Organizational culture, perceived societal and organizational discrimination

• Date: 19 August 2019
• Published date: 19 August 2019
• Pages: 602-618
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-10-2018-0191
• Author: Arief Banindro Kartolo,Catherine T. Kwantes
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour

Organizational culture,

perceived societal and

organizational discrimination

Arief Banindro Kartolo and Catherine T. Kwantes

Department of Psychology, University of Windsor, Windsor, Canada

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to fill the gap in the literature by exploring the perceived societal

discrimination as an antecedent of perceived organizational discrimination, and investigating the impact of

organizational culture (i.e. constructive, passive-defensive and aggressive-defensive culture norms) on

perceptions of discrimination in the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach –A total of 176 American employees completed three surveys assessing

perceived societal discrimination, perceived organizational discrimination and organizational culture online

through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Data were analyzed using hierarchical multiple regression method.

Findings –Results suggestindividuals’perceptionsof discrimination in the workplaceare influenced by both

perceived discrimination in society and perceptions of behavioral norms related to organizational culture.

Findingsin the current study indicated individuals’attitudesand beliefs manifested in the societalcontext were

carried into, and reflected in, the workplace. Additionally, beliefs related to organizational discrimination

were found to be amplified or minimized depending on organizational culture; specifically, organizations

dominated by culture norms reflecting behaviors related to individual security needs predicted higherlevels,

and culture normsreflecting behaviors relatedto meeting employee satisfactionneeds predicted lower levels of

perceived organizational discrimination.

Originality/value –This paper testedtheoretical frameworks debated in the literature by exploring beyond

institutionalboundaries in the study of perceiveddiscrimination by exploringperceived societal discrimination

as an antecedent to perceived organizational discrimination. This project also is the first study (to authors’

knowledge) to investigate the impact of organizational culture on perceived organizational discrimination.

Keywords Organizational culture, Workplace diversity, Perceived discrimination, Societal culture

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Instances of organizational discrimination have been reduced substantially over the past

decades where there have been legislation changes; for example, through the introduction of

the Employment Equity Act in Canada (Government of Canada, 1995) and affirmative

action legislation in the USA (Kurtulus, 2015). While these legislations have been effective in

advancing multiculturalism and reducing direct discriminatory practices, discriminatory

issues persist indirectly through the form of negative biases and attitudes within the

workplace (Dovidio and Hebl, 2005). These indirect forms of discrimination remain

problematic as they still affect perceptions of discrimination based on observations of unfair

or discriminatory treatment due to demographic group membership, such as ethnicity,

gender, age and sexual orientation (Harris et al., 2004; Pascoe and Richman, 2009).

Thus, even though direct discrimination may be reduced, an environment of discrimination

may still be experienced by employees due to their perceptions of indirect and often subtle

discrimination that may be based on an employee’s own experience or on observations of

discriminatory instances to members of other demographic groups (Avery et al., 2008).

Perceived organizational discrimination is an issue as it has both direct and indirect costs to

employees and to organizations. Perceptions of discrimination in the workplace have adverse

impacts on a spectrum of employee outcomes such as psychological well-being, organizational

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 6, 2019

pp. 602-618

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-10-2018-0191

Received 19 March 2018

Revised 12 October 2018

Accepted 16 December 2018

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

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

The authors would like to thank Dr Cheryl Boglarsky and Human Synergistics International for

supplying the Organizational Culture Inventory® for this project.

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EDI

38,6

commitment, employee morale, job satisfaction and job performance (Connor and Miller, 2014;

Ensher et al., 2001; Goldman et al.,2006;Janget al., 2008) especially amongst employees who are

part of the minority group (Avery et al., 2008). For organizations, perceived discrimination has

negative impacts through lower productivity due to individual employee outcomes, as well as

potential human rights complaints that can lead to class action lawsuits, often amounting to

millions of dollars ( James and Wooten, 2006). With increasing diversity in the workforce, it is

therefore important to not only manage diversity effectively and reduce direct discriminatory

actions, but to also pay attention to employees’perceptions and beliefs about discrimination.

There is a great deal of literature that addresses issues pertaining to perceived discrimination

in the workplace by introducing different management practices or interventions, such as active

communication, diversity training, and interaction between leaders and employees (Day and

Schoenrade, 2000; Larsen et al., 2013). Employees’equal access to opportunities and fair

treatment from the management team can lead to a decrease of discriminatory issues in the

workplace (Chrobot-Mason and Aramovich, 2013); and employees respond positively when

diversity is promoted in the organization (McKay et al., 2007). Yet, despite the wide range of

efforts to reduce perceived organizational discrimination, the implicit assumption behind these

efforts seems to rest on the idea that perceived discrimination is related to the demographic

make-up of an organization (e.g. Avery et al., 2008; Elliott and Smith, 2001), and this has led to

few studies investigating the antecedents of the perception of discrimination. In some of that

literature, it was theorized that perceived organizational discrimination may actually be affected

by factors beyond the organization (Blau and Tatum, 2000; Shaffer et al., 2000). Perceptions of

discrimination have been found in both societal and organizational contexts; but empirical

evidence that explores the association of perceived discrimination between these two contexts is

lacking despite the fact that the culture of an organization tends to reflect the societal culture

within which it exists (Kwantes and Dickson, 2011). Understanding whether individuals’

perceptions of discrimination in a society influence the perceptions of discrimination within an

organization is especially important with the increasing globalization of the workplace, as

effective management and diversity practices within one cultural context may not translate

effectively to another cultural context (Shaffer et al., 2000; Gelfand et al., 2005).

Past research has suggested various interventions to control the impact of perceived

discriminationin the workplace, but these suggestions were relativelymicro in nature, such as

changing employee attitudes or encouraging a supportive environment by the supervisor

( Jeanquart-Barone and Sekaran, 1996; Larsen et al., 2013) . Gelfand et al. (2005) pointedout how

research and management practices focus on eliminating perceived organizational

discrimination through behavioral interventions, but fail to emphasize eliminating the

sources of perceived organizational discrimination stemming from organization’sbasic

assumptions and values –or organizational culture. Indeed, the current state of the literature

echoes the concernraised by Gelfand et al. (2005), with a lack of researchexploring the impact

of organizational culture on perceived organizational discrimination.

The current project, therefore, specifically examines how organizational culture shapes

employee perceptions of discrimination within the workplace. Further, and in line with

Hackman’s (2003) call to pay more attention to higher levels of analysis when investigating

organizational phenomenon, the purpose of this project is to approach perceiveddiscrimination

from both societal and organizational lenses; specifically, investigating the predictive impact of

perceived societal discrimination on its organizational counterpart.

Literature review

Perceived societal and organizational discrimination

The vast majority of research in the organizational field assumes demographic diversity to

be the main contributor to perceptions of discrimination in the workplace (Chrobot-Mason

and Aramovich, 2013; Goldman et al., 2006; Avery et al., 2008). However, there is evidence

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Organizational

discrimination