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KiniOB2e_C04_Final.pptxCHAPTER 4
Social Perceptions and Managing Diversity
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Major Questions You Should Be Able to Answer
4.1 How do I form perceptions of others?
4.2 How can I use awareness of stereotypes to make better decisions and manage more effectively?
4.3 How do I tend to interpret employee performance?
4.4 How does awareness about the layers of diversity help organizations effectively manage diversity?
4.5 What is the business rationale for managing diversity?
4.6 What are the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs?
4.7 What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity, and what works best?
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Person Perceptions
What is perception?
A cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings
Important as perceptions affect actions and decisions
Perceptions are based on the characteristics of:
The perceiver
The target
The situation
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Perception is a cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings.
Recognition of objects is one of this process’s major functions. For example, both people and animals recognize familiar objects in their environments.
People must recognize objects to meaningfully interact with their environment.
But since organizational behavior’s (OB’s) principal focus is on people, the following discussion emphasizes social perception rather than object perception.
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Model of Person Perception
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Managerial Implications of Person Perception
Hiring
Implicit cognitions may lead to biased decisions.
Biased decisions are avoided by training, use of structured interviews, use of multiple interviewers.
Performance appraisals
Faulty perceptions about performance leads to inaccurate appraisals and erode morale.
Faulty perceptions are reduced by use of objective measures, training, use of HR analytics for capturing daily performance.
Leadership
Employees’ evaluations of leader effectiveness are influenced by their schemata of good and poor leaders.
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Interviewers make hiring decisions based on their impression of how an applicant fits the perceived requirements of a job. Unfortunately, many of these decisions are made on the basis of implicit cognition.
Implicit cognition represents any thoughts or beliefs that are automatically activated from memory without our conscious awareness.
The existence of implicit cognition leads people to make biased decisions without an understanding that it is occurring.
Managers can be trained to understand and reduce this type of hidden bias. Bias can be reduced by using structured as opposed to unstructured interviews, and by relying on evaluations from multiple interviewers rather than just one or two people. More and more companies are using virtual interviews as a tool for reducing problems associated with implicit cognition.
Faulty schemata about good versus poor performance can lead to inaccurate performance appraisals, which erode morale.
Therefore, managers must accurately identify and communicate the behavioral characteristics and results they look for in good performance at the beginning of a review cycle.
Furthermore, because memory for specific instances of employee performance deteriorates over time, managers need a mechanism for accurately recalling employee behavior.
Research demonstrates that employees’ evaluations of leader effectiveness are influenced strongly by their schemata of good and poor leaders.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (1 of 5)
Steven wants to be sure there is no implicit cognition creating bias in his company’s interviewing process. The best course of action is to
train all interviewers in the interview process.
have more than one interviewer conducting interviews.
conduct the interviews virtually.
use a structured interview approach.
All of the above.
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The answer is E. All of the above. All four will reduce bias.
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What Is a Stereotype?
An individual’s set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group
May or may not be accurate
Can lead to poor decisions
Can create barriers for:
Women
Older individuals
People of color
People with disabilities
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Stereotypes represent a key component of the perception process because they are used during encoding.
A stereotype is an individual’s set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group.
Stereotypes are not always negative. For example, the belief that engineers are good at math is certainly part of a stereotype.
Stereotypes may or may not be accurate.
Unfortunately, stereotypes can lead to poor decisions. Specifically they can create barriers for women, older individuals, people of color, and people with disabilities, all while undermining loyalty and job satisfaction.
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How Stereotypes Are Formed and Maintained
Four steps
Categorization
Inferences
Expectations
Maintenance
Accurate information and motivation are needed to reduce the use of stereotypes.
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Stereotyping is based on the following four-step process:
1. Categorization. We categorize people into groups according to criteria (such as gender, age, race, and occupation).
2. Inferences. Next, we infer that all people within a particular category possess the same traits or characteristics
3. Expectations. We form expectations of others and interpret their behavior according to our stereotypes.
4. Maintenance. We maintain stereotypes by overestimating the frequency of stereotypic behaviors exhibited by others, incorrectly explaining expected and unexpected behaviors, differentiating minority individuals from ourselves.
Research shows that it takes accurate information and motivation to reduce the use of stereotypes.
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Stereotypes
Managerial challenges and recommendations
Educate people about stereotypes and how they influence behavior and decision making.
Create opportunities for diverse employees to meet and work with others.
Encourage all employees to increase their awareness.
