Page 139 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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ambiguous events. As compared to organizations that have a diverse rep­
resentation of top managers and a climate for inclusiveness, minorities are
likely to feel more "stereotype threat" (Steele, 1997) on a daily basis and thus
may tend to interpret ambiguous events as discriminatory in nature (Leslie
& Gelfand, 2004). Discriminatory organizational processes and structures
are also likely to affect the dynamics of teams. For example, Martins, Mil-
liken, Wiesenfeld, & Salgado (2003) found that in organizations that are
highly homogeneous, teams were much more likely to pay attention to
racioethnic category differences, as compared to teams in more heteroge­
neous organizations. It is even conceivable that macro-level organizational
processes may filter down to how customers behave toward minorities in
organizations, particularly in service firms in which employees and cus­
tomers are involved in the coproduction of the service. Given that climate
experiences reported by employees are accurately perceived by customers
(Schneider, Bowen, Ehrhart, & Holcombe, 2000), it is possible that a climate
for discrimination within an organization, as perceived by the customers
served by that organization, may increase the perceived permissiveness of
discriminatory behavior on the part of customers toward boundary role
employees. In support of this notion, Gettman, Gelfand, Leslie, Schneider,
and Salvaggio (2004) found that departments that have high levels of sex­
ual harassment also tend to have high levels of customer harassment of
employees. Although the causal direction of such relationships remains to
be examined, it is important that research examine discrimination that is
perpetrated by individuals outside of organizational boundaries.

The Organization Embedded in Context

Taking an open-systems perspective, we have argued that the external
contexts in which organizations are embedded also affect the dynamics of
discrimination in organizations. We briefly discussed a number of environ­
mental inputs into organizations—such as the local context, the political
and legal context, and the larger cultural context—that can affect levels
of discrimination in organizations. Much research, however, is needed to
explore how such extra-organizational forces affect discrimination in or­
ganizations. For example, much of the research in this chapter focused on
U.S.-based organizations, and our discussion implicitly assumed that or­
ganizational boundaries were within the United States. Yet with the era of
globalization, many U.S. companies now operate globally and are charac­
terized by complex organizations that cross national borders in the form
of multinational companies, international mergers and acquisitions, joint
ventures, and international alliances. Accordingly, there is a critical need
for research on discrimination in organizations to move beyond the do­
mestic context to incorporate the global context of organizations.