I Don’t Want To: The Violation of Burdensome Role Expectations

Role expectations about how employees should behave are essential for organizational functioning but may occasionally conflict with individuals’ personal inclinations. Role theory has examined the forces that encourage compliance with misaligned expectations, and prior studies have explored how such compliance affects various personal and work-related outcomes. Yet, employees sometimes choose not to comply with role expectations despite significant pressures that promote compliance, and extant literature provides little understanding of this behavior. Drawing on role theory, authenticity research, and self-determination theory, this paper introduces a theoretical framework that elucidates noncompliance with role expectations motivated by the need to express personal inclinations. At the core of the proposed framework is the concept of burdensome role expectations, defined as expectations that do not align with an individual’s self-concept or role perception, and which the individual is not intrinsically motivated to fulfill. The theoretical model proposes that burdensome role expectations engender noncompliance because they threaten basic psychological needs for genuine self-expression. The model then proceeds to explore how and when noncompliance manifests, and it elaborates on the personal consequences of noncompliant behavior in the presence of such expectations.