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The key managerial challenge is to reduce the extent to which stereotypes influence decision making and interpersonal processes throughout the organization.
Three ways that this can be achieved:
Managers should educate people about stereotypes and how they can influence our behavior and decision making.
Managers should create opportunities for diverse employees to meet and work together in cooperative groups of equal status.
Managers should encourage all employees to strive to increase their awareness regarding stereotypes. Awareness helps reduce the application of stereotypes when making decisions and when interacting with others.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (2 of 5)
Which of the following statements is NOT accurate?
Stereotypes can lead to poor decisions.
All stereotypes are negative.
Stereotypes are used during the encoding process of perception.
Quality interpersonal contact among mixed groups may reduce the use of stereotypes.
Some people have negative stereotypes about older individuals.
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The answer is B. All stereotypes are negative. Stereotypes can be positive.
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Causal Attributions
What are causal attributions?
Suspected or inferred causes of behavior
Important because attributions affects our perceptions of cause and our choice of action
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Attribution theory is based on a simple premise: People infer causes for observed behavior. Rightly or wrongly, we constantly formulate cause-and-effect explanations for how we and others behave.
Formally defined, causal attributions are suspected or inferred causes of behavior.
Managers need to understand how people formulate these attributions because the attributions profoundly affect organizational behavior.
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Kelley’s Model of Attribution (1 of 2)
Behaviors can be attributed either to internal factors within a person or external factors in the environment.
We make causal attributions by observing three dimensions of behavior. These can be high or low.
Consensus
Distinctiveness
Consistency
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Behavior can be attributed either to internal factors within a person (such as ability) or to external factors in the environment (such as a difficult task).
Kelley hypothesized that people make causal attributions by observing three dimensions of behavior: consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.
These dimensions vary independently, forming various combinations and leading to differing attributions.
• Consensus compares an individual’s behavior with that of his or her peers. There is high consensus when one acts like the rest of the group and low consensus when one acts differently.
• Distinctiveness compares a person’s behavior on one task with his or her behavior on other tasks. High distinctiveness means the individual has performed the task in question in a significantly different manner than he or she has performed other tasks.
• Consistency judges if the individual’s performance on a given task is consistent over time. Low consistency is undesirable for obvious reasons, and implies that a person is unable to perform a certain task at some standard level. High consistency implies that a person performs a certain task the same way, with little or no variation over time.
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Kelly’s Model of Attribution (2 of 2)
How does consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency lead to specific attributions?
| Attribution | Consensus (People) | Distinctiveness (Tasks) | Consistency (Time) |
| Internal | Low | Low | High |
| External | High | High | Low |
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Kelley theorized that people attribute behavior to either internal causes (personal factors) or external causes (environmental factors) depending on the ranking of consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.
While other combinations are possible, the two options shown above have been most frequently studied.
Say all employees are performing poorly (high consensus), on only one of several tasks (high distinctiveness), and during only one time period (low consistency). A supervisor will probably attribute the employees’ poor performance to an external source such as a temporary distraction or event.
In contrast, if only one employee performs poorly (low consensus), across several tasks (low distinctiveness), and over time (high consistency), the supervisor will likely attribute performance to personal factors.
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Attributional Tendencies
Fundamental attribution bias
A tendency to attribute another person’s behavior to his or her personal characteristics, as opposed to situational factors
Self-serving bias
One’s tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure
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The fundamental attribution bias reflects one’s tendency to attribute another person’s behavior to his or her personal characteristics, as opposed to situational factors. This bias causes perceivers to ignore important environmental factors that often significantly affect behavior. This leads to inaccurate assessments of performance, which in turn foster inappropriate responses to poor performance.
The self-serving bias represents one’s tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure. The self-serving bias suggests employees will attribute their success to internal factors (high ability or hard work) and their failures to uncontrollable external factors (tough job, bad luck, unproductive coworkers, or an unsympathetic boss). This tendency plays out in all aspects of life.
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Managerial Applications and Implications
Managerial tendency to attribute behavior to internal causes may lead managers to take inappropriate actions.
An employee’s attributions for his or her own performance have dramatic effects on subsequent motivation, performance, and personal attitudes.
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We tend to disproportionately attribute behavior to internal causes. This can result in inaccurate evaluations of performance, leading to reduced employee motivation. No one likes to be blamed because of factors they perceive to be beyond their control. The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB offers a simple solution for overcoming this tendency. You must remind yourself that behavior and performance is a function of both person factors and environmental characteristics.
