Bro or Kook? The effect of dynamic member evaluation on incivility and resources in surf lineups

• Published date: 22 May 2019
• Pages: 261-284
• Date: 22 May 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-04-2018-0075
• Author: Dana McDaniel Sumpter
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour,Employment law

Bro or Kook? The effect of

dynamic member evaluation

on incivility and resources in

surf lineups

Dana McDaniel Sumpter

College of Business Administration,

California State University, Long Beach, California, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore processes of group member evaluation and the

interpersonal behavioral consequences of perceived group membership, within the context of a temporary

group with evolving members.

Design/methodology/approach –Based on data from an autoethnographic study, the author investigates

individual socialization into a new group, with a focus on how gender influences interpersonal evaluation

processes. The author analyzes the interpersonal organizing behaviors of surf lineups, which are a

male-dominated group that is continually socially constructed through changing membership.

Findings –Findings support an association between denial of group membership and outcomes including

incivility and denial of resources. The author develops a model of dynamic member evaluation, which

identifies how group members continuously evaluate proximate individuals at the stage of impending

membership, with identified outcomes of those evaluations.

Research limitations/implications –A limitation of this design is that it generalizes organizingprocesses

from a non-traditional setting to more traditional organizations. The model predicts dynamic member

evaluation as individuals organize into groups in a shifting environment, with implications for scholarship on

intragroup dynamics, incivility, gender and inclusion.

Practical implications –Understanding dynamic member evaluation provides a path for aspiring or new

group members to employ signaling behaviors, which can help to prevent incivility and enhance resource

availability. Evidence suggests that the proactive act of signaling competence may help to foster inclusion at

the stage of impending membership, which is particularly important given how impending member

evaluation is subject to bias. Such understanding also raises the awareness of how majority group members

can manage their evaluations and refrain from letting judgments of impendingmembers impact interpersonal

behaviors, which may prevent incivility.

Social implications –The findings and resultant model illustrate the process and experience of group

inclusion, showing how incivility can manifest and resources can be limited toward impending members who

are excluded.

Originality/value –This study contributes to scholarship by introducing dynamic member evaluation,

including the content and process of evaluation at the stage of impending membership, how resultant

selective incivility can be predicted, and potential contagion effects of such incivility.

Keywords Gender, Women, Discrimination, Organizations, Qualitative research, Industrial psychology

Paper type Research paper

Organizations and the groups that comprise them increasingly exhibit evolving forms, so as

to remain nimble, flexible and competitive.Requisite with this, the observed ways that people

organize to get work done have become less static and codified, and more dynamic and

fluctuating. While some organizational structures (such as formally identified teams) may

have strict membership boundaries, othergroups have more fluid membership.To this point,

Dibble and Gibson (2013, p. 764) stated that “a criticalproblem for organizational scholars of

the twenty-first century is to begin to address the abundance of ‘organizing’that takes place

outside therealm of conventional teams embeddedin organizations.”Organizational members

are also increasingly diverse,compelling the need for furtherunderstanding of how peoplecan

work well with different others (Bell, 2007; Van Dijk et al., 2017).

Received 25 April 2018

Revised 18 September 2018

1 December 2018

15 February 2019

9 April 2019

Accepted 23 April 2019

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

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

Bro or Kook?

Equality,DiversityandInclusion:

AnInternationalJournal

Vol.39 No. 3, 2020

pp.261-284

©EmeraldPublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI10.1108/EDI-04-2018-0075

261

Organizing inherently entails individuals using their available resources, such as one’s

own energy, time or attention. Bias and discrimination based on social categorization

(Reynolds and Oakes, 2000) or demographic characteristics (Van Knippenberg and

Schippers, 2007; Van Dijk et al., 2017) can deplete individual resources. Increased exposure

to demographically different others in diverse environments can yield wonderful benefits

such as infused creativity and adaptability, yet also negative interpersonal behaviors such

as discrimination and incivility. Incivility, rudeness and other forms of interpersonal

mistreatment have long been identified as unfortunate aspects of exclusion. Such behavior

often results from majority requirements being entrenched in the decision of who is

included, and who is excluded, from group membership (Chattopadhyay et al., 2004; Prasad

et al., 2006). Evaluations of inclusion are influenced by stereotypes and associations

prompted by unconscious processes of social categorization, such as those based on gender

(Hilton and von Hippel, 1996). When an environment is ( for example) predominantly male,

the process by which someone evaluates who should be included and who should be

excluded often goes differently, depending on whether the target is male or female. Such

stereotyping colors the member evaluation process.

This paper addresses how individuals can better navigate these complex social and

organizing processes at a particular point in time: at the stage of impending group

membership. This process may be particularly important to understand when membership

of some collectivity is socially constructed. That is, there is value in not only actual

membership that is explicitly defined, but also on perceived membership. I suggest that

perceptions of membership can enable or constrain interpersonal treatment and ultimate

success in goal attainment, as being perceived as a group member entails favorable

behavior and access to resources (Allport, 1954; Levine et al., 2005). Increasingly,

demographic differences are noted as being associated with various forms of mistreatment,

such as incivility (McCord et al., 2018) which has been referred to as “selective incivility”

(Cortina, 2008; Cortina et al., 2013). Evaluations of potential members occur through a

dynamic process, as there is variability and instability in group membership over time. Yet

we still have little knowledge of the integration of this modern workplace context with

scholarship on discrimination and interpersonal treatment, as these kinds of informal and

evolving groups can be difficult to track and investigate in traditional organizations. This

gap raises the two research questions addressed in this paper:

RQ1. How do members of an evolving group evaluate and ultimately choose to include

or exclude impending members?

RQ2. What are the consequences of this dynamic form of group member evaluation?

I explore these research questions through qualitative and inductive methods, deriving

autoethnographic data from my experiences entering surf lineups as a woman in male-

dominated dynamic groups. During this time, I evolved from an often-excluded beginner

with impending membership to, over time, being included as a member. During my

fieldwork, I was continually intrigued by how surfers around me would evaluate others as

“bros”who were accepted as legitimate surfers, or “kooks”who were excluded, denied

access and mocked. Such language intentionally speaks to the masculine-dominant nature

of this environment, as well, which I address in my analysis and theorizing. Offering an

interesting combination of socialization, safety, gender and athleticism, this setting offers a

unique yet generalizable environment in which to analyze dynamic group membership

processes. The autoethnography is complemented by ethnographic data, which provides

context of social processes associated with the surf community and the act of surfing. In the

remainder of this paper, I first establish extant theory, before describing the setting that

inspired this conceptualization, the methodology employed in the field, and my analytical

techniques. I then share the results, from which I develop aggregate themes into a model of

EDI

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