Role Identification Structures the Functions of Racialized Organizations

• In Event: 21011 - Social Psychology in Organizations

Abstract

This project extends Victor Ray’s (2019) theory of racialized organizations by examining how organizational interactions link roles to social identities in ways that order internal status hierarchies and institutional priorities. While Ray details how racialized organizations unequally distribute agency, legitimacy, and resources among members, I argue that they also prioritize functions that externalize organizational status hierarchies onto society more broadly.

Drawing on a grounded theory analysis of over 50 interviews with police officers across seven agencies, I examine the relationships between identities and emotions in law enforcement interactions. Experiences of anger, fear, and pride lead officers to associate whiteness with safety, Blackness with danger, masculinity with strength, and femininity with weakness. These associations map enforcement-oriented roles to whiteness and masculinity while tying community-oriented roles to Blackness and femininity. Consequently, organizational actors are sorted into identity-congruent roles, and enforcement takes precedence over community engagement.

Organizational ideologies emerge from these interactions, justifying rules and practices that enhance enforcement functions. Training and funding allocations prioritize tactical equipment over community services. Union policies and the “blue wall of silence” limit the transparency and accountability of force (mis)conduct. Black and female officers are leveraged to deflect public scrutiny and maintain cooperation without challenging inequitable enforcement practices. Whistle-blowers are relocated. Ultimately, these processes maintain racial hierarchies within departments and the racialized policing practices that constitute the broader social order.

Theoretically, this research expands Ray’s framework by showing how the substructure of racialized organizations is characterized by role identification in interactions. The racialization and gendering of roles not only structures the agency, legitimacy, and resources of individual organizational actors, but also institutional functions. By tracing the prioritization of enforcement-oriented strategies, I demonstrate why, despite decades of reform efforts, racialized police misconduct remains a social problem. These findings suggest that lasting organizational reform requires more than enhanced training, better tools, or demographic diversification; it demands a fundamental realignment of role functions and institutional priorities.

Author

• Connor Powelson, Clemson University