JOB TITLES AS IDENTITY BADGES: HOW SELF-REFLECTIVE

TITLES CAN REDUCE EMOTIONAL EXHAUSTION

ADAM M. GRANT

University of Pennsylvania

JUSTIN M. BERG

University of Pennsylvania

DANIEL M. CABLE

London Business School

Job titles help organizations manage their human capital and have far-reaching im-

plications for employees’ identities. Because titles do not always reflect the unique

value that employees bring to their jobs, some organizations have recently experi-

mented with encouraging employees to create their own job titles. To explore the

psychological implications of self-reflective job titles, we conducted field research

combining inductive qualitative and deductive experimental methods. In Study 1, a

qualitative study at the Make-A-Wish Foundation, we were surprised to learn that

employees experienced self-reflective job titles as reducing their emotional exhaustion.

We triangulated interviews, observations, and archival documents to identify three

explanatory mechanisms through which self-reflective job titles may operate: self-

verification, psychological safety, and external rapport. In Study 2, a field quasi-

experiment within a health care system, we found that employees who created self-

reflective job titles experienced less emotional exhaustion five weeks later, whereas

employees in two control groups did not. These effects were mediated by increases in

self-verification and psychological safety, but not external rapport. Our research

suggests that self-reflective job titles can be important vehicles for identity expression

and stress reduction, offering meaningful implications for research on job titles, iden-

tity, and emotional exhaustion.

I manage six clerical staff, deal with enquiries from

the public, and am responsible for a sizeable budget.

I particularly hate the word “senior.” It makes me

sound old rather than able...having the word

“manager” in my job title would give an application

for a higher-level post more credibility.

Senior administration assistant

(Krechowiecka, 2010)

Job titles are a cornerstone of modern organiza-

tions. As a recognized shorthand for describing a

set of responsibilities held by one employee, a job

title communicates the knowledge, skills, abilities,

and other characteristics that employees who hold

the job are likely to possess. Thus, job titles allow

organizations to compare different types of contri-

butions to the organization, and are linked to most

human resource functions, including selection,

performance appraisals, and compensation. Re-

search shows that job titles also are important for

coordination in teams, both because they can facil-

itate the development of trust (e.g., Bechky, 2006;

Klein, Ziegert, Knight, & Xiao, 2006) and because

they offer a way to manage the differentiation of

skills between team members (Hollenbeck, Beer-

sma, & Schouten, 2012). Demonstrating the impor-

tance of job titles, the U.S. Department of Labor

devoted more than a decade of resources to create

the Occupational Information Network (O*Net) da-

tabase, a comprehensive tool for job analysis and

career exploration that is largely based upon job

titles (Peterson et al., 2001).

Job titles also have meaningful implications for

employees, both on and off the job. At work, our

For generative feedback, we thank our editor Jason

Colquitt, Sigal Barsade, Andy Molinsky, and Scott

Sonenshein. For assistance with data collection, we are

grateful to Ellie Andrus, Bill Bartlett, Joanna Holder,

Diane and Paul Jones, Sean Keyser, Debbie Kiser, Lauren

Levin, Susan Lerch, Rolland Pugh, Kathleen Raynor, Su-

zanne Sutter, and Robin Whitaker.

1201

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2014, Vol. 57, No. 4, 1201–1225.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amj.2012.0338

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titles are often the first information that we com-

municate about ourselves to new colleagues, cli-

ents, and other key acquaintances. The titles of

chef, accountant, engineer, and nurse tell us some-

thing about a person’s specific knowledge, compe-

tencies, status, and values, which can serve as a

source of pride and identity for jobholders. Baron

and Bielby (1986: 563) suggest that organizations

often use job titles “to anchor workers’ identities,”

and Ashforth and Kreiner (1999: 417) argue that job

titles serve as “prominent identity badges.” Off the

job, when we meet people at parties or post per-

sonal information online, we share our job titles. In

this sense, job titles are important vehicles for iden-

tity expression and image construction, serving as

core prisms through which we present ourselves to

the world. As Ashforth and Kreiner (1999: 417)

explain, “in meeting a stranger, we often ask what

she or he does, and we expect to be asked the same

question.”

Despite the many benefits of job titles, they are

not always without problems for employees, and

can even be a source of frustration and stress. In

socially stigmatized jobs, for example, employees

may be reluctant to share their titles, which high-

light the most unpleasant elements of the work

(Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Wrzesniewski & Dutton,

2001). Even when job titles do not convey direct

negative cues, they may be ineffective in conveying

the competence and contributions of job incum-

bents. For example, in hospitals, many patients are

confused by the nurse practitioner title, which

does not clearly convey advanced training, special-

ized skills, and prescriptive authority. In the words

of one HR manager, it is often necessary to “clarify

what the [nurse practitioner] roles are, and what

the titles mean” (Reay, Golden-Biddle, & Germann,

2006: 987). Similarly, when one of the authors of

this article was an assistant professor, an executive

once asked, “Who do you assist, and when will you

get to teach your own classes and do your own

research?”

Given the close connection between our job titles

and our identities, job titles can affect the funda-

mental human motive to self-express—to commu-

nicate our identities and values to others (Brewer,

2009; Elsbach, 2003; Kreiner, Hollensbe, & Sheep,

2006; Swann, Polzer, Seyle, & Ko, 2004). Job titles

serve a self-expressive function, influencing whether

employees feel understood and accepted both in-

side and outside their work. In this way, job titles

are an artifact, or symbolic object (Rafaeli & Pratt,

2006), that sends signals about employees’ roles

and identities to themselves and to coworkers, cus-

tomers, friends, and family members. Although job

titles have received less scholarly attention than

other artifacts, such as possessions and attire

(Elsbach, 2003; Rafaeli & Pratt, 2006), titles are

important markers of an employee’s self-concept

because they convey meaningful status signals and

are used on a regular basis (Ashforth & Kreiner,

1999). To the extent that job titles enable employ-

ees to self-express, they may help employees chan-

nel their attention and energy more effectively,

have higher-quality interactions with others, and

better utilize their unique capabilities (Kahn, 1990;

Swann et al., 2004). This perspective is consistent

with Baron and Bielby’s (1986: 568) observation

that “specialized job titles often serve as ‘hedonic

wages,’” as they send external signals that are psy-

chologically rewarding to employees.

Recently, a growing body of research has docu-

mented the efforts that employees undertake to

self-express against the backdrop of standardized,

depersonalized work. For example, research on job

crafting suggests that employees often modify the

boundaries of their tasks to inject meaningful as-

pects of their identities into standardized jobs, en-

abling them to express their values, explore their

interests, and apply their skills (e.g., Berg, Grant, &

Johnson, 2010; Leana, Appelbaum, & Shevchuk,

2009; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Similarly, re-

search on work identities indicates that standard-

ized roles and norms can constrain self-expression

by creating identity threats (Elsbach, 2003) and

identity violations (Pratt, 2000). In response to these

threats and violations, employees frequently take the

initiative to engage in identity work, reframing their

roles by constructing customized work identities

(Pratt, Rockmann, & Kaufmann, 2006).

Because job titles usually carry deep social and

cultural meaning, the opportunity to create one’s

own job title may serve as a powerful starting point

for job crafting and identity work. In fact, some

employees have created their own self-reflective

job titles, which we define as a self-generated des-

ignation for a work role that is personalized to

capture the way an employee adds unique value to

the organization. For example, Berkshire Hatha-

way’s event organizer is known as its “director of

chaos,” Yahoo! spokesperson Heidi Burgett calls

herself the “Yahoo! evangelist,” a receptionist at

Matrix Group introduces herself as a “director of

first impressions,” and IBM employees have titles

such as “data detective” and “creative technolo-

gist.” Quicken Loans’ marketing and sales employ-

1202 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

ees hold titles of “energy focuser” and “revenue

raiser,” and at The Motley Fool, employees’ titles

include “people & culture poet” and “chief rabble

rouser of the highest order” (Kjerulf, 2008; Krecho-

wiecka, 2010; Weiss, 2006).

From an organizational perspective, the creation

of self-reflective job titles can be viewed as an iden-

tity movement (Rao, Monin, & Durand, 2003) on a

micro scale to change how self-concepts and roles

are viewed. Conceptually, self-reflective job titles

may create a bridge between employees’ desire for

authentic identity expression and organizational

imperatives for control and coordination. Over the

last two decades, self-reflective titles appear to be

increasingly widespread in organizations, perhaps

as a symptom of trends toward growing customiza-

tion of individual experiences in organizations

(Kimberly, Bouchikhi, & Craig, 2001). For example,

it is not uncommon for employees to take on idio-

syncratic jobs that lack existing titles (Miner, 1987)

and to negotiate idiosyncratic, personalized em-

ployment arrangements that make their jobs unique

and distinct from others’ jobs (Rousseau, Ho, &

Greenberg, 2006). Self-reflective titles also may be a

reaction to the flattening of organizational hierar-

chies (e.g., Ashford, George, & Blatt, 2007): as for-

malization and bureaucracy decrease, power distance

may be reduced, opening the door for employees to

supplement official status-signaling titles with more

personalized, creative titles. Lastly, it is possible that

self-reflective titles are fueled by the premium that

members of the Millennial generation place on self-

expression (Twenge, 2006).

What are the implications of self-reflective job

titles for employees’ experiences of work? To ad-

dress this question, we conducted an inductive

qualitative study at the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

We used interviews, observations, and archival doc-

uments to develop propositions about the mechanisms

through which creating and using self-reflective job

titles may reduce emotional exhaustion—the feel-

ing of lacking energy and being depleted, which is

the central feature of burnout (Maslach, Schaufeli,

& Leiter, 2001). We then tested these propositions

in a deductive quantitative study at a hospital, us-

ing a quasi-experiment to investigate the impact of

self-reflective job titles over time, and in compari-

son to two control groups. Taken together, our stud-

ies explain why self-reflective job titles may play a

surprisingly meaningful role in reducing emotional

exhaustion in stressful work settings. In contrast to

views of job titles as symbols of bureaucracy (Baron

& Bielby, 1986) or sources of stigma (Ashforth &

Kreiner, 1999), we propose that self-reflective job

titles can be developed and paired with formal job

titles as flexible vehicles for identity expression

and stress reduction. Our research offers novel in-

sights about burnout, identity, and artifacts, and we

begin unpacking these insights by presenting our in-

ductive qualitative study.

