Toward an Integrative Theoretical Perspective on Organizational Membership Negotiations: Socialization, Assimilation, and the Duality of Structure

Abstract

In this article we argue that a component of structuration theory—the duality of structure—is a valuable heuristic for an integrative framework seeking to explain the role of communication in how membership is negotiated over time. The membership negotiations (MNs) perspective detailed here considers structural features of negotiation processes, while accounting for how active participation of newcomers and incumbents sustains and alters them. We offer a model of MNs and 18 propositions concerning how role expectations, group/organizational norms, formal structure, external and indirect sources of socialization, identification, power relationships, and member interaction are media for ongoing organizational MNs. Through these media, incumbents and newcomers interactively rely upon, sustain, and occasionally alter focal structures, practices, and the meanings of membership.