Using Negotiated Joining to Construct and Fill Open-ended Roles in Elite Culinary Groups

Area of Science:

• Organizational Behavior
• Sociology of Work

Background:

• Groups in uncertain environments struggle to predefine new member roles.
• Traditional onboarding may be insufficient for emergent, open-ended roles.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine the process of membership acquisition in groups with uncertain environments.
• To identify and describe the previously undocumented process of 'negotiated joining'.

Main Methods:

• Qualitative study of nine elite culinary groups in the U.S. and Europe.
• Analysis of how groups construct and fill emergent, open-ended roles through a specific joining process.

Main Results:

• Negotiated joining is an iterative process involving provisional roles, joint modification, and validation of role components.
• Successful negotiation leads to role stabilization and membership; abandonment occurs if validation fails.
• This process allows for mutual role construction and learning between aspirants and groups.

Conclusions:

• Negotiated joining offers a systematic approach to acquiring new members in uncertain environments.
• The process enhances absorptive capacity and adaptation by integrating novel role components.
• Reveals beneficial consequences of role ambiguity and informs a contingency theory of new-member acquisition.