New roles birthed by organizational inclusion initiatives present an interesting puzzle. On the one hand, they hold the promise to foster inclusion objectives more directly through their formalization in the organizational structure. On the other hand, they tend to be ambiguous as to what occupants are expected to do and how to reconcile this with existing organizational goals and processes. Therefore, they create a burden for their occupants to create a role identity that legitimizes who they are and what they do. To address this puzzle, we draw on a qualitative study of early occupants of the newly created role of lady officer within the Indian military. We find that their role identity construction involved negotiating an optimal balance between professional and inclusion-informed identities through discursive and embodied identity work. Role occupants’ identity work initially emphasized elements of their professional identity and subsequently infused elements of departure informed by their views of the role. In doing so, they sought to shape interpretations of the role and craft a sense of role legitimacy. Our key contribution lies in developing an emergent theory of identity construction by occupants of inclusion-focused roles, illustrating their efforts to craft a role identity and a sense of legitimacy for their role and themselves in it amid challenges posed by role ambiguity and by societal and organizational tensions.

中文翻译：

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代币还是开拓者：新包容驱动角色的身份构建


组织包容性举措催生的新角色提出了一个有趣的难题。一方面，他们承诺通过组织结构的正规化更直接地促进包容性目标。另一方面，他们对于居住者应该做什么以及如何使其与现有的组织目标和流程相协调往往是模糊的。因此，它们给占用者带来了负担，需要创建一种角色身份，使他们的身份和行为合法化。为了解决这个难题，我们对印度军队中新设立的女军官这一角色的早期占据者进行了定性研究。我们发现，他们的角色身份构建涉及通过话语和具体的身份工作来协商专业身份和包容性身份之间的最佳平衡。角色占据者的身份工作最初强调其职业身份的要素，随后又注入了根据其对角色的看法而脱离的要素。在此过程中，他们试图塑造对角色的解释并塑造角色的合法性感。我们的主要贡献在于，发展了一种由以包容性为中心的角色的占据者进行身份建构的新兴理论，说明他们在角色模糊性和社会和文化带来的挑战中为塑造角色身份以及他们的角色和自己在角色中的合法性感所做的努力。组织紧张。