Building on role congruity theory, we predict that innovative work behaviors are stereotypically ascribed to men more than to women. Because of this bias, women who innovate may not receive better ...performance evaluations than those who do not innovate, whereas engaging in innovative work behaviors is beneficial for men. These predictions were supported across 3 complementary field and experimental studies. The results of an experiment (Study 1; N = 407) revealed that innovative work behaviors are stereotypically associated with men more than women. In Studies 2 and 3, using multisource employee evaluation data (N = 153) and by experimentally manipulating innovative work behaviors (N = 232), respectively, we found that favorable performance evaluations were associated with innovative work behaviors for men but not for women. These studies highlight a previously unidentified form of sex bias and are particularly important for those wishing to increase innovative behaviors in the workplace: We need to address this phenomenon of “think innovation-think male.”
The influence of race in negotiations has remained relatively underexplored. Across three studies, we theorize and find that Black job seekers are expected to negotiate less than their White ...counterparts and are penalized in negotiations with lower salary outcomes when this expectation is violated; especially when they negotiate with an evaluator who is more racially biased (i.e., higher in social dominance orientation). Specifically, on the basis of the prescriptive stereotype held by those higher in racial bias-that Black (as compared to White) negotiators deserve lower salaries-we predicted that Black negotiators who behave in counterstereotypical ways encounter greater resistance and more unfavorable outcomes from more biased evaluators. We tested this argument in a stepwise fashion: In Study 1, we found that more biased evaluators expect Black job seekers to negotiate less as compared to White job seekers. When Black negotiators violate those expectations, evaluators award them lower starting salaries (Study 2), which appears to occur because evaluators become more resistant to making concessions to Black than to White job seekers (Study 3). Collectively, our findings demonstrate that racially biased perceptual distortions can be used to justify the provision of smaller monetary awards for Black job seekers in negotiations.
Presenteeism (showing up for work while sick) is detrimental for employee productivity, yet little is known about its impact on coworkers. Presenteeism may be particularly important when considering ...coworker reactions that may depend on how similar the sick person is to the coworker. The black sheep hypothesis suggests that the detrimental effects of coworker presenteeism on emotional and behavioral reactions will be exacerbated when there is greater demographic similarity to the perpetrator because the violation of norms of reciprocity, empathy, and concern for others' well-being reflects negatively on one's in-group. We tested the black sheep hypothesis in 2 samples: (a) 81 short-term teams (N = 254) where we manipulated presenteeism using confederates who acted as either sick or healthy coworkers and (b) 34 student project teams (N = 104) that collaborated for 3 months and we measured coworker presenteeism. Across the studies, mediated moderation results yielded some support for the black sheep hypothesis. When they were of the same race or sex, coworker presenteeism led participants to feel less positively and exhibit lower physical engagement and more organizational deviance (Study 1). When coworkers were more racially similar to the participant, coworker presenteeism triggered fear of contagion and negative affect resulting in more organizational and interpersonal deviance (Study 2).
Political scientists traditionally have analyzed the effect of politics on subjective well-being (SWB) at the collective level, finding that more liberal countries report greater SWB. Conversely, ...psychologists have focused primarily on SWB at the individual level and shown that being more conservative corresponds in greater SWB. We integrate the theoretical foundations of these 2 literatures (e.g., livability and system justification theories) to compare and contrast the effects of country- and individual-level political orientation on SWB simultaneously. Using a panel of 16 West European countries representative of 1,134,384 individuals from 1970 to 2002, we demonstrated this SWB political paradox: More liberal countries and more conservative individuals had higher levels of SWB. More important, we explored measurement as a moderator of the political orientation-SWB relationship to shed some light on why this paradox exists. When orientation is measured in terms of enacted values (i.e., what the government actually does), liberalism corresponds in higher SWB, but when politics is measured in terms of espoused values (i.e., what individuals believe), greater conservatism coincided in higher SWB.
Using data from a sample of 6,130 workers employed in 743 stores of a large, U.S. retail organization, this study assessed whether diversity climate moderated mean racial‐ethnic differences in ...employee sales performance. Findings indicated Whites exhibited significantly higher sales performance than Hispanics but not Blacks, as moderated by diversity climate. As hypothesized, racial‐ethnic disparities disfavoring Blacks and Hispanics were largest in stores with less supportive diversity climates and smallest in stores with highly pro‐diversity climates. Financial analysis of these interactions revealed sizable increments in sales per hour in response to effective diversity management, with strong organizational bottom‐line implications. Limitations of the study and future research needs are noted.
Service providers who are Black tend to be evaluated less favorably than those who are White, hindering opportunities for advancement. We propose that the Black-White racial disparity in service ...performance evaluations is due to occupational-racial stereotype incongruence for interpersonal warmth and that more emotional labor is necessary from Blacks to reduce this incongruence. A pilot study manipulating employee race and occupation confirmed warmth and person-occupation fit judgments are lower for an otherwise equal Black than White service provider. We then demonstrate the racial disparity in service performance is due to interpersonal warmth differences in an experimental study with participants evaluating videos of retail clerks (Study 1) and a multisource field study of grocery clerks with supervisor-rated judgments (Study 2). Furthermore, White service providers are rated highly regardless of emotional labor, but performing more emotional labor (i.e., amplifying positive expressions) is necessary for Black providers to increase warmth judgments and reduce the racial disparity. In other words, Black providers are held to a higher standard where they must “fake it to make it” in service roles. We discuss implications for stereotype fit and expectation states theory, emotional labor, and service management.
In light of renewed debate regarding publication rigor and ethics, this commentary raises questions about the subjectivity of the peer review process. We argue that the same biases organizational ...scientists consider as topics of our research—such as confirmation bias, negative bias, anchoring and adjustment, overconfidence bias, and social dynamics—may infect the scholarship process. In addition to these general phenomena, we examine subtle biases that may be unique to or exacerbated within diversity management scholarship. We describe the theoretical basis of such biases and offer preliminary evidence of their nuanced manifestations before outlining suggestions for their reduction.
Given considerable racial differences in voluntary turnover (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006, Table 28), the present study examined the influence of diversity climate perceptions on turnover ...intentions among managerial employees in a national retail organization. The authors hypothesized that pro‐diversity work climate perceptions would correlate most negatively with turnover intentions among Blacks, followed in order of strength by Hispanics and Whites (Hypothesis 1), and that organizational commitment would mediate these interactive effects of race and diversity climate perceptions on turnover intentions (Hypothesis 2). Results from a sample of 5,370 managers partially supported both hypotheses, as findings were strongest among Blacks. Contrary to the hypotheses, however, White men and women exhibited slightly stronger effects than Hispanic personnel.
Extant diversity climate research has been based primarily upon the Interactional Model of Cultural Diversity (IMCD). While prior research has supported the beneficial effects of prodiversity ...climates (i.e., work environments that employees view as fair and socially integrative of all personnel) on worker attitudes and behaviors, less is known about the potential boundary conditions of diversity climate-outcome relationships. To address this concern, we conducted a meta-analysis of diversity climate using 109 independent samples from 94 studies. Meta-analytic results indicate that diversity climate–outcome relationships are moderated by climate measure type, outcome type, demographic diversity, climate strength, and measurement source. These findings show that diversity climate is more strongly related to outcomes when measured as inclusion climate (vs. diversity climate), for attitudinal outcomes compared to performance and withdrawal criteria, when work contexts are more racially and ethnically diverse, when personnel exhibit stronger versus weaker agreement in their diversity climate perceptions, and when diversity climate and outcome data are collected from the same source versus different sources. The theoretical and practical implications of our findings are noted and discussed.
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