Literature Review on Illegitimate Task

Abstract

In organizations, individuals often play their own professional roles. The role is usually determined by the characteristics of the occupation or employees’ direct supervisors, and it provides individuals with a clear set of behavior norms or norms, namely role expectation. When the task is contrary to ones’ professional role expectations, it further constitutes an offense to the individual role and is considered “illegitimate”. This paper reviews recent literature on illegitimate task, in terms of definition, measurement, current researches and future research directions.