Page 138 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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5. ORGANIZATIONAL-LEVEL DISCRIMINATION
Future research is needed to examine the consequences that the alignment
among organizational processes and structures (Delery, 1998) has for lev­
els of organizational discrimination. This is critical because an intervention
into a single process or structure is unlikely to effectively reduce organi­
zational discrimination. For example, if top management leaders adopt
a strategic business plan that explicitly involves reducing discrimination,
but fail to also build a culture of inclusion, to show leadership support
and accountability for the initiative, and to design HR systems that ac­
tively seek to promote access and treatment inclusion at all levels, their
efforts are likely to be ineffective. Indeed, research may show that the
misalignment of organizational processes and structures with respect to
discrimination actually produces more discrimination and mistreatment of
employees. For example, we would predict that when harassment training
is implemented in an organization that has a strong climate that permits
harassment, there could be backlash effects, and ultimately higher levels
of harassment (Raver & Gelfand, 2003). Along these lines, it would be use­
ful to examine how individuals perceive the alignment of organizational
processes and structures vis-a-vis issues of discrimination, and the conse­
quences that such perceptions have for organizations. To the extent that
managers perceive that discrimination issues are dealt with idiosyncrati­
cally across organizational systems, they will likely feel less accountable
and motivated to behave in ways that combat discrimination. Likewise,
minorities who perceive that practices are not aligned may be reluctant to
use grievance systems to report discrimination for fear of backlash, even
if such systems are technically in place. More generally, research needs
to take a systems approach to discrimination wherein the interrelation­
ship between processes and structures is considered to be as important as
documenting their independent influence on discrimination.

Cross-Level Research

Throughout this chapter, we have presented evidence that organizational
processes and structures impact discrimination in organizations. Future
research is needed to develop multilevel models that illustrate how such
macro-level factors affect lower-level phenomena in organizations. Perry
et al. (1994) argued that the organizational demography of top manage­
ment teams as well as aspects of organizational structure affect lower level
employees' cognition in ways that can result in discriminatory hiring de­
cisions on the part of those employees; yet there is a dearth of research on
such cross-level processes in the field. For example, a lack of structural inte­
gration and a climate that permits discrimination is likely to have implica­
tions for minorities' cognitive processes and their sensemaking of everyday