STUDY 1: THEORY-BUILDING WITH

QUALITATIVE DATA

We stumbled upon a fascinating opportunity to

study self-reflective job titles at the Make-A-Wish

Foundation (MAW), a nonprofit human service or-

ganization with the mission to “grant the wishes of

children with life-threatening medical conditions

and enrich the human experience with hope,

strength, and joy.” Since its founding in 1980,

MAW has grown into 69 active chapters that have

granted more than 167,000 wishes. Given their

nonprofit status, MAW chapters have limited re-

sources and are frequently understaffed. At the

same time, because they are a well-known and

highly visible nonprofit, they must be responsible

stewards of donations. As a result, the regional

chapters are subject to restrictions designed and

enforced by a national office. As explained by one

insider, “We’re part of a national organization,

there are administrative, bureaucratic kinds of

things that go on, and that can be draining, and get

in the way of things that are more important.” For

example, a national policy prohibits employees

from calling donors, even when emergency funds

are needed to act quickly enough to grant a wish

before a child passes away or is medically unable to

participate. Because MAW deals with children who

have life-threatening illnesses, many employees

develop relationships with children and families in

tragic conditions, console families after loss, and

manage their own feelings of overwhelming sad-

ness and grief.

Method

Our qualitative study focused on one of the

MAW chapters located in the Midwestern United

States, and is hereafter referred to as “MAW Mid-

west” or, simply, “Midwest.” At the time of our

research, Midwest employed 31 paid staff members

and worked annually with approximately 450 vol-

unteers. In a given year, approximately 800 chil-

dren in the region were eligible for wishes, but

Midwest typically only had the resources to grant

2014 1203Grant, Berg, and Cable

half of these wishes. Some of the children with

pending wishes did not survive long enough to see

them granted. One staff member explained, “We are

so busy, and we always have more kids in the

system waiting.”

Our first exposure to Midwest was through a

class research project in which two of the authors

volunteered their time to study Midwest’s practices

for recruiting and utilizing volunteers throughout

an academic semester. Through this initial study of

Midwest, we learned that the organization and its

senior leaders had launched several new initiatives

to foster a culture that suited MAW’s mission of

creating magical experiences for children—includ-

ing redecorating the office, espousing new values,

and inviting employees to create personalized job

titles. We were intrigued by these initiatives to

inject personalization into what is often somber,

serious work, and saw this as an opportunity to

explore an extreme case (Eisenhardt, 1989) of or-

ganizational change in an emotionally intense en-

vironment. Thus, we decided to further investigate

Midwest’s culture by designing an exploratory

qualitative study aimed at understanding the mean-

ings, uses, and consequences of these initiatives.

Data Collection

We gathered three different sources of qualitative

data: semi-structured interviews, non-participant

observation, and archival documents. We collected

our three sources of data over the two years follow-

ing our initial exposure to Midwest. Using a semi-

structured interview protocol, we conducted 22 in-

terviews with Midwest staff members, as well as

the president and CEO, board chair, and several

affiliated outsiders: volunteers, donors, employees

at other MAW chapters, and a freelance graphic

designer whose services were contracted by the

organization. In creating the protocol, we used

Kvale’s (1996) framework of conversational, quali-

tative interviewing as a guide to ensure that our

interviews elicited information relevant to our re-

search questions. Based on these guidelines, we

developed an open-ended interview protocol that

focused on (a) the work environment, (b) the emo-

tional challenges of the work, and (c) the steps

taken to deal with these challenges. Our initial set

of questions included: “How would you describe

the work environment here?”; “What are the major

emotional challenges you face in your job?”; “Have

you or others taken any steps to deal with these

challenges?”; and “If so, what have been the con-

sequences of these steps?”

Ultimately, in response to questions about the

emotional challenges of the work, each of the 22

Midwest employees we interviewed described the

experience of working at MAW as emotionally ex-

hausting. At the beginning of our research, the CEO

characterized the work as “emotionally taxing,”

and one employee confided that “people are kinda

burned out.” Another staff member stated that, as

MAW was a nonprofit dealing with severely ill

children, she was not surprised that “there’s a big

problem with burnout.” Others stated that the of-

fice had “a lot of burnout and personal strain” and

“the nature of the business lends itself to burnout.”

One staff member explained that:

[It’s difficult to] work with so many kids that are

sick . . . You don’t want to think about it all the time,

because it’s really, really sad. That’s the part that’s

most emotionally draining—thinking about what

these kids are going through, realizing that they’re in

and out of the doctor every day, and the strain that

it puts on the parents.

Another staff member echoed:

It can be very hard to deal with children who have

life threatening illnesses, which is just heart

wrenching. It can be very hard to watch them and

their families go through that. It can take a toll

emotionally to see this daily.

Another employee, after transitioning from vol-

unteer management to wish services, noticed that

“families have expectations that we will not be able

to meet, and that can be an emotional challenge.”

In our interviews with Midwest employees, self-

reflective titles emerged as a prominent theme and

the most salient and potent initiative among those

discussed by participants. We learned that approx-

imately a year and a half before our study began,

the CEO and a few Midwest senior leaders had

attended a development conference at Disneyland.

During a presentation, they learned that Disney

employees were described as “cast members,” and

many had invented their own job titles to describe

their unique values, identities, personalities, and

talents. After attending the conference, the CEO

and other leaders were interested in the idea of

self-reflective titles and decided to implement it in

their own office.

To align with MAW’s mission of bringing joy, the

CEO deliberately selected a lighthearted title—

“fairy godmother of wishes”—that would make

people smile. She invited all employees to create

1204 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

their own “fun title” to supplement (but not re-

place) their formal title, and emphasized that em-

ployees had the freedom to personalize a title that

reflected their most important roles and identities

in the organization. Examples of titles that they

chose include “minister of dollars and sense”

(COO), “goddess of greetings” (administrative as-

sistant), “magic messenger” and “heralder of happy

news” (PR managers), “duchess of data” (database

manager), and “wizardess of wishes” and “merry

memory maker” (wish managers). Employees re-

ceived business cards that featured their new titles

alongside their formal titles, the new titles were

added to the chapter’s website, and employees ex-

panded their email signatures to include their new

titles below their official titles.

The leaders who facilitated this initiative framed

the titles to employees as an opportunity to express

themselves in a playful and lighthearted way—they

did not frame the titles as a means for reducing

stress or emotional exhaustion in particular. How-

ever, in our first six interviews, without being

prompted by us, all of the participants not only

mentioned that the self-reflective titles had become

an important and meaningful initiative in the or-

ganization, but also that the titles helped them cope

with the emotional challenges of their work. Sur-

prised—and a bit skeptical—we followed guide-

lines for inductive research (Glaser & Strauss, 1967)

and added questions focusing on the emergent

theme of self-reflective titles, including: “How and

when do you use your personalized job title?” and

“How do you think having this job title affects your

experience at work?” Since the interviews were

designed to be exploratory, we posed open-ended

follow-up questions to probe for more information

when responses were relevant to our themes of

interest. To foster a balanced perspective, when

participants only mentioned positive implications

of the self-reflective titles, the interviewer asked:

“Have you encountered any challenges or negative

consequences associated with the personalized titles?

If so, can you please describe them?” The interviews

lasted between 35 and 115 minutes each.

In addition to interviews, we conducted 23 hours

of observation, which included attending staff

meetings and MAW events, as well as observing

employees carrying out daily tasks. For the inter-

views and observations, we alternated between vis-

its as a team and as individuals to balance conver-

gent and divergent perspectives (Eisenhardt, 1989).

We tape-recorded and transcribed the interviews

and took detailed field notes during the observa-

tions. We also obtained over 100 archival docu-

ments, including mission statements, chapter

newsletters, event invitations, weblogs, and meet-

ing announcements and agendas. These observa-

tions and documents informed how—and how of-

ten—employees used their self-reflective titles.

Data Analysis

We used an inductive analytic approach that in-

volved taking iterative steps between the data, ex-

isting literature, and a developing set of theoretical

ideas (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Strauss & Corbin,

1990). We began our analysis by holding regular

meetings to discuss key themes, concepts, and re-

lationships, using the interview data as the primary

driver of our theorizing and supplementing these

data with our field notes and archival documents.

Through these discussions, we developed a general

conceptual model and a set of theoretical proposi-

tions to explain patterns gleaned from the data. Our

analysis unfolded in three main phases; insights

gleaned from the data led us to transition to each

new phase (see Figure 1).

Phase 1. Because our initial intent was to study

organizational change in an emotionally challeng-

ing context, we began our analysis by culling all the

quotes from the interviews that related to a change

initiative within Midwest. As we had noticed dur-

ing the interviews, self-reflective titles were the

most prominent change initiative mentioned. In

support of this notion, our observations and collec-

tion of archival documents suggested that, along

with their formal titles, many employees made

widespread use of their self-reflective titles—not

only on their business cards, but also in internal

memos, letters to wish families, and emails and

phone calls with volunteers and vendors. To ex-

plore this theme further, we focused on the inter-

view quotes in which participants discussed self-

reflective titles and their experiences with them.

In searching for themes within these quotes, we

noticed that nearly all the participants described

how self-reflective titles helped reduce their emo-

tional exhaustion. For example, an employee dis-

cussed how having the self-reflective titles “just

makes [work] easier and cushions the blow a little

bit and keeps things inspiring.” Although the psy-

chological benefits of self-reflective job titles that

employees described seemed somewhat implausi-

ble at first, our initial uncertainty waned after many

hours of interviews in which employees made

spontaneous comments about the value of self-

2014 1205Grant, Berg, and Cable

reflective titles as a way to cope with stress in a

heart-wrenching environment, as well as observa-

tions in which we witnessed clients and donors

responding enthusiastically to the titles. In partic-

ular, we noticed that the link between self-reflec-

tive titles and reducing emotional exhaustion was

salient and consistent in the data, and we were

struck by the range of different ways in which

participants described self-reflective titles as help-

ing to mitigate their emotional exhaustion. Thus,

we decided to delve more deeply into the relation-

ship between self-reflective titles and emotional

exhaustion, which led to the second phase of our

analysis.

Phase 2. To unpack how participants described

the link between self-reflective titles and emotional

exhaustion, we began categorizing the quotes that

mentioned the relationship between them. This ex-

cluded data that separately referenced self-reflec-

tive titles or emotional exhaustion, allowing us to

zoom in on the relationship between the titles and

exhaustion. We used an open coding approach,

categorizing these quotes into first-order codes by

grouping statements with similar key words and

themes related to how self-reflective titles influ-

ence emotional exhaustion (Gioia, Thomas, Clark,

& Chittipeddi, 1994; Van Maanen, 1979). For exam-

ple, a quote explaining that the titles “are a conver-

sation starter...that helps ease the tension” was

grouped with a quote about how the titles “draw

people in because they create interest . . . [which]

makes the conversation less stressful.” After sev-

eral iterations, we settled on a set of first-order

codes that enabled us to categorize the vast major-

FIGURE 1

Study 1: Coding Process for Mechanisms

Phase 1

Searched for

themes in data

about all change

initiatives at

MAW Midwest.

