| dc.description.abstract | This dissertation comprises three interrelated (yet encapsulated) essays that seek to synthesize and expand knowledge regarding the ideal worker construct, as shown in Appendix A. The term “ideal worker” has origins in legal studies that critiqued the way in which work was organized, specifically as it related to wage labor structuration and its unfair impact on women. (The extant literature has partially—but not wholly—shifted from this original focus and generally portrays the ideal worker as an employee who is committed to work, available 24/7, and prone to overwork.) As society continues to embrace an economy founded on meritocracy—coupled with widespread social changes—the ideal worker has become an increasingly appropriate lens for understanding organizational phenomena. Nevertheless, despite accumulating research that seeks to explore the ideal worker, the construct remains detached from a grounding nomological network, and our understanding remains relatively static and descriptive. Indeed, the construct is rarely explicitly measured—either qualitatively or quantitatively—and is typically employed post hoc to explain rather than predict. To wit, scholars have considered the ideal worker, but to move forward, a well-grounded investigation of the construct’s nature, nomological network, relationship to employees’ lived experiences, psychometric properties, and predictive power is warranted.
In Essay 1, I present a literature review of the ideal worker. This review surveys a broad range of literatures that employ the construct (e.g., communications, organizational psychology, family studies). My summary includes insights into the term’s epistemological and historical adoption. By bringing together dispersed conversations, I critically explore empirical studies on the ideal worker—which have mostly been qualitative—and synthesize how the ideal worker relates to three themes (i.e., challenging, controlling, localized). Notably, these three themes outline the content of the ideal worker social norm (localized), its purpose (controlling), and responses to this social norm (challenging). First, in regard to the content of the ideal worker, I unpack how the construct is exceptionally versatile and “fuzzy” in that it is often attached to other attributes beyond those traditionally explored. I argue that addressing “what is” the ideal worker remains the primary task of this body of literature. Second, in relation to its purpose, I detail that the ideal worker can be understood as it relates to “controlling” employees’ behavior; third and finally, I discuss how employees respond to these pressures, usually in the form of “challenging” the status quo. Taken together, these three themes serve as the background to the main thrust of this essay, which is a unifying conceptualization and a research agenda of the ideal worker.
Essay 2 (which is related but distinct from Essay 1) explores the taken-for-granted nature of the human body via an interpretive ontology. In particular, a palpable tension exists between physiological needs (e.g., sleeping, proper hygiene, nutrition) and the demands of the ideal worker. The ideal worker is wholly committed to work; however, attending to the needs of the human body often competes with the expectations of the ideal worker. In this way, the body serves as a potential sensebreaking device that triggers employees to reconsider their beliefs regarding the ideal worker. To explore this research question, I collect qualitative data via semi-structured interviews. Contrarian findings reveal that bodily sacrifices do not necessarily align with the ideal worker concept and that bodily sacrifices are often part of a more balanced approach to work. This finding juxtaposes the implications from the existing literature (see Essay 1) and suggests the ideal worker may be exaggerated in its ubiquity in organizational contexts. To conclude this second essay, I discuss the limitations of my data collection and analysis and also outline future directions for how additional research can deepen our understanding of the ideal worker social norm.
Finally, in Essay 3, I explore how being an ideal worker impacts interpersonal workplace relationships via social comparisons. Recall that the ideal worker primarily represents the employer’s perspective of what constitutes the “ideal” employee—i.e., one who is committed, available, and prone to overwork. Given the social nature of the workplace, employees’ approaches to work are often relative in that they are interpreted in context, and one person’s behaviors (especially when considered “ideal”) have implicit ramifications for others with whom they are interdependent. As predicted by social comparison theory, I argue that employees compare themselves with ideal workers and that this comparison process generates feelings of admiration and resentment in the observer. To unpack the boundary conditions of this effect, I draw upon both social comparison theory and the ideal worker literature to suggest that family values serve a moderating role in determining which emotional reaction is more salient. Finally, given that the ideal worker and social comparisons are rooted in discourse, I posit that these emotional reactions lead participants to react via positive and negative gossip, respectively. I test my model via study in two experiments (vignette and recall) and a multi-sample, time-separated field survey. Across three studies, I find mixed results, providing preliminary support for my model and prompting further inquiry into the nature of the ideal worker construct. | en_US |
