The Psychology of Ethnicity in Organisations

Tinu Cornish, Thomas Calvard, Tinu Cornish, Thomas Calvard

• Éditeur: Bloomsbury Academic
• Année: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781350312395
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psicología
• Sous-sujet: Psicología industrial y organizacional

Delving into the psychological experiences of ethnic identity in the workplace, editors Tinu Cornish and Thomas Calvard present a comprehensive, evidence-based analysis of the continued under-representation of Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals within the employment practices and management structures of UK companies. With contributions from a wide range of working professionals and academics, this book showcases a breadth of insightful case studies and considers the role of diversity in enhancing organisational performance, the effects of discrimination and bias in hiring practices, as well as methods for improving the experiences of BAME employees. An invaluable guide to progressive organisational management and an essential supplementary learning resource for those studying human resource management (HRM), organisational behaviour (OB), and psychology, as well as management and leadership courses and HR professionals desiring to make strategic hiring practices

1

Introduction

Tinu Cornish

About the Book

Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME¹) individuals continue to be under-represented within the management structures of UK companies. Although one in eight of the working-age population is from a BAME background, only one in 16 top management positions is held by a BAME individual (Business in the Community, 2014). In the USA, although the situation may be better, there is still substantial progress to be made; whereas people of colour make up nearly 30 per cent of the population they comprise only 18 per cent of directors of Fortune 100 companies (Corporate Diversity Survey, 2014). The differential increases the higher the management level (Sanglin-Grant & Schneider, 2000). For example, in 2005, although BAME groups made up about 8.4 per cent of the NHS workforce in the UK, only 1 per cent of chief executives and 3 per cent of executive directors were from BAME groups (Esmail et al., 2005). On the basis of current trends, the gap between the proportion of White and BAME managers is likely to widen (Race for Opportunity, 2008). A recent review by the civil service identified that BAME staff were actually getting fewer promotions at senior civil service grade in 2014 than was the case in 2010 and the overall percentage of promotions going to BAME staff had also fallen (Civil Service, 2014).

This is problematic for many organisations because of the increasing body of evidence that demonstrates that diversity enhances organisational performance. Herring (2009) examined data from the 1996–97 National Organisations Survey in the US from 506 for-profit organisations and found that higher levels of gender and racial diversity are associated with higher levels of sales, greater numbers of customers, higher than average percentages of market share and higher than average profitability. This relationship between diversity and

organisational performance is thought to rise from greater innovation and creativity (Pager, 2008), recruiting the best talent (Pager, 2016) and through better understanding and engagement with customers (King et al., 2011). However, simply increasing diversity in an organisation will not guarantee these benefits because if diversity is managed poorly then it can result in increased conflict and therefore poorer decision making and greater intention to leave (Jehn et al., 1999). Organisations will need to engage in an active process of diversity management if they are to leverage the benefits of diversity and in particular tackle the barriers to the fair progression of BAME staff (Giscombe & Mattis, 2002; McCarty Kilian et al., 2005).

Box 1.1 Are firms that discriminate more likely to go out of business?

In 2004 in order to study racial discrimination in employment in New York, young White, Black and Latino men were hired to play the role of job seekers. They were carefully matched on appearance, interpersonal skills and age and given CVs that matched in terms of qualifications and experience. Teams comprising one applicant from each ethnicity applied for jobs at 170 organisations over a 12-month period. White men received call-backs for interview 31 per cent of the time, Latino 25 per cent of the time and Black men just 15 per cent of the time.

The financial crisis of 2008 caused a significant shock to the economy and a record number of businesses closed. Enough that it was possible to see which of the 2004 sample had been affected. Recessions heighten the threats posed to organisational survival by ineffective practices, and discrimination is thought to be inefficient because people are employed for reasons other than their capability to do the job. So the more discriminatory a firm is, the more likely it should be to go out of business. This was indeed found to be the case – firms that were discriminatory were more than twice as likely to go out of business as a non-discriminatory counterpart (Pager, 2016).

BAME people are found to be highly motivated at work. They are more likely to enjoy their work and have far greater ambition than their White colleagues (BITC, 2014), and BAME managers were more likely than White managers to have a Master’s degree (Alban-Metcalfe, 2004). Lack of progress, therefore, must be substantially attributed to the career barriers experienced by BAME individuals at work. To take just one example, research into the career barriers experienced by BAME managers in local government identified that they experienced less supervisor support, training and development opportunities, high quality feedback and special assignments. BAME managers reported that they felt they were more likely to be part of the ‘out group’. Ultimately it was the BAME managers’ immediate line manager (supervisor) who was seen as being instrumental in respect of many of the career barriers they experienced (Alban-Metcalfe, 2004). Research by the civil service (Civil Service, 2014) identified contextual barriers to the progression of BAME staff such as lack of an inclusive and fair organisational climate, lack of BAME role models and inconsistent application of diversity policies. Line managers were again cited as a barrier for some staff because they offered less support, training and development opportunities to BAME staff. To quote one of the respondents in their report: ‘Good role models help to demystify, show you what’s possible, makes it feel real and achievable. And the best way to silence the cynics!’ Unconscious bias and discrimination were also seen to be limiting access to promotions, stretch projects and senior managers: ‘In the city, many promotions are decided at the bar, not in the workplace. You have to be part of that club here too. Peers want to keep the status quo. They will recruit in their “like” to keep the organisation, as they know it, going.’