Identiﬁed self-

reﬂective titles and

reduced emotional

exhaustion as most

salient theme

Phase 2

Open coding of data on

link between self-

reﬂective titles and

emotional exhaustion.

Aggregate Codes:

Opportunities for self-expression

(e.g., feels unique, allows people

to be themselves, mix of personal

and professional selves, feel

special)

Feelings of self-afﬁrmation

(e.g., reinforces who I am, make

you proud, feel a lot of pride,

positive impact on self-esteem)

Increased comfort with others

(e.g., disarms people, feel more

comfortable with each other, more

at ease, making people

comfortable)

Reduced power distance across

hierarchical lines

(e.g., allows more freedom to

speak up, not be intimidated,

allowing barriers to be broken)

Increased interpersonal

engagement

(e.g., conversation starter, created

curiosity, makes them wonder,

serves as an icebreaker, opens up

dialogue)

Enthusiasm from others

(e.g., get positive responses, other

people get really excited, make

people smile, people in business

love it, helps people smile)

Realized identity

expression was

prominent across

aggregate codes

Phase 3

Searched for identity-related

themes across aggregate

codes.

Identity-Related Mechanisms

Construct Label

-Identity afﬁrmation with

regard to the self

Self-Veriﬁcation

-Identity accommodation with

regard to the work

environment

Psychological Safety

-Identity utilization with

regard to external interactions

External Rapport

1206 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

ity of the data into six aggregate codes, which rep-

resented different ways in which employees de-

scribed the relationship between self-reflective

titles and reduced emotional exhaustion (see Fig-

ure 1).

Phase 3. Next, we met to discuss patterns across

the six aggregate codes, iterating between the data

and existing theoretical ideas. As we worked with

the data, we realized that the six aggregate codes

and most of the statements in them described dif-

ferent ways in which self-reflective titles provide a

vehicle for identity expression. For example, an

employee described how having the self-reflective

titles “really allows people to be themselves,”

which was coded under the “increased comfort

with others” aggregate code. Another quote coded

under “increased interpersonal engagement” men-

tioned that the self-reflective titles “make every-

body more real.”

The recognition that identity expression was a

meta-theme across much of the data led us to

search for patterns and similarities between the six

aggregate codes with identity expression in mind.

After several iterations, we grouped the six aggre-

gate codes into three broader categories based on

their relation to employees’ identities and the prin-

cipal focus of the identity expression. These

broader categories included: (1) identity affirma-

tion with regard to the self (opportunities for self-

expression and feelings of self-affirmation); (2)

identity accommodation with regard to the work

environment (increased comfort with others and

reduced power distance); and (3) identity utiliza-

tion with regard to external interactions (increased

interpersonal engagement and enthusiasm from

others). These three categories allowed us to cap-

ture the vast majority of the statements in the six

aggregate codes, and only excluded a few state-

ments that were too general to fit these three iden-

tity-related categories (e.g., “The titles are just fun

and joyful.”).

Lastly, we revisited the literature to search for

constructs that were relevant to the theoretical

mechanisms described in each of the three identity-

related categories. This led us to label the identity

affirmation mechanism as “self-verification,” the

identity accommodation mechanism as “psycho-

logical safety,” and the identity utilization mecha-

nism as “external rapport.” With these three theo-

retical concepts in mind, we revisited the original

interviews, field notes, and archival documents to

make sure we did not miss any relevant data. Two

of the authors independently coded the data for the

presence of these three concepts, with an agree-

ment rate of 87%, and we resolved discrepancies

through discussions. Only three quotes were coded

in two categories, and no quotes were coded in all

three categories. As a whole, this process enabled

us to ground our theorizing in the data and identify

areas in which our findings overlapped with and

extended beyond the existing literature—we detail

the more specific nuances and richness of the three

mechanisms in the section below. Lastly, we orga-

nized our qualitative findings into theoretical prop-

ositions, which we unfold next and then test quan-

titatively in Study 2.

Findings

The general theme that self-reflective titles

helped employees cope with emotional exhaustion

was highly salient within our interviews, and

ended up being mentioned by 85% of participants.

The self-reflective job titles became an artifact that

took on a different and perhaps more significant

meaning in the organization than what the leaders

who initiated the “fun titles” originally articulated.

The titles reminded employees of the MAW

cause—why they put themselves through these

stressful experiences every day. A volunteering co-

ordinator explained:

It is exhausting to do some of this work . . . to keep

your energy up, these things really help...[the

self-reflective title] is a reminder to me that we are

here to be happy and bring joy. The negative feelings

don’t last long because it encourages positive think-

ing. It brings your mind back to the good side of life.

It makes me put everything into perspective.

In this way, the titles appeared to help employees

engage in cognitive reappraisal (Lazarus & Folk-

man, 1984), defusing stress by deploying attention

to the more meaningful and rewarding elements of

their jobs (Grandey, 2000; Gross, 1998). Employees

appeared to interpret their self-reflective titles as a

buffer that helped them deal with the solemnity

and gravity of their work, enabling them to focus on

how their jobs benefit others (Grant, 2007, 2008).

As a volunteer services manager conveyed, “You go

through these hard times, and [the title] makes the

situation more lighthearted.” A wish manager cor-

roborated that her title “puts things in perspective:

this is why I do what I do.” Several other employ-

ees highlighted how the titles “help prevent the

staff from burning out” and function to “keep ev-

erybody’s spirits up...We’re working with ill

2014 1207Grant, Berg, and Cable

children, and, obviously, that’s saddening.” Even

external constituents noticed the positive effects of

the self-reflective titles. A freelance graphic de-

signer stated:

The staff totally love the fun titles; different people

have told me that...Ithink it has a positive impact

on their self-esteem and who they are . . . It’s a lot of

stress to be constantly fundraising and to pull rab-

bits out of a hat to create miracles for kids...Ithink

it’s a stress reliever.

A wish training manager underscored that her

title “helps you realize that, although this is a se-

vere situation, you can still focus on the joy that is

left. Staff may have a hard time doing this if they

didn’t have these titles.” In summary, participants

described how self-reflective titles helped them re-

frame their stressful, emotional work in ways that

remind them of its purpose and significance, and of

the unique value they bring to the organization and

to the people they serve. As such, for reasons on

which we will elaborate in the following sections,

we started to learn about ways that self-reflective

titles may help employees ameliorate emotional

fatigue.

Proposition 1. Self-reflective job titles reduce

emotional exhaustion.

In addition to this general relationship, our in-

ductive findings shed light on three identity-re-

lated mechanisms through which self-reflective

titles mitigate emotional exhaustion: self-verification,

psychological safety, and external rapport. Self-ver-

ification captures the affirmation of one’s identity

by others, psychological safety captures the accom-

modation to more freely express one’s identity in-

side the organization, and external rapport captures

the strong interpersonal connection that can be fos-

tered by the utilization of one’s identity in initial

interactions with outsiders. We discuss each of

these three mechanisms below, and Table 1 in-

cludes additional illustrative quotes.

Identity affirmation: The self-verification mech-

anism. One mechanism that emerged from our in-

terviews was that self-reflective titles reduced emo-

tional exhaustion through the affirmation of one’s

identity within the organization. This mechanism

was discussed by 69% of the interviewees. In es-

sence, employees described how the self-reflective

titles provided opportunities to experience self-ver-

ification, expressing their identities in ways that

are recognized and validated by others (e.g., Cable

& Kay, 2012; Swann, 1983). Participants described

self-reflective titles as a means for verifying valued

aspects of their identities, and, in turn, these feel-

ings of self-verification served as a buffer against

emotional exhaustion. As the CEO explained, “The

titles make you proud . . . It makes everybody more

real. Employees take ownership over their titles—

they say, ‘This is who I am . . .’ It helps you be

comfortable with yourself.”

In this sense, self-reflective job titles can be

viewed as boundary objects (Star & Griesemer,

1989), functioning as artifacts that can help align

employees’ self-views with how others see them.

Participants described how self-reflective titles not

only enabled them to express meaningful aspects of

their identities, but also to have their identities

understood and affirmed by others (Elsbach, 2003).

As a wish manager articulated:

When I tell people [my title], they say, “That’s so

you—it fits you so well.” You fit right in there . . . It

makes you want to come into work . . . If [the titles]

didn’t happen, we wouldn’t know each other as

well. I don’t think it would be as personal for some

people . . . It would decrease the morale of the staff.

We work really hard...[and] I think people would

be more burned out.

Similarly, a development team leader explained

how using her self-reflective title gave her the

chance to bring her personal identity to work, not

only her professional identity as a fundraiser, help-

ing her cope with emotional challenges:

My title at first was great and fun and light. I guess

now I don’t think about it—that is just who I am

now . . . It affects my feelings about work because

I am appreciative, not all about business all the

time . . . I feel like a lot of people have their profes-

sional and personal self, but there is more of a mix of

the two here at MAW . . . Getting news about our

wish kids and their battles or losing their battles...is

hard to bear for all of us. We try to focus on giving

these kids or families a lasting memory and cement

some family experiences...[this initiative] is what

allows us to do what we do.

From the standpoint of cognitive reappraisal the-

ory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984), employees seemed

to use the titles as a vehicle for attention deploy-

ment (Grandey, 2000; Gross, 1998), shifting their

focus to the sources of personal significance that

make their stressful jobs worthwhile. Studies sug-

gest that expressing one’s identity creates a buffer

against stressors (Britt & Bliese, 2003): self-verifica-

tion can reduce stress by enabling employees to put

negative events in context and interpret them in

1208 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

light of their values (Creswell, Welch, Taylor, Sher-

man, Gruenewald, & Mann, 2007; Sherman & Co-

hen, 2006). The manager of operations, who was

initially skeptical of the fun titles, described how

her title imbues her work with personal meaning,

enabling others to understand and appreciate her

role and thus helping to stave off emotional

exhaustion:

I would describe myself as the “accountant type,”

where, if something sounds or seems silly to me,

then I wouldn’t be comfortable with that. But being

considered “keeper of keys and grounds” doesn’t

sound silly to me. It gives a pretty good visual of

what I do. It is actually the title of Hagrid from Harry

Potter and I love those stories so it has a little extra

meaning for me...[The titles] allow staff to get to

know each other better. If we didn’t have [them], I

think we would have higher staff turnover...peo-

ple would get burned out.

