Acting professional: An exploration of culturally bounded norms against nonwork role referencing

• Author: Emily Heaphy,Luke [Lei] Zhu,Eric Luis Uhlmann,Jeffrey Sanchez‐Burks,Susan J. Ashford
• Date: 01 August 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.1874
• Published date: 01 August 2013

Acting professional: An exploration of culturally

bounded norms against nonwork role referencing

†

ERIC LUIS UHLMANN

1

*, EMILY HEAPHY

2

, SUSAN J. ASHFORD

3

,

LUKE [LEI] ZHU

4

AND JEFFREY SANCHEZ-BURKS

5

*

1

Management and Human Resources Department, HEC Paris, Jouy-en-Josas, France

2

School of Management, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.

3

Business School, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

4

Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

5

Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A.

Summary This article presents three studies examininghow cross-cultural variationin assumptions about the appropriate-

ness of referencing nonwork roles while in work settings creates consequential impressions that affect profes-

sional outcomes. Study 1 reveals a perceived norm limiting the referencing of nonwork roles at work and

provides evidence that it is a U.S. norm by showing that awareness of it varies as a function of tenure living in

the United States.Studies 2 and 3 examine the implications of the normfor evaluations of job candidates.Study

2finds that U.S. but not Indian participants negatively evaluate job candidates who endorse nonwork role

referencingas a strategy to createrapport and showsthat this cultural differenceis largest amongparticipants most

familiar with normsof professionalism, those with prior recruiting experience. Study 3 finds that corporate job

recruiters from the United States negatively evaluate candidates who endorse nonwork role referencing as a

means ofbuilding rapport with a potentialbusiness partner.This research underlinesthe importance ofnavigating

initial interactions in culturally appropriateways to facilitate the development of longer-termcollaborations and

negotiation success. Copyright © 2013John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: multicultural environments; professional norms; U.S. culture; role referencing; hiring evaluations

Writing to an advice column in Fortune, a reader describes working in an office space divided into grayish-beige

cubicles. To cheer herself up, she decorated the cubicle with personal photographs and other artifacts that referenced

her life outside of work. She confessed, however, that a co-worker felt that the workspace looked more like a room

in a house than a professional office and that she should get rid of some of the mementos if she wanted to make a

good impression on higher-ups. Fortune concurred with the co-worker, recommending to the reader to “clear your

desk of family photos”(quoted in Fisher, 2008). Elsewhere, a U.S. website focusing on the same topic identifies

“13 Ways Your Resume Can Say ‘I’m Unprofessional’” and emphasizes that if it is not related to work, do not

include it (Vaas, 2010, March 26).

These examples in the U.S. press highlight two organizational realities. First, they suggest that being seen

as “professional”may be central to how success is defined, at least in some cultures. Second, they reveal

attempts to socialize an audience to follow a tacit social norm, lest they damage their image and career.

The concept of professionalism reflects, in part, normative guidelines about how to appropriately behave in

a given occupational role or context (Evetts, 2003). However, although such norms appear prima facie as

natural, perhaps inevitable, features of any work environment, they are rarely culture free and are thought

to reflect the socially constructed prevailingideologies of the society in which they are embedded (Branzei, Vertinsky,

*Correspondence to: Eric Luis Uhlmann, Management and Human Resources Department, HEC Paris, 78351 Jouy-en-Josas, France. E-mail:

eric.luis.uhlmann@gmail.com;

Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, 701 Tappan Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1234, U.

S.A. E-mail: jsanchezburks@umich.edu

†

The first and last author shared lead author responsibilities on this paper.