Other attributional biases may lead managers to take inappropriate actions. Such actions could include promotions, transfers, layoffs, and so forth. This can dampen motivation and performance.
Attributional training sessions can help. Basic attributional processes can be explained, and we can be taught to detect and avoid attributional biases.
An employee’s attributions for his or her own performance have dramatic effects on subsequent motivation, performance, and personal attitudes such as self- esteem. For instance, people tend to give up, develop lower expectations for future success, and experience decreased self-esteem when they attribute failure to a lack of ability. Employees are more likely to display high performance and job satisfaction when they attribute success to internal factors such as ability and effort.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (3 of 5)
Megan was hurt at work. Megan’s manager concluded that Megan was careless and clumsy. Megan’s manager may have committed an error called ________ error.
fundamental attribution
ultimate perception
stereotyping
self-serving bias
internal cognition
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The answer is A. Fundamental attribution error. The manager is assuming it was Megan’s fault.
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The Four Layers of Diversity
Diversity: the multitude of individual differences and similarities that exist among people
Personality
Surface-level
Internal characteristics apparent to others (unchangeable)
Deep-level
External influences
Organizational dimensions
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Figure 4.3 shows that personality is at the center of the diversity wheel because it represents a stable set of characteristics responsible for a person’s identity.
The next layer of diversity includes internal dimensions that are referred to as surface-level dimensions of diversity. Surface-level characteristics are those that are quickly apparent to interactants, such as race, gender, and age. Because these characteristics are viewed as unchangeable, they strongly influence our attitudes and expectations and assumptions about others, which, in turn, influence our behavior.
Figure 4.3 shows that the next layer of diversity comprises external influences. They represent individual differences that we have a greater ability to influence or control. Examples include where you live today, your religious affiliation, whether you are married and have children, and your work experiences. These dimensions also exert a significant influence on our perceptions, behavior, and attitudes.
The final layer of diversity includes organizational dimensions such as seniority, work location, and job title and function. Integrating these last two layers results in what is called deep-level characteristics of diversity. Deep-level characteristics are those that take time to emerge in interactions, such as attitudes, opinions, and values. These characteristics are definitely under our control.
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Addressing Discrimination
Discrimination occurs when employment decisions about an individual are due to individual characteristics and attributes that are not related to the job.
Affirmative Action
Interventions to correct imbalances, injustice, mistakes, or outright discrimination
Both voluntary and mandatory programs
Not based on quotas
Can lead to stigmas for those expected to benefit from AA programs
Managing Diversity
Focuses on changing organizational culture and structure
Enable people to perform to potential
Relies on education, enforcement, and exposure
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It’s important to understand that affirmative action is not a law in and of itself. It is an outgrowth of equal employment opportunity (EEO) legislation. The goal of this legislation is to outlaw discrimination and to encourage organizations to proactively prevent discrimination.
Discrimination occurs when employment decisions about an individual are due to reasons not associated with performance or are not related to the job. For example, organizations cannot discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, physical or mental disabilities, or pregnancy.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (4 of 5)
As Jasmine got to know Mary, a co-worker of a different ethnicity, Jasmine was surprised to learn how much she actually had in common with Mary such as loving to hike and choice of religion. Jasmine was experiencing which layer of diversity?
organizational dimensions
personality
surface-level characteristics
deep-level characteristics
internal dimensions
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The answer is D. Deep-level characteristics.
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Building the Business Case for Managing Diversity
Business rationale for diversity
Managing diversity gives an organization the ability to grow and maintain a business in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
The access-and-legitimacy perspective is based on recognition that the organization’s markets and constituencies are culturally diverse.
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The rationale for managing diversity is more than its legal, social, or moral dimension. Quite simply, it’s good business. Managing diversity gives the organization the ability to grow and maintain a business in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
An access-and-legitimacy perspective on diversity is based on recognizing that the organization’s markets and constituencies are culturally diverse.
It therefore behooves the organization to match the diversity in parts of its own workforce as a way of gaining access to and legitimacy with those markets and constituent groups.
One study discovered that customer satisfaction and employee productivity were higher when the racio-ethnic composition of customers matched that of store employees.
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Are Women Breaking the Glass Ceiling?
Advancements
Educational attainment
Seats on board of directors
Leadership positions in education institutions
Women are breaking through but barriers and differences remain.
