A Study of Role Clarity and Need for Clarity for Three Occupational Groups

A longitudinal study of the individual characteristics of effective R&D project team leaders

“…The subject was then asked to rate the difficulty of presenting such an image. A six‐item scale ( α = 0.80; e.g., “How important is it to you to know, in detail, how you are supposed to do a job?”) by Ivancevich and Donnelly () assessed need for clarity with a response scale of “not important” to “very important.” Job involvement was tapped via six items selected from the Lodahl and Kejner () instrument based on the psychometric analysis of Hunt et al (). These items focused on the importance of work in general and one's involvement in the present job, with a sample item of “The most important things that happen to me involve my work.” The response scale ranged from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree,” and the coefficient alpha was 0.80.…”

The Network Architecture of Human Captial: A Relational Identity Perspective

“…Given the importance of role relationships to our theorizing, and its established connection to relational identity (Sluss et al, 2010), we propose that role clarity functions as one boundary condition that influences the manner in which periods of identity reconstruction may be more or less disruptive to performance. Role clarity refers to whether an individual has certainty regarding the expectations associated with their work role (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964) and the extent to which information for role performance is communicated and understood (Ivancevich & Donnelly, 1974). Although role clarity can be influenced by HR practices, we focus here on the possibility that role clarity will mitigate effects of relational identity disruption on performance.…”

Curvilinear relationships between role stress and innovative performance: Moderating effects of perceived support for innovation

“…While many antecedents of innovativeness have been studied (for a review, see Zhou & Shalley, 2003), the impact of role stress has rarely been examined. We are able to find only two studies that have examined the relationship between role stress and innovative performance (Ivancevich & Donnelly, 1974; Spreitzer, 1995). Given the rising importance of innovative performance in a knowledge era, this research gap needs to be filled.…”

“…The two studies that examined the relationship between role stress and innovative performance also reported inconsistent findings. Role clarity was found to positively relate to perceived opportunity for innovation (Ivancevich & Donnelly, 1974), but Spreitzer (1995) found that role ambiguity was not correlated with innovative performance.…”