In the legal profession (Law Society, 2010) unfair recruitment practices were cited as a barrier with partners and senior solicitors seen to be selecting ‘mini versions’ of themselves particularly where they shared an ‘Oxbridge’ background. Once BAME layers were employed by a legal firm (or practice) a lack of transparency and clarity in respect of how performance and promotion were assessed became a major barrier. Research across a range of other sectors produces similar findings: health service (Rutherford, 2014), education (Haque & Elliot, 2016), higher education (Bhopal, 2014) and construction (Chaudhry, 2014).

In the UK, whilst we have this broad range of studies that identify what the career barriers experienced by BAME individuals at work are, what we lack is a well-established body of theory-driven research into the factors underpinning these career barriers (Kenny & Briner, 2007). Without this understanding it is difficult for diversity or HR professionals or managers who champion diversity to innovate and design interventions that have a reasonable chance of being effective (Priest et al ., 2015). In both the UK and the US the most common form of diversity intervention is to provide diversity training for staff. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) carried out a survey of the diversity management practices of UK businesses and whilst 66 per cent of respondents provided awareness training for staff , only 30 per cent had diversity related objectives and few (16 per cent) included diversity related goals as part of their performance assessment (CIPD, 2006). More recently, in the US, 155 members of the Society for Industrial and Organisational Psychology were sur-veyed on their use of 41 different diversity management practices. The majority of respondents were either projecting diversity in their recruitment materials (93 per cent), or offering diversity training (70 per cent) with the third most popular activity being mentoring programmes (45 per cent). Organisations invest considerable sums in initiatives such as these. According to one estimate (Hansen, 2003) over $8 billion is spent on equality and diversity training each year in the US in attempts to ensure that organisations can leverage the benefits of diversity, yet there is little evidence supporting the effectiveness of diversity training as currently devised (Paluck & Green, 2009). What does appear to have some impact are initiatives such as mentoring programmes and initiatives that hold managers accountable for achieving diversity objectives. Kalev et al. (2006) examined the effectiveness of diversity training, mentoring and networking and setting manager’s diversity objectives in 708 US firms for actually increasing diversity in these firms. They found that only managerial accountability resulted in a significant increase in the representation of managers from diverse backgrounds.

Kulik and Roberson (2008) argue that since the design of much diversity training does not include elements that specifically address pre-training motivation and the ability to transfer learning to the workplace it is inappropriate to expect awareness training to result in behavioural change. What is needed, they suggest, is more theory-driven design of diversity interventions to maximise the utility and effectiveness of these interventions. There is a gap between what researchers know and what practitioners know (Rynes et al., 2002a, 2002b), and practitioners cannot implement what they do not know. The aim of this book therefore is to introduce the reader to theory and research findings, particularly from social and organisational psychology, that have relevance for understanding how individuals and organisations might enhance the experience and outcomes of BAME staff at work.

This book attempts to address the experiences of BAME employees at key points of the employee life cycle (i.e. from recruitment and on-boarding through to turnover or retention) and in respect of key group and organisational factors. The book does not attempt to be an exhaustive examination of each area but rather an introduction to relevant and innovative research that adds a fresh perspective to topics familiar to the human resource (HR), equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) specialist, such as recruitment, teamwork and leadership development. For the manager and leader anxious to improve the experience of BAME staff across the organisation, the book has chapters offering insight into diversity as strategy and creating a positive diversity climate. For the BAME individual, not only does the book offer a psychological perspective on the experiences of BAME people at work, it also offers insights into being an effective change agent working to improve these experiences. This is a book that can thus be read in its entirety or dipped in and out of depending on the need or inclination of the reader.

A unique feature of this book is that the authors are a diverse mixture of academics and practising organisational psychologists. Organisational psychology is the scientific study of how people think, feel and behave in the workplace. Whilst individuals make up the workforce and much of organisational psychology is concerned with the psychological principles underlying individual behaviour in the workplace, once individuals join together and form groups different processes come into play. Organisational psychologists are therefore also interested in the analysis of group behaviours at work. A further level of analysis comes from the perspective of the organisation as a whole. All the authors also have an interest and expertise in the psychology of ethnicity and diversity at work. This means that in addition to analysing issues on the basis of the individual, the group and the organisation at work, we also ask how diversity, and in particular ethnic differences, impact this analysis and what implications this might have for individuals, groups and organisations that want to improve the experience and outcomes for BAME individuals in the workplace.

Another important feature of the book is that each chapter contains case studies to bring the theories alive and tips for the practical implementation of the information covered. Because of its emphasis on both research and practice, this book is of interest to the organisational scholar as well as HR and EDI practitioners and so would be very relevant to those studying human resource management, organisational behaviour and psychology and those studying for MBAs and other management and leadership courses.

Synopsis of the Book

Chapters 2 and 3 look at fundamental issues facing BAME employees entering workplaces and experiencing the world of work.

Chapter 2 explores how prejudice and discrimination remain and impact on the experience of BAME people at work. Factors identified through social psychology are used to describe experiences and explain why some of these experiences come about and what their likely impacts may be on BAME professionals, their colleagues and their leaders. Recommendations are offered for organisations and managers concerning how to draw on this knowledge to help encourage and develop workplaces in more positive directions for minority members.

Chapter 3 on recruitm...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• List of Boxes
• Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Preface
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Minority Ethnic Employees’ Experiences in the Workplace
• 3. Recruitment, Selection and Unconscious Bias
• 4. Performance Appraisal
• 5. Leadership Development
• 6. The Psychology of Positive Action: Getting It Right for Beneficiaries and Non-Beneficiaries
• 7. Informal and Political Processes
• 8. Managing Work Group Diversity
• 9. Diversity Climates in Organisations
• 10. Diversity as Organisational Strategy
• 11. Driving Inclusion: A Change Agent’s Guide
• 12. An Evidence-Based Practice Approach to Diversity Management
• Index