Identity accommodation: The psychological

safety mechanism. Whereas employees described

how self-verification serves an intrapersonal func-

tion in enabling them to deploy their attention to

the meaningful elements of stressful work, employ-

ees also expressed that their self-reflective job titles

served an interpersonal function. In particular, em-

TABLE 1

Study 1: Illustrations of Mechanisms

Mechanism Quotations

Self-verification My fun title is “minister of dollars and sense.” I feel special when people see the name; I love being introduced as

that. Makes you feel a lot of pride and joy . . . It helps to give me purpose and...want to come to work in the

morning.

(Chief operating officer)

We have our fun titles, and everyone has the opportunity to consider their title and come up with something that

means something to them . . . My magical title is “lady of laughter and giggles.” The most meaningful and fun

thing for me is to hear a child giggle. It brings me up, and makes me feel good, and makes me realize why we are

doing this...Ithink it’s unique. I really do feel that having fun and laughing at work is something that needs to

happen, and you can’t just sit around and be serious all the time. The work we do is very serious because we

have to operate as a business, but you can have fun at the same time. Just having my fun name out there is

something that makes me giggle inside and it just adds to that positive environment.

(Wish training manager)

Psychological

safety

In terms of working with other people in the office, [the titles] create this fun atmosphere, this open atmosphere

where you can really talk about different issues. They encourage you to speak up if something’s bothering you,

and it gets you on a little bit more of a personal level with other people, in those times when it’s not all about

work.

(Wish manager)

It allows...people to feel comfortable with each other. There is not really a hierarchy of staff and we are all the

same plane...that removes some pressures...Ijust think it allows you more freedom to speak up and not be

intimidated by the leadership. You feel more like an equal and that your voice is valued. We are much more

willing to listen to each other.

(Operations manager)

External rapport My title is “royal ambassador of really cool kids.” I love it. It makes people smile, and, if not, it will make them

wonder—I think it’s unique . . . You had to come up with something about what you do, your personality, and

what reflects your job. I like the fact that, when someone new comes into a position, they don’t get the same

title—they have to come up with a title of their own. It creates curiosity in the recipient of the email and it’s a

conversation starter, and it’s clear that we are here to have fun.

(Wish services liaison)

When you tell other people, they say, “That’s really cool!” I work in such an awesome environment, and,

oftentimes, people don’t realize it until they talk with others outside. It lightens up the seriousness of our work,

of the children’s conditions . . . One contractor was really influenced by the playfulness of it. He said, “I can’t

wait to work with the ‘princess of magical dreams’” and was really enthusiastic. He ended up donating all of his

time.

(Wish manager)

2014 1209Grant, Berg, and Cable

ployees described how the titles changed their per-

ceptions of the relational climate inside the organ-

ization to accommodate freer information sharing.

Specifically, our interviews suggested that, for many

employees (77%), the titles created a sense of psycho-

logical safety to express their identities. Psycholo-

gical safety is the degree to which employees feel

comfortable taking interpersonal risks (Edmond-

son, 1999).

Midwest employees’ accounts suggested that

self-reflective titles can enhance feelings of psycho-

logical safety by breaking down status barriers.

They described how creating and using a self-re-

flective title opens the door for colleagues to view

one another as human beings, not merely role oc-

cupants. By displaying one’s unique values, a self-

reflective title signals a willingness to be vulnera-

ble, encouraging others to view the titleholder as an

equal who is fallible and forgivable. In turn, these

feelings of psychological safety may allow employ-

ees to feel comfortable seeking help and support

from others (Edmondson, 1999; Tynan, 2005),

which is known to be an important strategy for

gaining valuable resources and thus mitigating ex-

haustion (Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004; Le Blanc,

Hox, Schaufeli, & Taris, 2007). The CEO provided

insight into how self-reflective titles helped foster

psychological safety by downplaying hierarchical

differences between employees, and how these

feelings of comfort mitigate emotional exhaustion:

Every single solitary person on the planet has a

story, and [the titles] help you keep that in perspec-

tive, because everybody has something . . . It human-

izes everyone...[and] makes people more comfort-

able . . . It removes some of the power—it’s no longer

“I’m up here, you’re down there.” It breaks down

barriers and allows a genuine conversation...[and]

creates a warm, welcoming, loving environment for

everybody so that people feel comfortable...What

we’re doing is so intense . . . you have to create a fun

and supportive place for people to feel comfortable

so that when they’re faced with a tragic situation,

they can deal with it.

Employees described how self-reflective titles

send a symbolic message that it is safe to take

interpersonal risks and open up in sharing their

problems with one another, easing stress within the

organization. For example, one employee remarked

that, “Having permission to take up fun titles . . . It

helps to feel more at ease with other coworkers [by]

allowing some barriers to be broken...that envi-

ronment encourages people to lay their difficulties

on the table and try to work things out together.” A

volunteer services manager elaborated:

At first, it took a little while to get used to, coming

from a much more business-oriented nonprofit. Af-

ter I got used to the title, I really appreciated it...

[it] reminds you that the environment is not so

strict . . . The titles have a way of affecting every-

one’s thought process—people are much more open

to ideas . . . It keeps the stress level lower than what

it could be—makes it much easier to interact with one

another and connect due to everyone being

open-minded.

Identity utilization: The external rapport mech-

anism. Whereas employees’ descriptions of the

self-verification and psychological safety mecha-

nisms were about expressing one’s identity within

the organization, their descriptions of the external

rapport mechanism were about expressing—and

utilizing—one’s identity in initial interactions with

those outside the organization. In particular, most

participants (85%) mentioned the self-reflective ti-

tles facilitating rapport— defined as the experience

of smooth, positive interactions with others (Berni-

eri, Gillis, Davis, & Grahe, 1996)— by enabling them

to express their identities in ways that created en-

joyable interactions with outsiders. As the CFO

explained, a self-reflective title serves as “an ice-

breaker for people we meet; it opens up dialogue.”

Employees described how increased external

rapport in turn helped to reduce their emotional

exhaustion. To create joy for wish children and

families, employees felt obligated to put on a smile

even when they were stressed, depressed, sad,

grieving, or dealing with frustrating situations. The

rapport cultivated by self-reflective titles helped

employees to feel more enthusiastic about their

external interactions, which made these interac-

tions more authentic and less stressful. As a wish

manager articulated:

We have some magic inside of us. I think having the

fun titles gives us an outlet for that. There’s nothing

better to meet someone new and say, “I’m a wish

manager, also known as a fairy tale pixie.” It opens

up conversation, “Oh, what does a fairy tale pixie

do?” Sometimes vendors that I work with to try to

get donations will see it in my email and write, “I

hope your wings don’t get wet, Pixie—it’s raining.”

It gives you a little me pick-me-up when you hear

that; it’s fun, unexpected, and enjoyable.

In essence, employees described the self-reflec-

tive titles as useful in the early phases of interac-

tions with outsiders, enabling them to inject their

1210 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

identities in a more personal way, which estab-

lishes a smoother, stronger, and more pleasant dy-

namic for the remainder of the interaction. A de-

velopment team leader explained:

The title is like you can almost have a little super-

hero cape on and it disarms people when they hear

these titles. Most people love to hear these titles, it’s

fun, different, and magic to these people—they want

to be a part of it. It empowers people to have fun and

to translate that fun to the community . . . it just

makes [work] easier and cushions the blow a little

bit and keeps things inspiring.

Similarly, a training manager observed that “just

having my name out there,” for people to see,

“makes me laugh throughout the day.” The CEO

described how self-reflective titles help foster ex-

ternal rapport not only for employees, but also for

her, making her own interactions with outsiders

less stressful and more enjoyable:

Some people thought the titles were too silly. But

when they get really positive responses from cards

and emails, other people saying “We want a title,

too,” they get really excited. It reinforces it. I can’t

tell you how many of our families love it. The CFO,

his title is ‘king of cashola.’ If you’re a fundraiser,

people know you’re asking for money, so why not

have it? I find that people in business love it...

They make people smile...I’ve used my title in a

media interview. When someone asks me, “As pres-

ident and CEO of the Make-A-Wish Foundation,

how do you feel about this?”, I say, “Yes, but I’m

also known as the ‘fairy godmother of wishes.’” It

opens the door for conversation—“really, tell me

more?” It allows a way to engage. It breaks the ice,

and it elicits a positive response . . . It helps you start

the conversation.

The connection between external rapport and re-

duced emotional exhaustion that emerged in our

data is congruent with evidence that positive reac-

tions from others can reduce strain (Côté, 2005;

Gremler & Gwinner, 2000). By eliciting enthusiasm

from wish families, donors, and business partners,

the self-reflective titles appeared to make interac-

tions with outsiders less stressful and more enjoy-

able. As a wish manager conveyed, sharing her title

with outsiders naturally “puts a smile on your face

and a twinkle in your eye.”

Taken together, the insights gleaned from this

qualitative study suggest that self-verification, psy-

chological safety, and external rapport each help

explain how self-reflective titles reduce emotional

exhaustion. Thus, in the language of quantitative

research, we propose:

Proposition 2. The effect of self-reflective job

titles on emotional exhaustion is partially me-

diated by (a) self-verification, (b) psychological

safety, and (c) external rapport.

Summary and Limitations

Our qualitative research with MAW employees

revealed three psychological mechanisms through

which employees described self-reflective job titles

as reducing their emotional exhaustion. Although

these mechanisms are grounded in the experiences

of employees in an extremely emotional setting,

this initial investigation is subject to several limi-

tations that make our qualitative data better suited

to building theory than testing theory. First, to de-

velop our model, we relied on employees’ own

accounts of exhaustion being influenced by the ti-

tles, which may indicate their lay theories without

corresponding to how their experiences actually

unfold. To provide a stringent empirical test of the

conceptual model and support causal inferences, it

is ideal to use experimental data with validated

measures of key variables at multiple points in time

and multiple control groups (Cook & Camp-

bell, 1979).

Second, because the Make-A-Wish Foundation

represents an extreme environment in terms of cop-

ing and burnout, we wanted to examine the gener-

alizability of the results in another human service

environment. Moreover, the benefits articulated by

employees may be circumscribed to settings in

which interactions with children, or the need for

playfulness, are defining features of the work. To

ascertain whether the effects of self-reflective titles

generalize to employees’ experiences in other set-

tings where playfulness is not emphasized, and to

examine the relative effects of the mediating vari-

ables in a more controlled statistical investigation,

we collected quantitative data in a more conven-

tional organizational context.

