Organizational management of conflicting professional identities.

• Author: Robertson, Cassandra Burke
• Position: Divided Loyalties: Professional Standards and Military Duty

In recent years, professionals in the military have suffered criticism for their failure to counter military excess--especially in the area of torture and maltreatment of detainees. Much of the criticism leveled against such professionals has assumed that they were bad actors who were making a conscious choice to avoid the strictures of their code of ethics. This Article counters that narrative by applying identity theory to offer a more situationist explanation. It argues that some of these professional failures arise from the cognitive incentives faced by individuals in an organization that rewards organizational deference over independent professional advice. Medical, legal, and other professionals in large organizations must deal with two competing identities--one tied to their membership in a profession, and one tied to their role in supporting the organizational mission. Identity theory predicts that when both identities are activated, individuals are more likely to act in accordance with the more salient identity. The Article recommends that military leaders and other organizational managers create formal mechanisms to recognize and reward professional competence even when professional responsibilities diverge from organizational expediency. Such policies may heighten the salience of the professional identity, thereby reducing the risk that individuals will subordinate their professional responsibilities in favor of deference to organizational aims.

1. INTRODUCTION II. IDENTITY THEORY III. THE PROBLEM OF DUAL PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IV. COMPETING PROFESSIONAL IDENTITIES IN ORGANIZATIONAL SETTINGS V. IMPLICATIONS FOR ORGANIZATIONAL MANAGEMENT VI. CONCLUSION I. INTRODUCTION

   In recent years, the United States has called on the professional expertise of psychologists, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals to assist in military operations. In a number of cases, however, a troubling paradox emerged: just when the nation most needed to draw on these professionals' specialized expertise to limit or counterbalance military excess, a significant number of these professionals failed to act in accordance with their professional code of conduct. Indeed, rather than counterbalancing military excess, some of these professionals enhanced and enabled such excesses as part of the so-called war on terror. (1)

   Critics of the professionals' conduct often attribute their acts to venality, naked self-interest, and pressure from outside sources, (2) while supporters of the conduct may attribute those same acts to a rational decisionmaking process that properly subordinates professional codes to more pressing security needs. (3) Both of these explanations, however, rely on an assumption that professionals involved in these situations made a conscious decision to put expedience ahead of professional conduct, whether for virtuous or venal reasons. (4) In a number of cases, however, this assumption may not bear out.

   This Article suggests an alternative explanation--one of situationism rather than dispositionism, (5) arising from the cognitive incentives faced by competing professional identities in an organization that rewards organizational deference over independent professional advice. This Article argues that professionals involved in the war on terror and its excesses may not have perceived--and may still not perceive--any contradiction between their actions and their professional code of conduct. Professionals asked to provide their expertise to the military were playing two roles; in one role, they were responsible for providing objective legal, medical, or psychological services, and in the other role they were asked to contribute to the success of the military endeavor. Reconciling the two roles is not always easy.

   From an outsider's perspective, these roles may at times appear to be in conflict and require the individual to make a choice about which role to serve at a particular time. This conflict may not be apparent to those on the inside, however. Instead, an individual may be significantly invested in the success of both roles, and may have internalized professional identities related both to military success and professional service. Because these dual professionals' sense of self-identity is linked with success in both spheres, they may be unconsciously motivated to try to reconcile the two even in situations where a less invested outsider would see only conflict. Moreover, these individuals may be cognitively motivated to emphasize the role in which their efforts obtain immediate positive feedback--or, in other words, to emphasize their organizational identity over their professional identity.

   This Article applies identity theory to help predict when such situations are likely to arise. Awareness of the social and psychological processes at work can help organizational managers understand how best to avoid the risks arising from the presence of conflicting professional identities. Similarly, an awareness of the situational factors influencing behavior can help managers shape the situational setting in ways that encourage activation of the professional identity (thus encouraging independent advice and counsel) over the organizational identity, which is more likely to be deferential to existing practices.

2. IDENTITY THEORY

   Identity theory examines the relationship of the individual to society. (6) It asserts that individuals define themselves in part through the groups they interact with in society, the roles they take on, and the persons they claim to be--for example, a person may be, at the same time, "a spouse, a parent, a teacher, a Southerner, a member of the middle class, and a leader." (7) Although individuals will have different ideas about what it means to be "middle class" or "a parent," each of these terms still has certain meanings and expectations that are shared within the larger culture. (8) When people internalize those cultural meanings and expectations, these roles and group memberships are termed "identities," and become "a set of standards that guide behavior." (9)

   Everybody has multiple identities, but not all are actively guiding behavior at any one time. Identity theory posits that the identities fit together in a hierarchy of "salience," which is defined as the likelihood of a particular identity's activation. (10) Thus, "the higher the salience of an identity relative to other identities incorporated in to the self, the greater the probability of behavioral choices in accord with the expectations attached to that identity." (11)

   Identity formation and salience is influenced by individuals' relationships with other people. Identity theory uses the term "commitment" to describe "the degree to which persons' relationships to others in their networks depend on possessing a particular identity and role," and a higher commitment to an identity increases its salience. (12) Thus, "a person with close family, friends, or other significant relationships in a shared religion is likely to have a more salient religious identity than a person with fewer ties." (13) Salience, in turn, predicts behavior--so, a person with a more salient religious identity is likely to spend more time involved in religious activities. (14)

   Commitment and salience thus reinforce each other. A person with strongly religious friends and family has a more salient religious identity, as it is reinforced through commitment to those personal connections. The salience of the religious identity causes the person to spend more time on religious activities--where the person then develops even more social and personal connections with others similarly inclined, thus reinforcing commitment.

   These reinforcements are linked through a process termed "self-verification." (15) Self-verification helps individuals maintain a stable set of identities. (16) Individuals compare their own self-perceptions, or "identity standards," to the evaluations of themselves that are made by others. They see themselves reflected in the eyes of others, and they compare this reflected self-assessment to their own ideas of who they are. When the reflected feedback matches their own identity standards, they have obtained "self-verification" and they experience positive emotions. (17) When the reflected feedback does not match their identity standards, negative emotions result. (18)

   These positive and negative emotions are experienced annually among first-year law students, as law students with a strong "student identity" obtain their first law-school grades. (19) Most law students have achieved strong academic success in the past, and have developed a strong identity tied to academic success. When some law students obtain lower grades than they are used to, their emotional distress results not just from the lower instrumental utility of the grades themselves; instead, it arises from the disconnect between identity and reflected assessment. Thus, when a self-identified "A-level student" receives a B on an exam, the student may experience anger, depression, and general distress. (20)

   When self-verification fails, individuals will try to bridge the gap between their situational perception and their identity standard. (21) They may do so by changing the situational assessment, such as by "modifying study habits in an effort to improve grades in the future," thus attempting to bring their external assessment in line with their internal self-perception. (22) Alternatively, they may bridge the gap by focusing on different aspects of the identity to satisfy the assessment; that is, "seeking and creating new situations in which perceived self-relevant meanings match those of the identity standard." (23) Thus, a student disappointed with his or her grades may "redefin[e] academic success to include being at a certain class rank, rather than defining success by letter grades alone," or may "identify ... a particular sphere of success, such as moot court...