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 20 February 2012

Revised 19 March 2013, Accepted 23 April 2013

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 34, 866–886 (2013)

Published online 17 June 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.1874

Special Issue Article

& Camp, 2007; Gelfand & Knight, 2005; Triandis, 1995). Thus, when moving from culture to culture and hoping to

achieve important outcomes such as landing a job or getting a promotion, individuals are expected to respect a host

of implicit norms that may only become apparent when they are violated (Garfinkel, 1967). Confusion about a tacit

norm that may be culturally bounded is only enhanced by the growingglobalization of the workplace that increasingly

brings workers together across national borders where differences in cultures can result in misinterpretations and mis-

understandings. A key task for individuals striving for workplace success in a new culture, then, is to discover and

respect the normsof their new setting, or suffer the consequences (Imai & Gelfand, 2009; Molinsky,2007). The studies

in this article focus on one potential culturally bounded workplace norm—that of minimizing references to one’slife

outside of work—and examine its consequences for perceived professionalism and evaluations of job candidates.

In this article, we reviewrelevant research on referencingnonwork roles in work settings as well as multidisciplinary

researchon U.S. work values that serves as the basis for understanding norms aboutsuch referencing. At the intersection

of these research streams, we derive and test hypotheses about the perceived professionalism of nonwork role

referencing in the United States and its implications for a variety of dynamics in organizations.

Role-referencing boundary research

Research on the work/nonwork

1

boundary has flourished over recent decades. Organizational studies have provided

insights into how stress and conflict can result from participating in and attempting to balance work and nonwork

roles (e.g., Edwards & Rothbard, 1999). Yet, there is also evidence suggesting that active participation in both roles

also can be a source of employee enrichment (Rothbard, 2001; Tenbrunsel, Brett, Maoz, Stroh, & Reilly, 1995). The

growing literature on the host of antecedents and outcomes associated with managing the interface between work

and nonwork roles collectively illustrates the richness and centrality of the work/nonwork boundary to employees

and organizations (for reviews, see Greenhaus & Parasuraman, 1999; Kossek & Lambert, 2005).

Traditionally, studies on the work/nonwork boundary focus on how people manage the interface between work

and nonwork roles and why they choose particular strategies (Ashforth, Kreiner, & Fugate, 2000; Lambert, 1990).

For example, in navigating this boundary, people appear to vary widely in their preferences for segmenting their

work and nonwork roles (Kossek, Noe, & DeMarr, 1999). Those choosing not to segment these roles experience

little difference between their home and work lives, preferring to behave similarly with their co-workers as with their

neighbors. In contrast, individuals who choose to segment these roles experience them as essentially mutually

exclusive categories. One manifestation of an individual’s strategy for managing the work/nonwork boundary

(e.g., blending the roles or keeping them separate) is their role referencing (or lack thereof).

Role referencing refers to how much a person signals his or her participation in one role while in an alternative role

domain (Fisher,Bulger, & Smith, 2009).Role referencing can be demonstrated eitherimplicitly (e.g., by what onehas in

one’soffice space) or explicitly (e.g.,in verbal comments relating to anotherrole) (Nippert-Eng, 1996). For example,at

work, some individuals minimize discussion of their personallife (e.g., a professor never makingreference to her role as

a bassist in a localindie rock band) and limit artifacts fromthis social sphere in their workspace(e.g., photographs of her

band playing at a local music festival). Integration and segmentation mark the ends of a continuum, with most people

falling somewherebetween the two (Nippert-Eng, 1996; Olson-Buchanan & Boswell,2006). Of potential consequence,

an individual’s nonwork role-referencing practices provide cues to others from which to form impressions of the

individual’s reputation, identity, personality, and commitment to the organization (Ashford & Northcraft, 1992;

Elsbach, 2004; Gosling, Ko, Mannarelli, & Morris, 2002).

Recent studies show substantive cross-cultural variation in how porous this boundary can be in people’s lives and

in their preferences and styles for managing transitions between work and nonwork roles (Gambles, Lewis, &

Rapoport, 2006; Komarraju, 1997; Lewis, 1997; Spector & Allen, 2005; Yang, 2005). This article shifts its focus

1

In the literature, the term “nonwork”has been used to refer broadly to those aspects of an individual’s life outside their paid occupation. It could

include, for example, family, recreational, or community roles.

NONWORK ROLE REFERENCING AS NORM VIOLATION 867

Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 34, 866–886 (2013)

DOI: 10.1002/job