Page 379 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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on its own in a heterogeneous population does not guarantee that one
will not appear when plaintiffs examine it across key dimensions. In other
words, even if the recruiting method did not have an overall disparate
impact on Black persons, it might have one for those who have particu­
lar educational levels or even at every educational level (i.e., a Simpson's
paradox; see Paetzold & Willborn, 2002).
Plaintiffs are allowed to make fairly fine-tuned statistical comparisons
in establishing prima facie cases (e.g., Bazemore v. Friday, 1986; Paetzold
& Willborn, 2002), so it is arguable that plaintiffs could be successful in this
instance. Assuming a finding of adverse impact, the burden of proof would
shift to the employer to prove business necessity. It is unclear whether
the employer could meet its burden by demonstrating a general sense of
business necessity; instead, it might have to justify use of the recruiting
technique within every educational level separately for which a disparate
impact exists. This would obviously be a more difficult task, often requiring
more validation studies.
Thus, joint and stratified effects of employment practices need to be
evaluated by employers when they consider their adoption. As the statis­
tical sophistication of the law increases, employers must be more aware of
the increased demands of employment discrimination law. Practices and
considerations that have worked in the past may no longer be applicable.

"Fit" and Disparate Impact

Recently, concern has been voiced by legal scholars about the trend to­
ward work arrangements and selection mechanisms that include a subjec­
tive evaluation of "fit" (e.g., Polland, 2000, addressing self-directed work
teams). "Fit" arises in a variety of HR contexts, but especially in selection.
Person-job fit (PJ) is operationalized as the match between an applicant's
knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) and job characteristics. Typically,
the KSAs can be measured in ways that are job-related and so are justifi­
able even in the presence of disparate impact discrimination (see below).
Person-organization fit (PO), on the other hand, relies on values to deter­
mine congruence or fit, typically assessed through a subjective interview
process (Adkins, Russel, & Werbel, 1994; Cable & Judge, 1996; Huffcutt,
Conway, Roth, & Stone, 2001; Judge, Higgins, & Cable, 2000) and is typ­
ically measured in terms of the alignment of the personality, values, and
goals of the applicant with the values, goals, and norms of the organization
(e.g., Kristof, 1996). In the case of adverse impact, PO may be more difficult
to defend.
Research on interviews suggests that demographic variables such as
race and sex have an impact on interview outcomes (Judge et al., 2000;