Organizational Behavior- Ch 4 Social Perceptions $ Managing Diversity

Organizational practices used to effectively manage diversity- Question

What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity, and what works best?

Barriers and Challenges to managing diversity- Question

What are the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs?

Stereotype Formation and Maintenance

1. Categorization 2. Inferences 3. Expectations 4. Maintenance

Attributional Tendencies

1. Fundamental attribution bias 2. Self-serving bias

Perception

A cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings

Stereotype

An individual's set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group

Characteristics of the Perceiver

Direction of gaze: Gaze is the first step in the perception process because it focuses your attention and tells the brain what you think is important in the immediate environment. Needs and goals: We are more likely to perceive whatever is related to our goals and to our needs. Experience with target: Our perception of a target is influenced by our past experiencewith him or her. Category-based knowledge: This knowledge consists of perceptions, including stereotypes, that we have stored in memory about various categories of people that we use to interpret what we see and hear. Gender and emotional status: Women recognize emotions more accurately than men, andexperiencing negative emotions such as anger and frustration is likely to make your perceptions more negative. Cognitive load: Cognitive load represents the amount of activity going on in your brain; your perceptions are more likely to be distorted and susceptible to stereotypical judgments if you are tired.

Major question

How do I form perceptions of others?

Leadership

Research demonstrates that employees' evaluations of leader effectiveness are influenced strongly by their ideasof good and poor leaders. •Employees' evaluations of leader effectiveness are influenced by their schemata of good and poor leaders.

Stereotype (In the perceptive process)

Stereotypes represent a key component of the perception process because they are used during encoding.

3 important "personal factors"

diversity, demographics, & sterotypes

Affirmative Action vs Diversity Management

driven by very different values and goals

Diversity Management

enables people to perform to their maximum potential. •Focuses on changing organizational culture and structure •Enable people to perform to potential •Relies on THREe COMPONENTS education, enforcement, and exposure

Discrimination

occurs when employment decisions about an individual are due to reasons not associated with performance or are not related to the job.For example, organizations cannot discriminate on the basis ofrace, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, physical or mental disabilities, or pregnancy.

Diversity

the multitude of individual differencesand similarities that exist among people

Managerial Implications of Person Perception

-Hiring -Leadership -Performance Appraisals

Layers of Diversity

1. personality 2. internal dimensions (Surface level) 3. external dimensions (Deep level) 4. organizational dimensions (Deep level) personality is at the center of the diversity wheel because it represents a stable set of characteristics responsible for a person's identity. The next layer of diversity includes internal dimensions that are referred to as surface-level dimensions of diversity. Surface-level characteristics are those that are quickly apparent to interactants, such as race, gender, and age. Because these characteristics are viewed as unchangeable, they strongly influence our attitudes and expectations and assumptions about others, which, in turn, influence our behavior. Shows that the next layer of diversity comprises external influences. They represent individual differences that we have a greater ability to influence or control. Examples include where you live today, your religious affiliation, whether you are married and have children, and your work experiences. These dimensions also exert a significant influence on our perceptions, behavior, and attitudes. The final layer of diversity includes organizational dimensions such as seniority, work location, and job title and function. Integrating these last two layers results in what is called deep-level characteristics of diversity. Deep-level characteristics are those that take time to emerge in interactions, such as attitudes, opinions, and values. These characteristics are definitely underour control.

Diversity climate

A subcomponent of an organization's overall climate and is defined as the employees' aggregate "perceptions about the organization's diversity-related formal structure characteristics and informal values."

Fundamental attribution bias

A tendency to attribute another person's behavior to his or her personal characteristics, as opposed to situational factors. This bias causes perceivers to ignore important environmental factors that often significantly affect behavior. This leads to inaccurate assessments of performance, which in turn foster inappropriate responses to poor performance.

