LibRA: On LinkedIn based Role Ambiguity and Its Relationship with Wellbeing and Job Performance
By Saha, K, Reddy, M. D, Mattingly, S.M, Moskal, E, Anusha Sirigiri, De Choudhury, M
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction | November 2019
DOI
dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3359239
Citation
Saha, K., Reddy, M. D., Mattingly, S.M., Moskal, E., Sirigiri, Anusha., De Choudhury, M. LibRA: On LinkedIn based Role Ambiguity and Its Relationship with Wellbeing and Job Performance Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3359239.
Copyright
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2019
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Abstract
Job roles serve as a boundary between an employee and an organization, and are often considered building blocks in understanding the behavior and functioning of organizational systems. However, a lack of clarity about one's role, that is, one's work responsibilities and degree of authority, can lead to absenteeism, turnover, dissatisfaction, stress, and lower workplace performance. This paper proposes a methodology to quantitatively estimate role ambiguity via unobtrusively gathered data from LinkedIn, shared voluntarily by a cohort of information workers spanning multiple organizations. After successfully validating this LinkedIn based measure of Role Ambiguity, or LibRA against a state-of-the-art gold standard, drawing upon theories in organizational psychology, we examine the efficacy and convergent validity of LibRA in explaining established relationships of role ambiguity with wellbeing and performance measures of individuals. We find that greater LibRA is associated with depleted wellbeing, such as increased heart rate, increased arousal, decreased sleep, and higher stress. In addition, greater LibRA is associated with lower job performance such as decreased organizational citizenship behavior and decreased individual task performance. We discuss how LibRA can help fill gaps in state-of-the-art assessments of role ambiguity, and the potential of this measure in building novel technology-mediated strategies to combat role ambiguity in organizations.

Anusha Sirigiri is an Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business (ISB). Her research and teaching interests lie in entrepreneurship, strategic management, and strategic human capital. Professor Sirigiri received her PhD in Business Administration and Management from Bocconi University, Italy, and a dual degree in B.E (Hons.) Mechanical Engineering and M.Sc. (Hons.) Economics from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, India.

Anusha Sirigiri
Anusha Sirigiri