STUDY 2: THEORY TESTING WITH

QUANTITATIVE DATA

In this study, we sought to test the conceptual

framework that we developed with our qualitative

research, while addressing some of the key limita-

tions of Study 1. Our aim was to close the loop in

full-cycle research (Chatman & Flynn, 2005; Cial-

dini, 1980; Fine & Elsbach, 2000) by moving from

theory building to theory testing. We designed a

quasi-experiment to examine our propositions in

2014 1211Grant, Berg, and Cable

the context of a health care system. We invited

employees at the experimental sites to develop self-

reflective titles, while employees at pure control

sites had no intervention at all, and employees at a

third set of control sites experienced an alternative

intervention. At all sites, we measured emotional

exhaustion, self-verification, psychological safety,

and external rapport in surveys before and after the

interventions.

Method

Participants, design, and procedures. To exam-

ine self-reflective titles as an intervention that

could reduce emotional exhaustion, it was neces-

sary to start with a context in which employees

were likely to experience sufficiently high baseline

levels of exhaustion to prevent floor effects from

masking changes. We again focused on a human

and social service setting, since these occupations

have high rates of emotional exhaustion due to

frequent, emotionally intense interactions with cli-

ents (Maslach et al., 2001). We selected a health

care system in the southeast of the U.S.A., as ex-

tensive research literature shows that emotional

exhaustion is particularly acute in hospital settings

(e.g., Duquette, Kérouac, Sandhu, & Beaudet, 1994;

Prins, Gazendam-Donofrio, Tubben, van der Hei-

jden, van de Wiel, & Hoekstra-Weebers, 2007).

Working with senior managers, we identified

nine different research sites within the organiza-

tion, constituting 224 potential participants. We

sent an online survey measuring our focal variables

to all prospective participants, using self-generated

identification codes (Yurek, Vasey, & Havens,

2008). These codes allowed us to link participants’

pretest and posttest responses, but conferred ano-

nymity by providing no identifying information

that could trace responses back to participants,

which increases the probability of honest responses

(Kearney, Hopkins, Mauss, & Weisheit, 1984). We

received a total of 169 completed surveys, for an

initial response rate of 75%.

At that point, we randomly divided the sites into

three different groups, seeking to achieve approxi-

mately equal numbers of potential participants in

each group. To do so, we used a stratified random

assignment procedure in which we listed the nine

sites in order from largest to smallest, and then

alternated the three conditions so that each condi-

tion included multiple sites and similar numbers of

potential participants, subject to proximity be-

tween sites so that all participants could attend a

single session in each of the two planned treat-

ment groups. To prevent treatment implementation

threats such as diffusion and rivalry (Cook & Camp-

bell, 1979), we selected sites at which participants

had no contact with sites in other treatment condi-

tions. We assigned three sites (n ! 55) to the ex-

perimental group to create self-reflective job titles,

and we assigned four sites (n ! 64) to serve as the

pure control group. The remaining two sites (n !

50) served as a nonequivalent control group. All

three conditions involved family practices that fea-

tured similar jobs and offered a wide range of ser-

vices to comparable patient groups, including ur-

gent and acute care, primary care, infant, pediatric

and geriatric care, chronic disease management,

gynecological care, sports medicine, and minor

surgery.

In the experimental group, two members of the

research team gave a 10-minute presentation about

the use of self-reflective job titles at the Make-A-

Wish Foundation and other organizations, and then

invited employees to begin brainstorming about

possibilities for their own titles. Some representa-

tive examples included: germ slayer (physician

who deals with infectious diseases), quick shot

(nurse who gives allergy shots to children), bone

seeker (x-ray technician), physical fitter (schedul-

ing assistant), and connector (patient services rep-

resentative). We then facilitated a discussion about

when and how it might be appropriate to use the

titles in interactions with coworkers and patients.

The new self-reflective titles would be used as em-

ployees felt was appropriate, in addition to keeping

their existing titles—which they also could use as

they deemed appropriate.

We included a nonequivalent control group to

strengthen our design by ruling out a key rival

explanation for effects that might be observed

within the self-reflective titles group. Specifically,

the internal validity of quasi-experimental designs

is often threatened by the fact that treatment and

pure control groups differ not only in terms of the

content of the intervention, but also the process of

carrying out the intervention, which makes it diffi-

cult to identify the causal ingredients responsible

for observed effects (Cook & Campbell, 1979; Grant

& Wall, 2009). As implied by early research on the

Hawthorne effect (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939),

it is possible that attention from managers and re-

searchers, not the titles themselves, would affect

employees’ experiences. To address this threat to

internal validity, we designed an alternative inter-

vention in which employees received equivalent

1212 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

amounts of time and attention from managers and

researchers, but did not create self-reflective titles.

Thus, in both treatment groups, two senior manag-

ers invited employees from participating sites to a

conference room over a meal, where the researchers

conducted an hour-long session. The interventions

occurred on the same day, and participants in each

group did not know about the design or the other

intervention.

In the nonequivalent control group, the same two

members of the research team invited employees to

conduct a role-play exercise that mirrored three key

features of the titles workshop: relevance to a

health care setting, an engaging, entertaining atmo-

sphere, and actionable ideas to take back to work.

Participants divided into pairs and conducted the

“Carolina Blue Tree” negotiation developed by

Robert Adler (2007). Both participants need chem-

icals from a rare tree to save children’s lives, and

most pairs agreed to split the trees so that each

participant could save half of their children. Only a

few pairs arrived at the solution: one needs chem-

icals that are found in the roots of the trees,

whereas the other needs chemicals from the leaves,

so they can save everyone.

We discussed why people often fail to express

which part of the tree they need and fail to ask what

their counterparts need: they assume that their

counterparts have the exact same interests as their

own. Then, we facilitated an interactive dialogue

about steps that participants could take to facilitate

the discovery of hidden and shared interests at the

hospital. Among the ideas generated were encour-

aging people to introduce themselves by describing

an interesting personal detail or hobby, holding

more icebreaker events at team-building sessions,

and using the tree exercise itself at these sessions.

Afterward, several employees inquired about run-

ning this exercise in their own departments, and

we made it available to all attendees. The atmo-

sphere was sufficiently entertaining that our key

liaison at the hospital, who attended the titles

workshop earlier in the day, remarked that this

group appeared more interested in the session and

might benefit more than the titles group. In sum-

mary, this workshop created a fair comparison

(Cooper & Richardson, 1986) by providing equal

contact with managers and researchers, an enter-

taining experience, and concrete steps to take upon

returning to work, but no opportunity to create

self-reflective titles. In the pure control group, em-

ployees were not contacted for a workshop.

Five weeks after the interventions, we sent an-

other online survey to all 169 employees who par-

ticipated in the first survey. We selected this time

interval of five weeks for two reasons. First, it was

a sufficiently long period of time to rule out the

fadeout effects of 1–3 weeks that are common in

quasi-experiments on reducing emotional exhaus-

tion (e.g., Westman & Eden, 1997). Second, it was a

sufficiently short period of time to prevent a large

number of history threats—alternative interven-

tions or events occurring in one group but not an-

other—from limiting the internal validity of our

design (Cook & Campbell, 1979).

We received Time 2 survey responses from 121

participants. However, 37 surveys were incom-

plete—participants did not provide identification

codes or respond to our key variables—and we

were unable to match the self-generated identifica-

tion codes of 8 participants across the two points in

time. This resulted in a final sample of 76 partici-

pants (45% response rate), which comprised 31

employees in the job titles group, 18 in the pure

control group, and 27 in the nonequivalent control

group. Eighty-nine percent of participants were fe-

male, with a median age range of 35–39, an average

tenure in the organization of 5.10 years (SD ! 3.58)

and in their current jobs of 3.43 years (SD ! 3.15),

with an average workweek of 42 hours (SD ! 4.78).

They worked as patient services representatives

(37%), medical technicians and assistants (21%),

account supervisors and administrative support

employees (16%), nurses (11%), physicians (10%),

and managers (4%).

Measures. We assessed all of our variables in

both the pretest and posttest surveys. We measured

emotional exhaustion with the Maslach Burnout

Inventory (Maslach & Jackson, 1981), which in-

cluded items such as “I feel burned out from my

work” and “I feel emotionally drained from my

work” (T1

! .90, T2

! .94). We measured

self-verification with the scale developed by Wi-

esenfeld, Swann, Brockner, and Bartel (2007), in-

cluding items such as “I feel that people at work

understand who I am” and “In this organization,

other people see me as I see myself” (T1

! .81, T2

! .81). We measured psychological safety with

Edmondson’s (1999) scale, including items such as

“People in this organization sometimes reject me

for being different” (reverse-coded) and “In work-

ing with other people in this organization, my

unique skills and talents are valued and utilized”

(T1

! .79, T2

! .83). We measured external

rapport with items adapted from Bernieri et al.

2014 1213Grant, Berg, and Cable

(1996), including “I have excellent rapport with

patients” and “I make a great first impression on

patients” (T1

! .91, T2

! .90).

At the end of the posttest survey, we presented

open-ended questions to employees in the self-re-

flective titles group, asking if they use their titles,

how they feel about them, and how others react. In

total, 61% of these employees described specific

ways in which they used their titles, indicating that

the titles training lasted at least six weeks after

employees generated their titles. Employees re-

ported using their titles in three types of situations:

introducing themselves to patients, bonding with

coworkers, and defusing stressful situations—such

as when a doctor is late, a patient is angry, or a

child is nervous about a painful procedure. Repre-

sentative quotes about title use appear in Figure 2,

along with responses that illustrate our mediating

mechanisms.

Results

Nonresponse bias. To assess the impact of non-

response bias, we followed steps recommended by

Rogelberg and Stanton (2007). We first conducted

an archival analysis by comparing participants who

responded only to the first survey with participants

who responded to both surveys on our measured

variables. Independent-samples t-tests showed that

respondents and nonrespondents to the second sur-

vey did not differ significantly at pretest in emo-

tional exhaustion (t ! .20, n.s.), self-verification

(t !".35, n.s.), psychological safety (t ! .35, n.s.),

or external rapport (t !"1.43, n.s.). Furthermore,

respondents and nonrespondents did not differ sig-

nificantly in age (t ! .86, n.s.), hours worked per

week (t !".58, n.s.), organizational tenure (t !

1.26, n.s.), job tenure (t ! 1.24, n.s.), or gender

(

! 2.04, n.s.). These results cast doubt on the

possibility that substantive variables and demo-

graphic factors affected response rates.

We then conducted a wave analysis to examine

whether participants who responded earlier versus

later to the posttest survey differed on any of our

substantive variables. This allowed us to assess, for

example, whether more emotionally exhausted par-

ticipants responded more slowly and thus could be

predicted to be less likely to respond at all. Our

findings showed that time of completion of the

posttest survey was not significantly correlated

with emotional exhaustion (r ! .05, n.s.), self-ver-

ification (r ! .07, n.s.), psychological safety (r !