Model of Person Perception

Characteristics of the Perceiver Characteristics of the Target Characteristics of the Situation ----> Person Perception ----> Interactions between perceivers and targets

Characteristics of the Situation

Context of interaction: Perceptions are affected by the social context in which the interaction takes place. Culture and race consistency: We more accurately recognize emotions and expressions displayed by people from our own culture or from other familiar cultures.

Characteristics of the Target

Direction of gaze: We form different perceptions of people based on whether they are looking at us while conversing. Facial features and body shape: We often use faces as markers for gender, race, and age, but face and body characteristics can lead us to fall back on cultural stereotypes. Nonverbal cues: Gestures, touching, facial expressions, eye contact, and body movements like slouching all convey messages, and these nonverbal actions are highly influential in perception. Appearance or dress: We all are susceptible to being influenced by appearance and attire. Physical attractiveness: The beauty-is-good stereotype leads us to perceive attractive people positively.

Stereotypes- Question

How can I use awareness of stereotypes to make better decisions and manage more effectively?

Causal Attributions - Question

How do I tend to interpret employee performance?

Defining and Managing Diversity- Question

How does awareness about the layers of diversity help organizations effectively manage diversity?

glass ceiling

Identifies an invisible but absolute barrier that prevents women from advancing to higher-level positions

Most common barriers to implementing a successful diversity program

Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice.- This barrier manifests itself in the belief that differences are viewed as weaknesses. In turn, this promotes the view that diversity hiring will mean sacrificing competence and quality. Ethnocentrism. - The ethnocentrism barrier represents the feeling that one's cultural rules and norms are superior or more legitimate than the rules and norms of another culture. Poor career planning.- This barrier is associated with the lack of opportunities for diverse employees to get the type of work assignments that qualify them for senior management positions. A negative diversity climate.- We define organizational climate as employee perceptions about an organization's formal and informal policies, practices, and procedures. An unsupportive/hostile working environment for diverse employees.- Sexual, racial, and age harassment are common examples of hostile work environments. Whether perpetrated against women, men, older individuals, or LGBT people, hostile environments are demeaning, unethical, and appropriately called "work environment pollution." Lack of political savvy on the part of diverse employees.- Diverse employees may not get promoted because they do not know how to "play the game" of getting along and getting ahead in an organization. Research reveals that women and people of color are excluded from organizational networks. Difficulty in balancing career and family issues.- Women still assume the majority ofthe responsibilities associated with raising children. Fears of reverse discrimination.- Some employees believe that managing diversity is a smoke screen for reverse discrimination. This belief leads to very strong resistance because people feel that one person's gain is another's loss. Diversity is not seen as an organizational priority.- This leads to subtle resistance that shows up in the form of complaints and negative attitudes. Employees may complain about the time, energy, and resources devoted to diversity that could have been spent doing "real work." The need to revamp the organization's performance appraisal and reward system.- Performance appraisals and reward systems must reinforce the need to effectively manage diversity. This means that success will be based on a new set of criteria. Resistance to change.- Effectively managing diversity entails significant organizational and personal change.

Hiring

Interviewers make hiring decisions based on their impression of how an applicant fits the perceived requirements of a job. Unfortunately, many of these decisions are made on the basis ofimplicit cognition. Implicit cognition-represents any thoughts or beliefs that are automatically activated from memory without our conscious awareness. The existence of implicit cognition leads people to make biased decisions without an understanding that it is occurring. Managers can be trained to understand and reduce this type of hidden bias. Bias can be reduced by using structured as opposed to unstructured interviews, and by relying on evaluations from multiple interviewers rather than just one or two people. More and more companies are using virtual interviews as a tool for reducing problems associated with implicit cognition. •Implicit cognitions may lead to biased decisions. •Biased decisions are avoided by training, use of structured interviews, use of multiple interviewers.

