The Role of Role Playing in Organizational Research

The present article analyzes role playing as an organizational research technique. A survey of organizational journals for 1978-1988 reveals that role playing was used in 11.55 percent of the published studies. Role playing studies are conducted to learn about attitudes and behaviors in organizational contexts and to learn about basic psychological contexts. The studies differ along three key dimensions: subjects’ level of involvement, the role being played, and the degree of response specificity provided. We recommend that role playing studies be designed in a manner that is appropriate to the purpose of the study, and offer guidelines for doing so.