Yet even these roles were considered stable only in relation to aspirants' initially provisional roles: incumbents said that it was normal for them to adjust their roles to integrate aspirants' newly validated roles, and I observed this continual adjustment among incumbents at every field site.
Consequently, my unit of analysis is the joining process through which a stable role was constructed for and by the aspirant or, conversely, through which the target group and aspirant realized that a stable role was unlikely.
The second occurred after integration, when again both had to decide if the aspirant's role had become stable and mutually satisfactory with the addition of the new role component.
Selectively retaining only validated role components resulted in roles that were stable because they comprised role components that both the aspirant and the target group wanted the aspirant to perform: good role fit due not only to accurate selection by the target group (simple role fit) but also to a mutual process of role negotiation and role construction (constructed role fit).
(I-36) This role combined new and existing role components in a configuration novel to the group, and the role was stable because it was both personally satisfying to the aspirant who eventually filled it and relevant to the group's goals.
When aspirants I observed managed to construct a stable role (19 cases out of 32), the role only stabilized after repeated sequences of negotiation, most of which resulted in a validated role component that was then incorporated into the aspirant's stable role.
Respondents consistently said, and I observed, that they took it for granted that incumbents' roles were only relatively stable and might change at short notice due to an aspirant's role negotiations.
Aspirants were motivated to develop and propose relevant role components out of a desire to convert an initially provisional role into a stable one, thus obtaining membership in a personally aspirational group.
It would be the best for the aspirants, the best for NATO and the best for creating a secure, stable Europe".
Provisionality also motivated the aspirant respondents said that the possibility of a stable eventual role combined with the explicitly provisional nature of the initial role prompted aspirants to invest time and effort in negotiated joining processes.
