A B S T R A C TThe article is a first-and second-person inquiry into power relations between action researchers and participants based on a dialogic action research project with a group of managers at Bang & Olufsen, Denmark. It focuses on discrepancies between our espoused values of dialogue and our theories-in-use characterized by self-referentiality. This concept emerged during the process and describes a non-dialogic way of transforming the perspectives of the other into your own a priori categories and ways of relating. It denotes a power mechanism imposing our regime of truth on participants so that their reality does not count. First-and second-person reflection on self-referentiality is a process of mutual vulnerability and seems to enhance the quality of third-person action and research.

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The dominant treatment of roles in organizational studies define a role as "the set of behaviors that others expect of individuals in a certain context" (Floyd & Lane, 2000, p. 157). Although role theory has intriguing communicative features in itself (see below), the unique contribution of a communication perspective to roles is a more nuanced approach to the expectations and interpretations surrounding role interactions than the dominant approach provides (Bechky, 2006). An exploration into its possible etymological backgrounds can help to understand how roles play roles in organizational contexts.

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