Continuing pay gap
Pay gap for female MBA graduates
Gender discrimination
Barriers and Gaps
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The glass ceiling represents an invisible but absolute barrier or solid roadblock that prevents women from advancing to higher-level positions.
Various statistics support the existence of a glass ceiling. The pay gap between men and women is one example. In 2012, the median weekly income in full-time management, professional, and related occupations was $1,328 for men in contrast to $951 for women.
This gap includes MBA graduates. Female graduates from top MBA programs earned 93 cents for every dollar earned by a male graduate, and the pay gap tends to increase over time.
A WSJ/NBC national poll revealed that 40 percent of the women reported experiencing gender discrimination.
Educational attainment: women earned the majority of bachelor’s and master’s degrees from 2006 through 2012.
Seats on boards of directors of Fortune 500 firms: 9.6% in 1995 and 16.6% in 2013.
Leadership positions in educational institutions: In 2010, women represented 18.7% of college presidents and 29.9% of board members.
Federal court appointments: in 2013, 32% and 30% of Federal Courts of Appeals and U.S. District Court judges, respectively, were women.
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Trends in Workforce Diversity (1 of 2)
The Census Bureau predicts that by 2060 57% of the workforce will consist of minority groups.
However, current minority groups appear to be stalled at their own glass ceiling.
They make up a smaller percentage in the professional class.
They are involved in more discrimination cases.
They achieve lower earnings.
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All told, minority groups will constitute approximately 57 percent of the workforce in 2060, according to the Census Bureau.
And yet, three additional trends suggest that current-day minority groups are stalled at their own glass ceiling.
Smaller percentage in the professional class. Latinos and African Americans have a smaller relative hold on managerial and professional jobs within their racial groupings.
More discrimination cases. The number of race-based charges of discrimination that were deemed to show reasonable cause by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission increased from 294 in 1995 to 957 in 2013. Companies paid a total of $112 million to resolve these claims outside of litigation in 2013.
Lower earnings. Minorities also tend to earn less personal income than whites. Median weekly earnings in 2010 were $1,103, $884, $1,275, and $895 for whites, blacks, Asians, and Latinos, respectively. Interestingly, Asians had the highest median income.
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Trends in Workforce Diversity (2 of 2)
Generational Diversity
The population and workforce is getting older.
Four generations of employees are working together (soon to be five).
Managers need to deal with generational differences in values, attitudes, and behavior.
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America’s population and workforce are getting older, and the workforce includes greater generational differences than ever before. We already see four generations of employees working together, soon to be joined by a fifth. Managers need to deal effectively with these generational differences in values, attitudes, and behaviors. Many companies—including IBM, Lockheed Martin, Ernst & Young, and Aetna—address this issue by providing training workshops on generational diversity.
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Test Your OB Knowledge (5 of 5)
Big Bucks Bank is located in a city with a growing Latino population. Jane, the CEO, believes in the access-legitimacy perspective. Jane will do which of the following?
Hire employees to match the diversity in the population.
Offer Latino food every Friday.
Offer international travel services.
Support the local university’s Spanish department.
All of the above.
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The answer is A. Hire employees to match the diversity in the population.
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Barriers and Challenges to Managing Diversity
Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice
Ethnocentrism
Poor career planning
Negative diversity climate
Unsupportive and hostile environment
Lack of political savvy of diverse employees
Difficulty in balancing career and family issues
Fears of reverse discrimination
Diversity not seen as an organizational priority
Outdated appraisal and reward systems
Resistance to change
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Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice. This barrier manifests itself in the belief that differences are viewed as weaknesses. In turn, this promotes the view that diversity hiring will mean sacrificing competence and quality.
Ethnocentrism. The ethnocentrism barrier represents the feeling that one’s cultural rules and norms are superior or more legitimate than the rules and norms of another culture.
Poor career planning. This barrier is associated with the lack of opportunities for diverse employees to get the type of work assignments that qualify them for senior management positions.
A negative diversity climate. We define organizational climate as employee perceptions about an organization’s formal and informal policies, practices, and procedures. Diversity climate is a subcomponent of an organization’s overall climate and is defined as the employees’ aggregate “perceptions about the organization’s diversity-related formal structure characteristics and informal values.”
An unsupportive and hostile working environment for diverse employees. Sexual, racial, and age harassment are common examples of hostile work environments. Whether perpetrated against women, men, older individuals, or LGBT people, hostile environments are demeaning, unethical, and appropriately called “work environment pollution.”
