Role Ambiguity in the Face of Incongruent Demands: A Dynamic Role Theory Perspective

Management of job demands is central to the employee experience. Job demands refer to physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of a job that necessitate sustained physical or mental effort and are, as a result, associated with physiological or psychological costs. In regards to well-being, job demands are associated with psychological costs, which in turn produce higher levels of job burnout and reduced employee engagement. Though much is known about the basic relationship between job demands and well-being, job demands are largely viewed as predictable in nature. Due to this assumption, it is unknown whether employees possess accurate assessments of pending demands or whether such accurate knowledge affords psychological benefits. Through the lens of role theory, the current study investigated the impact of congruencies and discrepancies between expected demands and demands actually experienced at work on employee engagement and emotional exhaustion, using day-level role ambiguity as a mediator. Ninety-four full-time employees from various industries and occupations completed two surveys per day for three weeks with an average of 10.7 matched surveys per employee, leading to a final sample of 1,004 observations. Findings suggest that employees do experience differences between expected demands and the level of demands actually experienced, with 46.6% being inaccurate in their estimates. Polynomial regression analyses revealed that incongruent demands did not have a relationship with day-level role ambiguity. However, post-hoc analyses reveal that discrepant relationships between expected and actual demands, or incongruent demands, may result in higher levels of emotional exhaustion. I conclude that though demand incongruence did not impact role ambiguity directly, this new construct shows promise as an understudied construct with potential for directly impacting psychological well-being.