Are the “best” better for everyone? Demographic variation in employee perceptions of Fortune’s “Best Companies to Work For”

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-01-2017-0017
• Pages: 647-669
• Date: 18 September 2017
• Published date: 18 September 2017
• Author: Edward J. Carberry,Joan S.M. Meyers
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity, equality, inclusion

Are the “best”better for

everyone? Demographic variation

in employee perceptions

of Fortune’s“Best Companies

to Work For”

Edward J. Carberry

Department of Management, University of Massachusetts Boston, Boston,

Massachusetts, USA, and

Joan S.M. Meyers

Department of Social Sciences, California Polytechnic State University,

San Luis Obispo, California, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to assess how employees from historically marginalized groups (men

and women of color and white women) perceive Fortune’s“100 Best Companies to Work For”® (BCWF) in

terms of two outcomes that are related to diversity and inclusion: fairness and camaraderie. The authors focus

on fairness as a way to measure perceptions of general treatment with respect to demographic characteristics

associated with bias and discrimination, and on camaraderie as a way to measure perceptions of the

inclusiveness of coworker relationships.

Design/methodology/approach –Hierarchical linear reg ression models are used t o analyze survey

responses from 620,802 employees in 1,054 companies that applied for the BCWF list between 2006 and

2011 in the USA. The authors compare the perceptions of employees in firms that areselected for the list to

those of their demograph ic counterparts in firm s not selected for the list. T he authors also compare the

perceptions of employ ees from historically ma rginalized groups to th ose of white men within fir ms that

make the list and examin e how these differences compare to the same differences wit hin firms that do not

make the list.

Findings –The findings reveal th at the perceptions of men and wom en of color and white wome n in

companies that make the “best”list are more po sitive than their demographic counterpart s in companies

that do not make the list. The a uthors also find, howeve r, that the perceptions o f employees from

historically margin alized groups are more negative than those o f white men in the “best”workplaces, and

these patterns are simil ar to those in firms that do not m ake the list. For percept ions of fairness,

the differences betwee n employees from histo rically marginalized g roups and white men are sma ller in

companies that make the list .

Research limitations/implications –The findings are based on average effect sizes across a large

number of companies and employees, and the data do not provide insight into the actual organizational

processes that are driving employee perceptions. In addition, the employee survey data are self-reported, and

may be subject to recall and self-serving biases. Finally, the authors use measures of fairness and camaraderie

that have not been rigorously tested in past research.

Practical implications –Managers seeking to impr ove experiences of fair ness and camaraderie

should pay particular at tention to how race/eth nicity and gender influ ence these experience s, and how

they do so intersectiona lly. Attending to thes e differences is parti cularly important to the extent

that experiences of fai rness and camaraderi e are related to organiz ational trust, the key me tric on

which companies are selected f or the “best”workplaces list, and a q uality of organizational relationshi ps

that previous researc h has found to be positively related to key in dividual and firm-level outcomes.

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 36 No. 7, 2017

pp. 647-669

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-01-2017-0017

Received 19 January 2017

Revised 28 April 2017

30 June 2017

26 August 2017

Accepted 8 September 2017

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

This research was supported by a Blue Wolf Capital Fellowship from the Fellowship Program at the

Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations. The authors would like to thank Joseph Blasi,

Emilio Castilla, Amy Lyman, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan, Pam Tolbert, and Steve Vallas for feedback on

earlier versions of this paper.

647

Are the “best”

better for

everyone?

Originality/value –The paper provides the first assessment of demographic variation in the outcomes of

employees in companies selected for the BCWF. Since selection to this list is based on the presence

of trust, the authors’findings also provide potential insight into how informal organizational processes that

are associated with trust, such as leadership behaviors, peer relationships, and workplace norms, are viewed

and experienced by men and women of color and white women. Finally, the authors analyze outcomes

relating to camaraderie, a construct that has received little attention in the literature.

Keywords Gender, Ethnic minorities, Employee attitudes, Corporate rankings, Organizational fairness,

Workplace camaraderie

Paper type Research paper

Corporations continue to play a central role in creating and mitigating inequality, not only

through formal practices that define how pay, power, and opportunities are allocated, but

also through the informal norms, values, and routines that shape the behavior of managers

and employees. Organizational efforts to mitigate workplace inequality have most often

taken the form of promoting equal opportunities through formal human resource practices

(Dobbin, 2009), and promoting inclusion into core organizational activities, decisions, and

relationships (Nishii, 2013). Although high-status firms like the Fortune 500 remain

exemplars that other companies look to as sources of new management ideas to promote

diversity and inclusion (Briscoe and Safford, 2008), corporate rankings lists have created

new groups of exemplars along a number of criteria (Fombrun, 2007). In terms of workplace

quality, Fortune’s annual list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For®”(BCWF ) has

become one of the most visible and highly regarded assessments. The list has been compiled

annually since 1988 by Great Place to Work® (GPW), a research and consulting firm that

operates and publishes lists in over 40 countries. As the list has gained status and visibility,

and its choices are endorsed by the media, firms selected for this list are increasingly viewed

as representative of high-quality workplaces.

Broad assessments of worker outcomes within these companies remain scarce, however,

particularly the outcomes of employees from historically marginalized groups. Are the

“best”better for all employees regardless of race/ethnicity and gender? In this paper, we

provide insight into this question by analyzing survey data from 620,802 employees in 1,054

companies that applied for the BCWF list between 2006 and 2011 in the USA.

The primary data are employee responses to survey items contained in the GPW’s

Trust Index©. Our analysis assesses the extent to which men and women of color and white

women perceive the “best”workplaces in terms of two outcomes that are related to diversity

and inclusion: fairness and camaraderie. We focus on fairness as a way to measure

employee perceptions of general treatment with respect to demographic characteristics

associated with bias and discrimination, and camaraderie as a way to measure perceptions

of the inclusiveness of coworker relationships. Since race/ethnicity and gender intersect to

produce durable, historically specific social locations with permeable but cohesive bonds of

experience (Marfelt, 2016; McCall, 2005; Sayce et al., 2012), our analysis examines employee

perceptions intersectionally (Crenshaw, 1991).

In addition to providing the first assessment of whetherand how employee perceptions of

the “best”workplaces differ by race/ethnicit y and gender, our analysis extends

the literature on workplace inequality, which has focused significant attention on the

relationship between formal management practices and employee outcomes (Carberry, 2010;

Castilla, 2012;Kalev, 2009; Kelly et al.,2010),but lessontheroleofinformalnorms,behavior,

and values. Selection to the BCWF listis not based on the presence of formalpractices but on

the presence of trust, particularly trust that employees have in their leaders and managers.

Our findings, therefore, provide provisional insight into how informal organizational

processesthat are associated with trust –suchas leadership behaviors,peer relationships, and

workplace norms –are viewed and experienced by employees from historically marginalized

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