.03, n.s.), or external rapport (r !".01, n.s.). Taken

together, these results suggest that our substantive

variables were unlikely to bias response rates (Ro-

gelberg & Stanton, 2007).

FIGURE 2

Illustrations of Title Use and Mechanisms from Study 2 Qualitative Data

Title Use Self-Veriﬁcation Psychological Safety External Rapport



“In email my signature has

my new title. I also talk about

it with my patients and peers.”

 “I bring it up when I

introduce myself to new

patients. Occasionally I

mention it to the patients I

have known for a long time.”

 “I use my title when I am

actually doing something

speciﬁcally referring to it.”

 “I use my title when I bring

the patients back.”

 “Most of the time, when the

nurses bring the patients

down to the waiting room for

me they say, [title] will be

right with you.’ If not, when

they come in I introduce

myself and throw it in there.”

 “I feel it is true to myself.”

 “I love my new title....I think it

accurately portrays wh

at I try to do

for each patient and at the same

time it's quirky like me! Now if

only I could get it put on my

business cards!”

 “It tells people what is important to

me outside of the work

environment.”

 “It relates to my work-life as well

as my personal life.”

 “Coworkers agree that it suits me

very well to what I do and what I

am about.”



“It ﬁts my personality and what I

do very well.”

 “My coworkers can understand

why I am so outgoing and always

on the run.”

 “The patient seems to come back to

me with a feeling of conﬁdence

that I have some experience and

can really help them with whatever

their issue may be.”



“This way, everyone is equal.”

 “Coworkers respond back to me

with a conﬁdence in my ability.

They go from thinking I am the

new guy with little knowledge

and/or ability to help them

(because they don’t see me as often

as the regular staff members) to

having a conﬁdence in my ability

and knowing that I have the

knowledge and am very capable of

helping them with anything they

need… I have a feeling of

conﬁdence when I use it because I

do have a unique opportunity in my

position… the title I created really

encompasses everything about my

job and what I can do for our

patients in that role.”

 “When a patient is angry, I use

my title to defuse the situation…

It makes a good conversation and

good rapport.”



“When interacting with patients

and coworkers, it helps when the

MD is running behind and the

patients are upset. The patients

will often laugh.”



“I would smile and say, ‘I am the

[title]. I have gotten some

chuckles and smiles.”

1214 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

Factor structure. We conducted confirmatory

factor analyses of the Time 1 items using EQS Soft-

ware 6.1 (Bentler, 1995) with maximum likelihood

procedures. In light of the small sample size, we

used parceling techniques (Bandalos, 2002) for the

scales exceeding five items. The four-factor solu-

tion achieved good fit with the data,

(48) !

71.10, CFI ! .95, SRMR ! .08, and this four-factor

solution was superior to all alternative nested mod-

els. All factor loadings were statistically signifi-

cant, ranging from .79 to .96 for emotional exhaus-

tion, .63 to .79 for self-verification, .69 to .88 for

psychological safety. and .75 to .93 for external

rapport.

Main effects. Means and standard deviations by

condition are displayed in Table 2, and correlations

across conditions appear in Table 3. Comparing the

titles group to the two control groups, a repeated-

measures analysis of variance showed significant

time # condition interactions in predicting emo-

tional exhaustion, F(1, 73) ! 6.49, p $ .01; self-

verification, F(1, 73) ! 9.02, p $ .01; and psycho-

logical safety, F(1, 73) ! 3.84, p $ .05; but not

external rapport, F(1, 73) ! .26, n.s. We interpreted

the significant interactions by conducting paired-

samples t-tests within each condition over time. In

support of Proposition 1, these analyses showed

that employees in the self-reflective titles group

decreased significantly in emotional exhaustion,

t(30) ! 2.14, p $ .05, whereas employees in the

other two conditions did not show statistically sig-

nificant changes.

Employees in the self-reflective titles group in-

creased significantly in self-verification, t(30) !

2.50, p $ .05, while employees in the other two

conditions did not. Similarly, employees in the

self-reflective titles group increased significantly in

psychological safety, t(30) ! 2.04, p $ .05, whereas

employees in the other two conditions did not.

However, there were no statistically significant

changes in external rapport in any of the three

conditions. Further, a regression analysis showed

that changes in external rapport were not signifi-

cantly related to changes in emotional exhaustion

(

!".14). These findings effectively falsify Prop-

osition 2c, since the conditions for mediation hold

that the independent variable influences the medi-

ator, which, in turn, is related to the dependent

variable.

Mediation analyses. We next tested whether the

increases in self-verification and psychological

safety mediated the decreases in emotional exhaus-

tion in the self-reflective titles condition. We used

procedures for testing mediation in longitudinal

within-subject designs (Judd, Kenny, & McClel-

land, 2001). Our previous analyses demonstrated

that the independent variable (titles) produced

change in the dependent variable (emotional ex-

haustion) and two of the mediators (self-verifica-

tion and psychological safety). To complete the test

of mediation, it was necessary to meet two addi-

tional conditions: changes in the mediators predict

changes in the dependent variable while control-

ling for the independent variable, and, after enter-

ing changes in the mediators, the independent vari-

able decreases in significance.

The results of a hierarchical regression analysis

appear at the top of Table 4. Increases in both

self-verification and psychological safety signifi-

cantly predicted decreases in emotional exhaus-

tion, and the effect of the titles condition was re-

duced to non-significance. To confirm that this

decrease was statistically significant, we conducted

a bootstrap analysis. We constructed bias-corrected

confidence intervals by drawing 1,000 random

samples with replacement from the full sample.

TABLE 2

Study 2: Means and Standard Deviations by Condition

Condition

Emotional

exhaustion Self-verification Psychological safety External rapport

Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest Pretest Posttest

Self-reflective job titles

(n ! 31)

3.02

(1.25)

2.70

(1.43)

5.38

(1.17)

5.69

(1.04)

4.71

(1.32)

4.97

(1.15)

6.40

(.72)

6.26

(.80)

Pure control

(n ! 18)

2.80

(1.22)

3.08

(1.19)

5.18

(.92)

4.91

(1.42)

4.88

(.78)

4.70

(1.15)

5.90

(.86)

5.69

(1.03)

Nonequivalent control

(n ! 27)

2.94

(1.25)

3.11

(1.29)

5.30

(1.24)

5.08

(1.28)

5.13

(1.11)

5.10

(1.12)

6.16

(.69)

5.97

(.88)

Note. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

2014 1215Grant, Berg, and Cable

Mediation occurs when an indirect effect differs

significantly from zero (Shrout & Bolger, 2002),

which was the case for both self-verification (95%

CI [".01, ".16]) and psychological safety (95% CI

[".01, ".20]). These results support Propositions

2a and 2b: self-verification and psychological

safety each partially mediated the effects of self-

reflective job titles on emotional exhaustion.

One limitation of the Judd et al. (2001) approach

is that it relies on difference scores, which suffer

from statistical flaws (Edwards, 1995). To assess

the robustness of our mediation results, we con-

ducted additional analyses as a robustness check.

Instead of using changes in each variable, we en-

tered posttest emotional exhaustion as the depen-

dent variable, controlled for pretest emotional

exhaustion, and then examined whether posttest

self-verification and psychological safety mediated

the effects. The results of this analysis appear at

the bottom of Table 4. Mirroring the results

from the previous analyses, posttest self-verifica-

tion and psychological safety were significant pre-

dictors of posttest emotional exhaustion (even after

controlling for pretest emotional exhaustion), and

controlling for the mediators reduced the effect of

the self-reflective titles condition to non-signifi-

cance. A bootstrap analysis showed that the bias-

corrected 95% confidence intervals excluded zero

for both self-verification [".01, ".17] and psycho-

logical safety [".01, ".14]. These results corrobo-

rate self-verification and psychological safety as

mediators of the effects of self-reflective job titles

on emotional exhaustion.

Discussion

The results from this quasi-experiment provide

initial support for the majority of our propositions,

and suggest that the linkage between self-reflective

titles and emotional exhaustion generalizes beyond

TABLE 3

Study 2: Correlations across Conditions

12345678

1. Emotional exhaustion, Time 1 (.90)

2. Self-verification, Time 1 ".52 (.81)

3. Psychological safety, Time 1 ".67 .62 (.79)

4. External rapport, Time 1 ".10 .31 .07 (.91)

5. Emotional exhaustion, Time 2 .76 ".59 ".54 ".13 (.94)

6. Self-verification, Time 2 ".24 .70 .40 .32 ".51 (.81)

7. Psychological safety, Time 2 ".57 .72 .77 .17 ".68 .59 (.83)

8. External rapport, Time 2 .01 .24 .05 .80 ".13 .33 .13 (.90)

Notes. r % |. 23|, p $ .05, r % |. 29|, p $ .01, r % |. 39|, p $ .001.

TABLE 4

Study 2: Hierarchical Regression Analyses

Step 1 Step 2

b SE

t b SE

DV: Change in emotional exhaustion

Self-reflective titles condition (1 ! yes, 0 ! no) ".26 .10 ".30 "2.55* ".13 .13 ".14 .97

Changes in self-verification ".21 .10 ".22 "1.99*

Change in psychological safety ".46 .12 ".41 "3.81***

DV: Posttest emotional exhaustion

Pretest emotional exhaustion .84 .08 .77 10.11*** .65 .09 .60 7.34***

Self-reflective titles condition (1 ! yes, 0 ! no) ".25 .10 ".19 "2.49* ".17 .09 ".13 "1.84

Posttest self-verification ".19 .10 ".18 "1.99*

Posttest psychological safety ".28 .12 ".24 "2.38*

Notes. In the first model predicting change scores, the addition of the two mediators in Step 2 increased variance explained by 23% from

! .09 to R

! .32, F(2, 64) ! 10.96, p $ .001. In the second model predicting posttest emotional exhaustion, the addition of the two

mediators in Step 2 increased variance explained by 10% from R

! .62 to R

! .72, F(2, 63) ! 11.74, p $ .001.

* p $ .05. ** p $ .01. *** p $ .001.

1216 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

our qualitative results in a new, less extreme con-

text. Health care employees who created self-reflec-

tive job titles felt less emotionally exhausted

five weeks later, while employees in a pure control

group and those who participated in an alternative

exercise did not. The decreases in emotional ex-

haustion were mediated by increases in employees’

perceptions of self-verification and psychological

safety.

