A person’s social position shapes whether and how they can influence organizational change. While prior research establishes people whose social position combines outsider-ness and insider-ness as important change agents, we know little about how they influence change. We analyse a peer coaching initiative in Canadian hospitals to explain how outsider-insiders — in this case, organizational outsiders with professional proximity—advance change. Peer coaches were able to influence change by establishing and enacting a dual outsider-insider role and associated role expectations. We advance theory by showing that role expectations emphasizing duality that are rooted in social position, but created through social interaction, are a key mechanism by which the potential of outsider-insider social positions can be activated and mobilized to influence change. We advance theory on social position generally by highlighting the potential for integrating a symbolic interactionist perspective—focused on role expectations—into Bourdieu’s theory of fields.

一个人的社会地位决定着他们是否以及如何影响组织变革。尽管先前的研究确定了社会地位将外来者和内在者相结合的人作为重要的变革推动者，但我们对他们如何影响变革的了解却很少。我们分析了加拿大医院的同伴教练计划，以解释局内人（在这种情况下，是具有专业亲近关系的组织局外人）如何提前改变。同行教练能够通过建立和制定双重局内人角色和相关角色期望来影响变革。我们通过证明角色期望强调了双重性来推进理论发展，这种双重性植根于社会地位，但通过社会互动而产生，是一种关键机制，通过它可以激发并调动外来者内部社交潜力来影响变化。我们通常通过强调将象征性互动主义观点（侧重于角色期望）整合到布迪厄领域理论中的潜力，来推进社会地位理论。