The Price Chameleons Pay: Self‐monitoring, Boundary Spanning and Role Conflict in the Workplace*
| Author | Mark T. Schenkel,Ajay Mehra |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2007.00535.x |
| Published date | 01 June 2008 |
| Date | 01 June 2008 |
The Price Chameleons Pay:
Self-monitoring, Boundary Spanning and
Role Conflict in the Workplace
*
Ajay Mehra and Mark T. Schenkelw
Gatton College of Business and Economics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40356, USA, and wCollege
of Business Administration, Belmont University, 1900 Belmont Boulevard, Nashville, TN 37212-3757, USA
Email: ajaymehra1@gmail.com; schenkelm@mail.belmont.edu
The vast majority of research on self-monitoring in the workplace focuses on the
benefits that accrue to chameleon-like high self-monitors (relative to true-to-themselves
low self-monitors). In this study, we depart from the mainstream by focusing on a
potential liability of being a high self-monitor: high levels of experienced role conflict.
We hypothesize that high self-monitors tend to choose work situations that, although
consistent with the expression of their characteristic personality, inherently involve
greater role conflict (i.e. competing role expectations from different role senders). Data
collected from a 116-member high-tech firm showed support for this mediation
hypothesis: relative to low self-monitors, high self-monitors tended to experience
greater role conflict in work organizations because high self-monitors were more likely
to occupy boundary spanning positions. To help draw a more realistic and balanced
portrait of self-monitoring in the workplace, we call for more theoretically grounded
research on the price chameleons pay.
The idea that stable differences in human
personality can systematically influence indivi-
duals’ reactions to the workplace has a long,
and stormy, history in organizational studies.
Although the relevance of personality variables
for predicting work-related outcomes was once
suspect, there is now ‘abundant evidence for the
robustness of many personality characteristics in
understanding work-related attitudes’ (Day and
Schleicher, 2006, p. 686). In recent years, one
personality variable in particular has received
significant attention from organizational re-
searchers: ‘self-monitoring’ (Snyder, 1974; for a
recent review, see Leone, 2006). This variable has
a long history of use in basic and applied research
and it has sound psychometric properties. In-
deed, the impressive validity it has demonstrated
in the workplace has made it ‘one of the most
widely used personality measures for research
purposes’ (Day and Schleicher, 2006; Day et al.,
2002, p. 390).
At the heart of self-monitoring theory is the
proposition that individuals differ meaningfully
in the extent to which they can and do engage in
the expressive control required for the creation of
appropriate self-presentations (Snyder, 1974).
One class of individuals, high self-monitors, tend
to be highly attuned to cues of situational
appropriateness; chameleon-like (Snyder, 1979),
they adapt their behaviors and attitudes to suit
different situational requirements. Faced with a
social situation, high self-monitors ask: ‘Who
does this situation want me to be and how can
I be that person?’ (Snyder, 1979). By contrast, the
other class of individuals, low self-monitors, tend
*
We thank Craig Froehle, Gerald Ferris, Associate
Editor Susan Cartwright and the anonymous reviewers
of this journal for their helpful comments and advice. A
previous version of this paper was presented at the 2005
Academy of Management meetings. The usual caveat
applies. Both authors contributed equally to this
research – order of authorship is alphabetical.
British Journal of Management, Vol. 19, 138–144 (2008)
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8551.2007.00535.x
r2007 British Academy of Management. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford
OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
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