In contrast, self-reflective titles did not influence

employees’ perceptions of external rapport. It is

possible that self-reflective titles increase rapport

in initial interactions, but that the overall effects on

rapport are canceled out by more extended interac-

tions. Alternatively, since the qualitative com-

ments suggested that some employees experienced

the titles as building rapport, the null effects may

be an artifact of the higher starting level of rapport

among employees in the self-reflective titles group

(see Table 2), which might have resulted in ceiling

effects that left little room for improvement. It is also

plausible that employees did not use their titles fre-

quently enough with external stakeholders to build

rapport, or that five weeks was not enough time to

develop sufficient comfort with using their titles to

reap the potential rapport benefits. Further, since it is

possible that patients would have been more aware of

(or more likely to report) the rapport created by the

titles than employees themselves, future research

should triangulate self-reports with patient ratings.

Researchers may even code rapport based on video-

taping employees sharing their self-reflective titles in

some interactions but not others.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Observing and investigating one service organi-

zation’s unexpected use of job titles as a vehicle for

self-expression opened our eyes to a new way of

seeing job titles and illuminated why self-reflective

titles might reduce emotional exhaustion. Transfer-

ring these insights to a different organization, our

quasi-experiment demonstrated that self-reflective

titles can reduce emotional exhaustion by fostering

perceptions of self-verification and psychological

safety. These findings have implications for theory

and research on job titles, identity, and emotional

exhaustion.

Theoretical Implications

Rather than viewing titles solely as sources and

reflections of formality and rigidity (Baron &

Bielby, 1986) or mechanisms of bureaucratic con-

trol (Dreyfuss, 1968; Strang & Baron, 1990), our

research suggests that titles can be vehicles for

agency, creativity, and coping. Although organiza-

tional scholars have recognized the presence of id-

iosyncratic jobs (Miner, 1987) and idiosyncratic

employment relationships (Rousseau et al., 2006),

they have sparsely considered the possibility that

one’s job title can be personalized in ways that are

psychologically beneficial. Interestingly, these effects

can be created while leaving the existing job title

structure intact, thereby preserving the strategic ben-

efits of job titles in hiring and compensation.

As organizations seek to create consistency be-

tween employees, employees are at risk of losing

the “me” within the “we” (Kreiner et al., 2006;

Pratt, 2000). To preserve their identities, employees

often seek a sense of optimal distinctiveness, striv-

ing to find a balance between fitting in and stand-

ing out by expressing unique features of their self-

concepts (Brewer, 2009; Kreiner et al., 2006). Past

research on how employees achieve optimal dis-

tinctiveness has focused primarily on how affiliat-

ing with distinctive groups allows employees to

feel integrated within the group and differentiated

from other groups (Brewer, 2009; Hornsey & Jetten,

2004)—but these studies have overlooked steps

that employees can take to achieve optimal distinc-

tiveness when their group memberships are

relatively fixed. Our research suggests that self-

reflective job titles may be an alternative pathway

to optimal distinctiveness. In terms of differentia-

tion, a self-reflective title allows employees to

stand out and be verified by others as distinctive

around self-identities that they personally value. In

terms of integration, by increasing employees’ feel-

ings of self-verification and psychological safety, a

self-reflective title may foster a sense of group accep-

tance, build rapport, and strengthen bonds. Our re-

search thereby identifies a novel perspective on how

employees can navigate optimal distinctiveness.

In doing so, our research provides new insights

into how organizations can creatively manage the

tension between their objectives of social control

and employees’ desires for self-expression. Previ-

ous work has largely focused on documenting the

ways in which organizations constrain self-expres-

sion by creating identity threats, deficits, and vio-

lations (Pratt, 2000; Pratt et al., 2006) that can lead

to employee rebellion (Elsbach, 2003). While doc-

umenting the “dark side” of the identity tug of war

clearly is useful, it is both theoretically and practi-

cally important to understand how organizations

2014 1217Grant, Berg, and Cable

can work with employees to facilitate identity ex-

pression, and, thus, reduce emotional exhaustion.

We suggest that self-reflective job titles may be an

important form of co-construction that exists at the

intersection of top-down organizational control of

employees’ identities and bottom-up self-expres-

sion by employees.

Whereas researchers have traditionally focused

on reducing emotional exhaustion by changing the

organizational context or changing the individual

(Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004; Maslach et al.,

2001), a co-construction approach starts from the

premise that organizations and employees can

jointly create toolkits for identity expression. Self-

reflective job titles may serve as one of these tool-

kits. In our research, the role of the organization

was to create and legitimize personalized job titles

from the top down, and the role of employees was

to customize more self-expressive job titles from

the bottom up. Put differently, job titles can serve

as a type of menu from which employees can select

and combine options to construct and express their

identities (Pratt et al., 2006; Wrzesniewski, Dutton,

& Debebe, 2003).

As such, our research shows how employees’

identity expression can be a joint function of the

organization providing a useful vehicle and em-

ployees utilizing this vehicle in ways that engage

personally meaningful parts of their self-concepts

within the standards of their social environment. In

contrast to the dominant emphasis on how organi-

zations create strong cultures, norms, and rules that

suppress, threaten, and transform employees’ iden-

tities (e.g., Elsbach, 2003; Kahn, 1990; O’Reilly &

Chatman, 1996; Pratt, 2000; Pratt et al., 2006), our

research advances toward an understanding of how

organizations and employees can jointly partici-

pate in identity work—the process of actively con-

structing and maintaining a positive identity (e.g.,

Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Dutton, Roberts, & Bed-

nar, 2010).

Limitations and Future Directions

Our research is subject to several limitations that

suggest opportunities for future inquiry.

Outcomes and generalizability. In both studies,

since we relied heavily on self-report data, it re-

mains to be seen whether self-reflective titles have

meaningful effects on titleholders’ behaviors, as

well as the reactions of customers, patients, and

other service recipients (see Elsbach, 2004). We

studied human service organizations because emo-

tional exhaustion is common therein, but this focus

raises questions about the generalizability of our

findings to other settings (e.g., manufacturing and

knowledge work). It is interesting that, in fact,

many of our respondents were not customer-facing,

even though they were in service organizations

(e.g., accountants, lawyers, human resource manag-

ers, etc.). It also is interesting that the conceptual

mechanism that represents external service work

(building rapport) was not a significant mediator of

emotional exhaustion. This null result suggests that

the value of self-reflective titles transcends customer-

facing work and service roles, since the effects ap-

pear to emanate from inside employees and inter-

nal relationships. In general, future research is

needed to examine the extent to which employees

in other industries benefit from self-reflective titles.

The generalizability of the results can also be

questioned because the majority of the participants

in both studies were female, although anecdotally

it is worth noting that the male Midwest CFO and

several male physicians and patient services repre-

sentatives reported that their titles improved their

working conditions. Still, in light of evidence that

men tend to be more status conscious (Buss, 1995;

Eagly & Wood, 1999), as well as less comfortable

expressing emotions in the workplace (Martin,

Knopoff, & Beckman, 1998), future research may

reveal that gender moderates the effects of self-

reflective titles. Furthermore, research may show

that dimensions of national culture, such as power

distance or collectivism, moderates the positive ef-

fects of self-reflective title initiatives. Specifically,

some cultures may make internal and external cus-

tomers less receptive to self-reflective titles, or may

make job incumbents less likely to use or even

develop self-reflective titles in the first place.

Mechanisms. Unmeasured variables might help

explain the effects that emerged. For example, the

titles intervention may have increased employees’

positive emotions or perceptions of autonomy. In-

deed, it is plausible that any initiative that in-

creases positive affect throughout the organization

would decrease emotional exhaustion. Although

many employees created self-reflective titles that

were not especially joyous or humorous (especially

in Study 2), in both settings, there were employees

who described the titles initiative as being fun and

creating humor. Thus, we cannot rule out the pos-

sibility that increased positive affect may be neces-

sary for employees to pursue self-verification and

feel more psychologically safe— or that similar ini-

1218 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

tiatives that increase fun in one’s daily work would

have produced this same result.

Toward this end, future studies should examine

the active ingredients in more detail by comparing

serious and playful self-reflective titles, and by ex-

amining whether similar effects emerge for other

self-expressive artifacts, such as personalized office

décor (Elsbach, 2003). Indeed, although self-reflec-

tive job titles represent one co-construction vehicle

for organizations and employees to jointly mold

and create toolkits for identity expression, other

vehicles may accomplish this goal. For example,

Zappos.com explicitly encourages call center em-

ployees to customize their workspaces, be them-

selves, have fun at work, and use their best judg-

ment when serving customers, instead of following

scripts (Hsieh, 2010). The goal was to transform the

typically stressful, high-turnover call center envi-

ronment into a motivating, fun workplace full of

self-expression and top-notch customer service.

Future research may reveal other co-construction

toolkits that firms use to encourage employees to

personalize and express their identities, while solv-

ing organizational problems (Swidler, 1986: 273).

Causality. While our experimental design per-

mits inferences about causality, it should be noted

that individual participants were not randomly as-

signed to conditions in our experiment. Although

the sites were arbitrarily assigned to conditions, it

is possible that these sites possessed other charac-

teristics that might lead to different results in other

settings. Further, because our design was single-

blind rather than double-blind, we cannot rule out

experimental arrangements threats to external va-

lidity (Cook & Campbell, 1979). To assess whether

researcher biases and enthusiasm affected buy-in or

commitment to the titles, or improved psychologi-

cal reactions to the titles, we recommend that fu-

ture studies use double-blind designs in which

workshop coordinators are not aware of the propo-

sitions. In addition, the response rate to the posttest

survey was noticeably lower in the pure control

group than the two treatment groups. One explana-

tion is that the pure control group was the only

condition in which employees received no direct

benefits from participating after the survey: they

did not attend a workshop, have a free meal, inter-

act with the researchers, or have dialogue with

their colleagues on work time. Future research

should include more incentives for responding and

compare the effects of self-reflective titles with

other structured, practical interventions.

Leader support. In both studies, leaders encour-

aged the use of self-reflective titles, raising unan-

swered questions about whether the effects would

change in the absence of top-down support. Al-

though, of course, all interventions are influenced

by manager support (Eden, 2003), and although

managerial support was not enough to reduce emo-

tional exhaustion in our nonequivalent control

group, it nevertheless will be critical for future

research to explore how employees experience self-

reflective titles when they are not encouraged by

leaders who create their own titles. The openness

of organizational cultures and the norms in differ-

ent industries also may place boundaries on the

observed effects. Furthermore, because employees

in both of our studies interacted with colleagues

who were also generating self-reflective titles, we

are not able to address whether the effects hinge on

developing contagious emotions (Barsade, 2002)

and energy around the titles. A supportive climate

may be necessary for the titles to serve self-verify-

ing functions and increase perceptions of psycho-

logical safety, and the titles may then contribute to

further strengthening the climate.

