This academic research explores how organizations create open-ended roles through negotiated joining—processes where newcomers and existing members collectively construct responsibilities rather than having individuals fill predefined positions. Traditional role theory assumes organizations have fixed positions that people occupy, but the research documents how many adaptive organizations create roles through ongoing negotiation between individual capabilities and organizational needs. This negotiated approach enables flexibility as contexts change, recognizing that effective roles emerge from dialogue between what people can contribute and what community require. The findings challenge assumptions that organizational clarity requires predetermined roles, showing how negotiated construction can provide both structure and adaptability.
Key Highlights
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Role Negotiation Process: The research documents how organizations construct roles through iterative dialogue where newcomers propose contributions while existing members articulate needs, creating responsibilities through collective sense-making rather than predetermined job descriptions.
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Open-ended Versus Fixed Roles: The work distinguishes open-ended roles allowing ongoing redefinition from fixed positions with stable boundaries, showing how negotiated construction enables adaptation as organizational contexts and participant capabilities evolve.
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Individual-Organization Fit: Negotiated joining recognizes that effective roles align individual strengths with collective needs, requiring ongoing dialogue rather than assuming predetermined positions will match available participants or that individuals should contort themselves to fit rigid requirements.
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Organizational Flexibility: The research demonstrates how negotiated role construction enables adaptive organizations to respond to changing environments, contrasting with bureaucratic structures where role rigidity prevents response to emerging challenges.
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Power and Participation: The work examines how negotiated joining distributes power in role definition, showing potential for participatory construction while noting risks that negotiation could concentrate power with those comfortable advocating for themselves.
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Implications for Distributed Organizations: The findings apply particularly to networked and decentralized contexts where traditional hierarchical role definition doesn’t fit, suggesting that DAOs and platform cooperatives might benefit from negotiated role construction.
Practical Applications
This research enables adaptive role construction:
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Organizations can implement negotiated joining processes when integrating new participants, creating space for dialogue about responsibilities rather than only offering predetermined positions that may not match capabilities or needs
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DAOs can apply negotiated role construction when defining contributor relationships, enabling flexible responsibilities that adapt as projects and participants evolve rather than rigid positions specified in founding documents
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Platform cooperatives can use the framework to construct worker roles through participatory processes, ensuring that job definitions emerge from collective dialogue rather than management imposing requirements
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Teams can adopt ongoing role renegotiation as contexts change, recognizing that responsibilities defined at one moment may not serve evolving organizational needs or participant capabilities
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Researchers can study how negotiated joining functions in decentralized contexts, understanding what enables effective role construction through dialogue versus what creates confusion without shared understanding
Connection With SuperBenefit
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The research on negotiated role construction validates SuperBenefit’s understanding that effective coordination requires flexibility to adapt as contexts change, suggesting that DAO primitives should enable ongoing role renegotiation rather than locking organizations into founding definitions that become misaligned as projects and participants evolve.
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Negotiated joining’s emphasis on dialogue between individual capabilities and collective needs resonates with SuperBenefit’s approach to small autonomous teams where role clarity emerges from ongoing collective sense-making—showing that coordination tools should facilitate negotiation rather than requiring community to fit predetermined organizational templates.
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The research’s recognition of power dynamics in role negotiation provides framework for SuperBenefit to ensure that adaptive role construction doesn’t concentrate power with those comfortable self-advocacy, suggesting that effective coordination primitives should support participatory dialogue where diverse voices can shape responsibilities rather than defaulting to those who speak loudest in unstructured negotiation.
Related Concepts
- Roles - Organizational structures and membership
- Governance - Decision-making frameworks
- DAOs - Decentralized organizations explored
- Community - Social structures and participation
- Coordination - Mechanisms for organizing work