Peer groups grow critical as workers face conflicting role expectations

Evidence

Only work peers fully appreciate the pressures of work and the extent to which street-level bureaucrats experience the need to have goal orientations that are consistent with resolving work pressures. The greater the strain between various goal expectations, and the smaller the zone of indifference in which street-level bureaucrats operate, the more peer support is critical for sustaining workers’ morale. — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 371

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to role-conflict literatures in organizational sociology and to occupational-culture research on police, teachers, and social workers; peer support as a buffer mechanism parallels Hochschild’s emotional-labor coping strategies. — connects to: Peer-dominated reference groups push frontline workers toward esoteric practice standards — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of…, 1500

Broader Connections

• Peer-dominated reference groups push frontline workers toward esoteric practice standards #expands (0.85) — Michael Lipsky, Street-Level Bureaucracy, 1500