Identity. Across our two studies, there was a

noticeable difference in the identity level at which

employees located their titles. At MAW, since the

titles initiative was introduced by the CEO and

embraced across the chapter, employees viewed it

as creating a distinctive signal about the organiza-

tion’s collective identity. A wish coordinator ex-

claimed, “Gosh, I can’t think of any other foundation

that has something like this,” and a development

manager told us that the primary purpose of the titles

lies in “showing that what we do is enjoyable, that

we take pride in working for a pediatric charity. It’s

something that sets us aside. I remember telling my

friends about it.” In contrast, at the hospital, not all

sites were involved, there was less support from

senior leaders, and employees had more discretion

about whether or not to create and use their titles.

As a result, hospital employees appeared to con-

nect their titles to individual values without view-

ing the organization’s identity differently, and so

future research should examine the effects of indi-

vidual versus collective adoption of personalized

titles.

The dark sides of self-reflective titles. There

may be negative aspects of self-reflective titles that

were not captured by our research. For example,

creating unprofessional titles, or using them in

tense situations or with unreceptive audiences,

runs the risk of threatening both employees’ images

2014 1219Grant, Berg, and Cable

and the employer’s brand. Similarly, using self-

aggrandizing titles, such as when Steve Jobs intro-

duced himself as the “chief know-it-all” at Apple,

has the potential to harm reputations and relation-

ships—especially if the responsibilities implied by

the titles exceed the actual roles and capabilities of

the individuals using them. Self-reflective titles

may also elicit negative reactions when they fail to

match others’ views and expectations of the job.

Given the importance of job titles for creating teams

that must develop trust very quickly to react in

stressful situations (e.g., Klein et al., 2006), self-

reflective titles could be damaging within the con-

text of action teams.

Most disconcertingly, from a critical theory per-

spective, managers may use self-reflective titles as

devices to manipulate employees into thinking

more positively about unjust, unsafe, or otherwise

adverse job conditions (Fineman, 2006). Our per-

sonal interpretation is that the organizations we

investigated offered a voluntary opportunity to re-

vise their titles because they wanted to help em-

ployees express their personal identities. However,

it is possible that organizational leaders could

tempt employees with the opportunity to personal-

ize their title and their role as a way to trick them

into bringing more of their personal energy and

identity into the workplace (Fineman, 2006). It is

also possible that some leaders invite creativity,

then reject employees’ ideas and manipulate them

into accepting titles that only benefit the organiza-

tion. If employees are initially cynical, they may

rebel by generating titles that display negative job

attitudes or reflect poorly on the organization. If

employees are required to change these titles, a

vicious cycle of increasing cynicism and emotional

exhaustion may ensue. We encourage researchers

to study these sharper edges of self-reflective titles.

To gain insight into these issues and their impli-

cations for future research, we examined the qual-

itative comments from the hospital employees who

created self-reflective job titles in Study 2. Al-

though the majority of employees in this study

(61%) reported using their self-reflective job titles,

a substantial minority (39%) did not. One em-

ployee wrote, “I don’t use my nickname, I prefer to

have patients address me by my real name.” An-

other expressed ambivalence, indicating that, after

six weeks, “I am still trying to decide for sure what

it will be and if I am interested in doing this.”

Others stated that, “I do not think everyone is on

board with this program, so I kind of feel silly,” and

“Truthfully, I have rarely used it.”

Even those who reported using their titles chose

particular times and places to present them. In the

hospital, employees developed heuristics about ap-

propriate situations, roles, and contexts in which to

disclose versus withhold their titles. For example,

one participant wrote, “As a physician and a fe-

male, I feel less inclined to have another title other

than MD/doctor. I personally have been told that I

look young (even though I am in my forties). I think

this is not such a great idea for me to have a differ-

ent title other than doctor with patients.” These

comments echoed some of those we heard in our

original study at MAW. For example, a volunteer

services manager explained that the titles can

“make us look less than professional, when viewed

from the outside. People can be taken aback by the

ways we operate versus the way a [typical] organi-

zation works.” A regional director mentioned “a

donor who didn’t really get it: ‘I don’t know that

you guys should be doing that.’” Another was

“working with the national office in conjunction

with an attorney, who said, ‘Before I forward your

document on, I’m going to take out your fun title.’

There are people you meet who want to be all about

business.”

MAW employees also suggested that self-reflec-

tive titles might be more appropriate in some or-

ganizations than in others. They recommended

self-reflective titles in two types of settings: youth-

driven organizations, especially in public-facing

roles, and emotionally challenging contexts in

which icebreakers are needed. Employees consis-

tently questioned how titles would play out in

highly professionalized industries and organiza-

tions, such as banks or law and accounting firms.

We also observed this distinction when we com-

pared the titles created at MAW and the hospital

that we studied. In congruence with the MAW mis-

sion of bringing hope, strength, and joy to children,

MAW employees intentionally created titles that

were playful, such as “king of cashola” and the

“royal ambassador of really cool kids.” At the hos-

pital, where employees placed greater emphasis on

seriousness and interacted with more stakeholders

who did not expect fun, employees were more

likely to create self-reflective titles that expressed

core values without as much humor, such as “germ

slayer” and “quick shot.”

Sustainability. It is interesting to consider how

long the effects of self-reflective titles might last.

Introducing oneself with a new title may wear off

after a few months—particularly with internal cus-

tomers who have become accustomed to the self-

1220 AugustAcademy of Management Journal

reflective title. On the other hand, it is important to

note that self-reflective titles do not need to be

“surprising” or “humorous” in order for them to

add substantial value as a vehicle for self-expres-

sion and creating greater psychological safety.

Moreover, to the extent that an employee’s self-

expressive title wears thin or begins to lose its

beneficial effects after some months or years, it may

be possible to change it, as the backbone of the

formal titles and job structure still exists. In this

sense, a self-reflective title is a temporary, self-

constructed badge that allows employees to con-

sider and then highlight the unique value they be-

lieve they add to the organization, which can be

flexible and need not hinge on novelty or humor.

To explore the issue of sustainability, we con-

ducted new interviews with four different MAW

employees six years after our original MAW study.

The timing was opportune, as the original CEO who

introduced and championed the titles had left

two and a half years earlier, and a new CEO and

COO had taken over since then. The new leader

chose to continue the initiative, but placed less

emphasis on all employees creating their own ti-

tles. To explore how reactions to the titles changed

over time, we selected two employees who had

been at MAW since the titles were originally intro-

duced. We asked these employees to comment on

how the use and experience of titles changed after

the original CEO’s departure. Then, we interviewed

two newer employees to explore whether reactions

to the titles were different among employees who

did not learn about them from a transformational

leader.

A fundraiser (whom we interviewed six years

earlier) felt that the CEO’s departure did not have a

discernible impact on titles:

They’re still very much part of everybody’s signa-

ture lines and business cards . . . It serves as a great

icebreaker. A lot of times, we’ll be in a business

meeting, talking about ways they can engage their

employees, sponsor an event, and we’ll hand out

business cards. Suddenly, the tone of the meeting

completely changes.

When we asked her whether the titles initiative

would have launched as effectively with a different

CEO at the helm, she said: “It doesn’t take a char-

ismatic leader to come up with something like this.

It’s a very simple idea, and, once it’s introduced, it

takes on a life of its own.” A wish coordinator

conveyed a similar message:

After [the CEO] left, I don’t think anybody ever

thought about not having a fun title. I don’t think

that crossed anybody’s mind at all. Everybody was

in the same boat that I am: it’s always been taken in

by others very well, and we’ve gotten a good re-

sponse to our titles.

A development manager who arrived after the

original CEO left highlighted the same benefits that

we observed in our original study, pointing to the

reduction of stress, a chance to self-verify, and the

creation of psychological safety and external rapport:

It’s helpful to break the ice. It takes a little bit of the

pressure off of you if you’re looking for a way to

open up a conversation, especially in a public

speaking setting. It breaks down these barriers and

gives you something to talk about. I bring it up if I

feel like I’m having trouble expressing what we do,

and what it is to work here. I also took it as an

opportunity to talk to my new coworkers.

While the benefits of self-reflective titles ap-

peared to last at MAW—including for some time

after the charismatic champion left the organiza-

tion—future research in other contexts is needed to

more fully understand the temporal dynamics and

boundary conditions of self-reflective titles. If the

psychological effects of self-reflective titles do fade

over time, it would be intriguing to explore

whether generating a new title can sustain the ben-

efits, or whether the novelty of creating and using

the title itself—rather than the content—wears off.

Practical Implications and Conclusion

Our findings highlight a novel, practical process

that enables employees to play an active role in

reducing their own emotional exhaustion. Whereas

existing burnout interventions have tended to focus

on expensive top-down changes (Halbesleben &

Buckley, 2004; Le Blanc et al., 2007), our research

suggests that, when leaders encourage employees

to reflect on—and then reflect out—their unique

value through personalized titles, employees are

able to express their identities in ways that contrib-

ute to a sense of affirmation and psychological

safety, reducing emotional exhaustion. Since past

research suggests that reducing emotional exhaus-

tion is associated with fewer illnesses, lower intent

to quit, and improved role performance (e.g., Cro-

panzano, Rupp, & Byrne, 2003; Maslach et al.,

2001; Melamed, Shirom, Toker, Berliner, & Sha-

pira, 2006; Taris, 2006), self-reflective titles can

offer important benefits for organizations. They

2014 1221Grant, Berg, and Cable

may be especially useful in jobs where effective

performance demands rapid relationship-building.

In service encounters, when employees have only

moments to form first impressions, self-reflective

titles may assist employees in differentiating them-

selves—and their organizations’ services— by mak-

ing a memorable and authentic first impression. As

Nurse “Quick Shot” explained, “It is great when a

patient will ask for me by using my new title. When

I am going to give vaccines to children, they re-

member my new name and use it when they return

to the office.”

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Adam M. Grant ([email protected]) is the Class

of 1965 professor of management at the Wharton School at

the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on

work motivation, job design, prosocial helping and giving

behaviors, and employee initiative and proactivity. He re-

ceived his PhD in organizational psychology from the Uni-

versity of Michigan. He tried—and failed—to convince his

wife to name their children after Superman characters.

Justin M. Berg ([email protected]) is a PhD can-

didate in management at the Wharton School at the

University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on

creativity, proactivity, and the meaning of work in organ-

izations.

Daniel M. Cable ([email protected]) is a professor of or-

ganizational behavior at the London Business School. He

likes to draw with his daughters, Daisy and Violet. Dan’s

areas of teaching and research include culture and value

congruence, employee engagement, and organizational en-

try. He received his PhD from Cornell University.

2014 1225Grant, Berg, and Cable