Julia Dibenigno

Yale University | YU · Organizational Behavior

Environmental jolts can trigger more conducive conditions for driving change in organizations. However, punctuated equilibrium theories of organizational change concentrate on top managers’ implementation of de novo radical changes after jolts. Existing research has not examined frontline-driven, incremental change efforts during these periods of d...

How can a professional identity persist when it is mismatched with the reality of work demands in one’s first job? Existing theory suggests that new members of a profession should adapt their identities to align with their profession’s and organization’s goals. Using data from an ethnographic study of first-time hospital nurses, I develop the conce...

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed front-line healthcare workers to unprecedented risks and stressors threatening both physical and mental health. Prior work in the military has found that team identification, or the sense that one was a part of a team, can help reduce stress and prevent burnout during prolonged stress. Methods We conduc...

The upward voicing of ideas is vital to organizational performance. Yet power differences between voicers and those with authority may result in valuable ideas being overlooked. In this ethnographic, 31-month longitudinal study of a multi-disciplinary team in the healthcare sector, we examine how upwardly voiced ideas can endure to reach implementa...

Background Although the COVID-19 pandemic exposes frontline caregivers to severe prolonged stresses and trauma, there has been little clarity on how healthcare organisations can structure support to address these mental health needs. This article translates organisational scholarship on professionals working in organisations to elucidate why tradit...

This paper develops grounded theory to understand how and when experts in lower-power peripheral roles can develop influential relationships with higher-power line managers in core functions to regularly elicit their cooperation. I use data from an ethnographic study of experts in peripheral roles—mental health professionals hired by the U.S. Army...

Organizational life is rife with conflict between groups that pursue different goals, particularly when groups have strong commitments to professional identities developed outside the organization. I use data from a 30-month comparative ethnographic field study of four U.S. Army combat brigades to examine conflict between commanders who had a goal...

Management and organizational scholarship is overdue for a reappraisal of occupations and professions as well as a critical review of past and current work on the topic. Indeed, the field has largely failed to keep pace with the rising salience of occupational and professional—as opposed to organizational—dynamics in work life. Moreover, not only i...

We use data from a 12-month ethnographic study of two medical-surgical units in a U.S. hospital to examine how members from different occupations can collaborate with one another in their daily work despite differences in status, shared meanings, and expertise across occupational groups, which previous work has shown to create difficulties. In our...

Scholars of work and occupations have long shown that asking members from different occupations to collaborate with one another is difficult because of differences in status, meanings, and expertise across occupational groups, but they have failed to consider how the demography of the setting affects cross-occupational collaboration. Our 12-month e...