Lack of political savvy on the part of diverse employees. Diverse employees may not get promoted because they do not know how to “play the game” of getting along and getting ahead in an organization. Research reveals that women and people of color are excluded from organizational networks.
Difficulty in balancing career and family issues. Women still assume the majority of the responsibilities associated with raising children.
Fears of reverse discrimination. Some employees believe that managing diversity is a smoke screen for reverse discrimination. This belief leads to very strong resistance because people feel that one person’s gain is another’s loss.
Diversity is not seen as an organizational priority. This leads to subtle resistance that shows up in the form of complaints and negative attitudes. Employees may complain about the time, energy, and resources devoted to diversity that could have been spent doing “real work.”
The need to revamp the organization’s performance appraisal and reward system. Performance appraisals and reward systems must reinforce the need to effectively manage diversity. This means that success will be based on a new set of criteria.
Resistance to change. Effectively managing diversity entails significant organizational and personal change.
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Managing Diversity
Organizations use a variety of generic approaches to addressing diversity issues.
Include or exclude
Deny
Assimilate
Suppress
Isolate
Tolerate
Build relationships
Foster mutual adaptation
Only fostering mutual adaptation endorses the philosophy behind managing diversity.
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Option 1: Include or exclude
This choice may be an outgrowth of affirmative-action programs. Its primary goal is to either increase or decrease the number of diverse people at all levels of the organization.
Option 2: Deny
People using this option deny that differences exist. Denial may manifest itself in proclamations that all decisions are color-, gender-, and age-blind and that success is solely determined by merit and performance.
Option 3: Assimilate
The basic premise behind this alternative is that all diverse people will learn to fit in or become like the dominant group. It only takes time and reinforcement for people to see the light.
Option 4: Suppress
Differences are squelched or discouraged when using this approach. This can be done by telling or reinforcing others to quit whining and complaining about issues.
Option 5: Isolate
This option maintains the current way of doing things by setting the diverse person off to the side. In this way the individual is unable to influence organizational change.
Option 6: Tolerate
Toleration entails acknowledging differences but not valuing or accepting them. It represents a live-and-let-live approach that superficially allows organizations to give lip-service to the issue of managing diversity. Toleration is different from isolation in that it allows for the inclusion of diverse people. However, differences are not really valued or accepted when an organization uses this option.
Option 7: Build relationships
This approach is based on the premise that good relationships can overcome differences. It addresses diversity by fostering quality relationships—characterized by acceptance and understanding—among diverse groups.
Option 8: Foster mutual adaptation
In this option, people are willing to adapt or change their views for the sake of creating positive relationships with others. This implies that employees and management alike must be willing to accept differences, and, most important, agree that everyone and everything is open for change. Diversity training is one way to kick start mutual adaptation.
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Social Perception and Managing Diversity: Putting It All in Context
Figure 4.5 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
Jump to Appendix 3 for description
Copyright 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
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Appendix 1 Models of Person Perception
Characteristics of the perceiver
Direction of gaze
Needs and goals
Experience with target
Category based knowledge
Gender and emotional status
Cognitive load
Characteristics of the target
Direction of gaze
Facial and body shape characteristics
Nonverbal cues
Appearance or dress
Physical attractiveness
Characteristics of the situation
Context of interaction
Culture and race consistency between perceiver and target
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Appendix 2 The Four Layers of Diversity
The four layers of diversity:
Organizational dimensions
Functional level and classification
Work content and field
Division department unit and group
Seniority
Work location
Union affiliation
Management status
External dimensions
Geographic location
Income
Personal habits
Recreational habits
Religion
Educational background
Work experience
Appearance
Parental status
Marital status
Internal dimensions are age, gender, sexual orientation, educational background, work experience, appearance, parental status, and marital status.
And in the center, is personality.
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Appendix 3 Social Perception and Managing Diversity: Putting It All in Context
The graphic shows the relationship between the three categories Inputs, Process, and Outcomes.
Inputs
Person factors: diversity, demographics, and stereotypes
Situation factors: diversity climate
Leads to
Processes
Individual Level: perceptions, attributions, psychology safety
Group/Team Level: group, team dynamics
Organizational Level: options to manage diversity
Leads to
Outcomes
Individual Level: task performance, work attitudes, well-being and flourishing, turnover, career outcomes.
Group/Team Level: group and team performance, and group satisfaction
Organizational Level: employer of choice, customer satisfaction, and reputation
In return, Outcomes relates to both Inputs and Processes.
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