Page 135 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

GELFANDETAL.
104
organizations. For example, Rigor (1991) notes that the use of grievance
systems to report sexual harassment is extremely low because of the fact
that sexual harassment policies in organizations have a gender bias and do
not reflect women's perceptions of the phenomenon. To reduce discrim­
ination and promote inclusiveness, organizations must create grievance
systems that are sensitive to diverse concerns among employees, are struc­
tured to encourage diverse employees to file complaints, and provide pro­
tection and recourse to the less powerful, lest those employees be labeled
"whistle-blowers."
Organizational Climate
The final organizational-level antecedent to discrimination in our model is
organizational climate. Climate is most typically viewed as one manifesta­
tion of the culture (Schneider, 2000) that reflects shared perceptions of the
organization's policies, practices, and procedures, as well as employees'
perceptions of the kinds of behavior that management rewards, expects,
and supports (Reichers & Schneider, 1990). An organization can have mul­
tiple climates, each with a particular referent (Schneider & Reichers, 1983),
thus one must speak of a "climate for X" rather than simply referring to
"the" organizational climate.
One important type of climate that is highly relevant for discrimina­
tion is an organization's diversity climate, for organizations with positive
climates for diversity are likely to exhibit lower levels of discrimination
because of their heightened sensitivity and commitment to issues having
to do with managing a diverse workforce (Cox, 1994). In the present frame­
work, we define climate for diversity (CFD) as employees' shared percep­
tions of the policies, practices, and procedures that implicitly and explicitly
communicate the extent to which fostering and maintaining diversity and
eliminating discrimination is a priority in the organization (Nishii & Raver,
2003). In practice, when organizations have a positive CFD, all employees
are integrated into the fabric of the organization and are encouraged to
attain their full potential unhindered by group identities. In such a cli­
mate, discrimination should be lower than when the climate for diversity
is negative and HR practices are inconsistently enacted, when minorities
are in segregated and nonpowerful networks, and when prejudicial orga­
nizational assumptions and values abound.
Although there has been little empirical work on diversity climates at
the organizational level of analysis, a handful of studies has examined
individual level perceptions of climate for diversity and its correlates. The
assumption here is that there will be within-organization variability in
CFD perceptions, and that it is important to understand the ways in which