, occupations, and money. Besides, researchers arguing for the multiple foci of organizational identification proposed various targets of employee’s identification, such as own career, work unit, organization, and occupation (e.g., Van Dick et al., 2005) Although these frameworks all covered some work-related roles, the ways that they were developed are not clearly discussed. None of them seem to have solid theoretical foundations or rigorous validation evidence. In fact, the authors using these frameworks do not argue that their frameworks are intended to capture the multiple roles that an individual could have at work and in organizations. Therefore, in this study, we use these frameworks as initial starting point to develop an organization-based role-set.

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APPENDIX Workplace Self-concept Measure

Role identification (Items are randomized in the questionnaire.): The employee role I often tell others that I am an employee of my organization. I use ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when I mention my organization to others. I feel close to other members of my organization. In my work, I often think of ‘I am an employee of xx (name of your work organization)’, when I say or do something. In many situations, I think of myself as an employee of my organization. The colleague role I often mention my colleagues to others. When I mention my colleagues to others, I usually say “we” rather than “they”. I feel close to my colleagues. In my work, I often think about things from the perspective of my role as a colleague. In many situations, I think of myself as a colleague of my coworkers. The supervisor role I often think of my subordinates in my work. In my work, I am often aware that I am a supervisor of my subordinate(s). I feel close to those who are in supervisor positions as I am in my organization. In my work, I often think about things from the perspective of my role as a supervisor of my subordinate(s). In many situations, I think of myself as a supervisor of my subordinate(s). The subordinate role I often think of my supervisor in my work. In my work, I am often aware that I am a subordinate of my supervisor. I feel close to those who are in subordinate positions as I am in my organization. In my work, I often think about things from the perspective of my role as a subordinate of my supervisor. In many situations, I think of myself as a subordinate of my supervisor. The group member role I often think of my group/team in my work. I use ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when I mention my group/team to others. I feel close to my group/team members. In my work, I often think about things from the perspective of my role as a group/team member. In many situations, I think of myself as a member of my group/team. The occupation role I often mention my occupation to others (e.g., “I am an accountant/engineer”, etc.). I often think of my occupation role in my work. I feel close to people who are in the same occupation as me. In my work, I often think about things from the perspective of my occupation role In many situations, I think of myself as my professional/occupational role (e.g., as an accountant/engineer, etc.)

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Role specific self-evaluation (Items are listed together as below in the questionnaire.): We have various roles in our work. These work-related roles have different expectations to us. For example, as an employee, we are supposed to follow the rules of the organization; as a colleague, we are supposed to be cooperative. We have different performances in these different roles. In the following, please think about these roles you have at work, and rate yourself according to your own understanding and your performance in each role.

My roles at work…

How do I perform in this role? (Rated each role using 1 - 10 points being the maximum. If some role is completely irrelevant to you, please fill in “0”.)

1. How would you rate yourself as an employee of your organization?

___________________

2. How would you rate yourself as a colleague? ___________________ 3. How would you rate yourself as a supervisor? ___________________ 4. How would you rate yourself as a subordinator? ___________________ 5. How would you rate yourself as a group/team

member? (“group/team” refers to any groups, teams, or units that you are in or have ever been attended, in which you work with other members for a job task, e.g., a project team).

___________________ 6. As to your occupation role, how would you rate

yourself (e.g., rate yourself as an accountant/an engineer, etc)?

___________________