Affirmative Action

Is an intervention aim at giving management a chance to correct imbalances, injustices, mistakes, or outright discrimination that occurred in the past. •Interventions to correct imbalances, injustice, mistakes, or outright discrimination •Both voluntary and mandatory programs •Not based on quotas •Can lead to stigmas for those expected to benefit from AA programs

Managing diversity

Option 1: Includeor exclude This choice maybean outgrowth of affirmative-action programs. Its primary goal is to either increase or decrease the number of diverse people at all levels of the organization. Option 2: Deny People using this option deny that differences exist. Denial may manifest itself in proclamations that all decisions are color-, gender-, and age-blind and that success is solely determined by merit and performance. Option 3: Assimilate The basic premise behind this alternative is that all diverse people will learn to fit in or become like the dominant group. It only takes time and reinforcement for people to see the light. Option 4: Suppress Differences are squelched or discouraged when using this approach. This can be done by telling or reinforcing others to quit whining and complaining about issues. Option 5: Isolate This option maintains the current way of doing things by setting the diverse person off to the side. In this way the individual is unable to influence organizational change. Option 6: Tolerate Toleration entails acknowledging differences but not valuing or accepting them. It represents a live-and-let-live approach that superficially allows organizations to give lip-service to the issue of managing diversity. Toleration is different from isolation in that it allows for the inclusion of diverse people. However, differences are not really valued or accepted when an organization uses this option. Option 7: Build relationships This approach is based on the premise that good relationships can overcome differences. It addresses diversity by fostering quality relationships—characterized by acceptance and understanding—among diverse groups. Option 8: Foster mutual adaptation In this option, people are willing to adapt or change their views for the sake of creating positive relationships with others. This implies that employees and management alike must be willing to accept differences, and, most important, agree that everyone and everything is open for change. Diversity training is one way to kick start mutual adaptation. Only fostering mutual adaptation endorses the philosophy behind managing diversity.

how companies are responding to the challenges of diversity

Response: -Paying attention to sexual orientation -Addressing Changing customer demographics -Helping women navigate the career labyrinth (On Ramping- programs encourage people to reenter the workforce after a temporary career break.) -Helping Hispanics Succeed -Providing Community and Corporate Training to Reduce the Mismatch between Education and Job Requirements -Retaining and Valuing Skills and Expertise in an Aging Workforce -Resolve Generational Differences

Stereotype information

Stereotypes are not always negative. For example, the belief that engineers are good at math is certainly part of a stereotype. Stereotypes may or may not be accurate. Unfortunately, stereotypes can lead to poor decisions. Specifically they can create barriers for women, older individuals, people of color, and people with disabilities, all while undermining loyalty and job satisfaction

Causal Attributions

are suspected or inferred causes of behavior. •Important because attributions affects our perceptions of cause and our choice of action, profoundly affect organization behavior BASED ON ATTRIBUTION THEORY- rightly or wrongly people infer causes for their own and others' behavior.

Demographics

are the statistical measurements of populations and their qualities (such as age, race, gender, or income) over time.

Psychological Saftey

reflects the extent to which people feel free to express their ideas and beliefs without fear of negative consequences.

Self-serving bias

represents one's tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure. The self-serving bias suggests employees will attribute their success to internal factors (high ability or hard work) and their failures to uncontrollable external factors (tough job, bad luck, unproductive coworkers, or an unsympathetic boss). This tendency plays out in all aspects

surface level characteristics

those that are quickly apparent to interactants, such as race, gender, and age

deep-level characteristics

those that take time to emerge in interactions, such as attitudes, opinions, and values

underemployment

working at jobs that require less education than they have (ex. waiting tables, tending bar, painting, ect...)

Kelly's Model of Attribution

•Behaviors can be attributed either to internal factors within a person or external factors inthe environment. •We make causal attributions by observing three dimensions of behavior. These can be high or low. 1. Consensus- Comparison behavior with peers 2. Distinctiveness- Comparison behavior with other tasks 3. Consistency- Judges performance consistency

Performance Appraisals

•Faulty perceptions about performance leads to inaccurate appraisals and erode morale. •Faulty perceptions are reduced by use of objective measures, training, use of HR analytics for capturing daily performance.

Perceptions are based on the characteristics of:

•The perceiver •The target •The situation