Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations 9781783506781, 9781783506774

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PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS OF SUCCESSFULLY DOING DIFFERENCE IN ORGANIZATIONS

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION Series Editor: Mustafa F. O¨zbilgin

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON EQUALITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION VOLUME 1

PRACTICAL AND THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS OF SUCCESSFULLY DOING DIFFERENCE IN ORGANIZATIONS BY

DONNALYN POMPPER School of Media and Communication, Temple University, USA

United Kingdom North America India Malaysia China

Japan

Emerald Group Publishing Limited Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK First edition 2014 Copyright r 2014 Emerald Group Publishing Limited Reprints and permission service Contact: [email protected] No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters’ suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-78350-677-4 ISSN: 2051-2333 (Series)

ISOQAR certified Management System, awarded to Emerald for adherence to Environmental standard ISO 14001:2004. Certificate Number 1985 ISO 14001

CONTENTS FOREWORD

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PREFACE

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PART I: SPEAKING IN HUSHED TONES AND THE WAGES OF IGNORANCE 1. DIFFERENCE AND SOCIAL IDENTITY 1.1. 1.2. 1.3. 1.4.

Applying social identity theory Emphasizing the “center” and the “margin” Managing organizational climate Avoiding business case thinking and other flawed models by advocating for real diversity 1.5. Discussion Key Terms Urban Outfitters wrangles with stockholders over lack of director board diversity Self-reflection and discussion questions

2. SOCIAL IDENTITY AND POWER IN RESEARCHER-RESEARCHED DYNAMICS 2.1. 2.2. 2.3. 2.4.

What is social identity difference? Power issues among researchers and the researched Techniques for doing social identity difference research Researching across social identity difference and the matching paradigm 2.5. Discussion Key Terms “Partial perspective” as a research driver Self-reflection and discussion questions

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3 7 12 17 18 20 21 23 24 25 27 29 35 37 39 41 42 44

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3. SOCIAL IDENTITIES ARE INTERSECTIONAL 3.1. Defining intersectionality 3.2. “Unbending” social identity intersectionalities 3.3. Applying intersectionality in organizations 3.4. Advancing intersectionalities scholarship 3.5. Discussion Key Terms Latinas living intersectionalities Self-reflection and discussion questions

45 48 51 52 54 57 58 58 61

PART II: FRAMEWORKS FOR RECOGNIZING, RESPECTING, AND APPRECIATING “DIFFERENCE” IN ORGANIZATIONS 4. EXPERIENCING CULTURE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE ORGANIZATIONS 4.1. 4.2. 4.3.

Hofstede’s cultural dimensions Culture and social identity Problems with culture and social identity for individuals 4.4. Managing organizational culture 4.5. Discussion Key Terms Clash between cultures: Organizations and individual social identities Self-reflection and discussion questions

5. DOING ETHNICITY IN ORGANIZATIONS 5.1. 5.2.

Interrogating Whiteness Exposing the “requisite variety” concept for its homophily thesis roots 5.3. Examining effects of “othering,” liminal spaces, and tokenism 5.4. Racism and microaggressions have gone underground 5.5. Intersectionality of ethnicity with other social identity dimensions 5.6. Discussion Key Terms

65 69 70 72 73 77 78 78 80 81 85 86 87 90 92 93 94

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“White trash” stereotypes and ethnic pride that “dares not speak its name” Self-reflection and discussion questions

96 97

6. CREATING SPACE FOR GENDER DIFFERENCE AT ALL ORGANIZATIONAL LEVELS 99 6.1. Gender, roles, femininity, and masculinity 101 6.2.

Power and gender inequity at work, and effects on women 6.3. Gender, parenting, and the second shift 6.4. The breadwinner role, hegemonic masculinity, and masculinity in crisis 6.5. Gendered occupations and feminization of career fields 6.6. Intersectionalities of gender with age, ethnicity, and social class 6.7. Shattering schemas with androgyny and transgenderism 6.8. Discussion Key Terms To resist or to conform to gender and age norms as a prote´ge´? Self-reflection and discussion questions

7. INTEGRATING SEXUAL IDENTITIES AND WORKPLACE REALITIES 7.1. 7.2.

Love, lust, and sex-based harassment in the workplace How organizations address sexual orientation and sex-based harassment in the workplace 7.3. Managing one’s sexual identity in the workplace 7.4. Intersectionalities of sexual identity with ethnicity, gender and social class 7.5. Discussion Key Terms Demedicalizing homosexuality: A paradigm shift Self-reflection and discussion questions

8. FEARING AGE AND AGING FEARS AT WORK 8.1. 8.2. 8.3. 8.4.

Sociocultural perspectives on and theorizing about aging Age categories and birth cohorts Aging effects for organizations Aging effects for employees

103 106 108 109 110 112 113 114 116 118 119 122 123 126 128 130 131 132 134 135 136 138 139 140

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8.5. Age with other social identity intersectionalities 8.6. Discussion Key Terms Maggie Kuhn and the Gray Panthers Self-reflection and discussion questions

9. EXAMINING SOCIAL CLASS DIFFERENCE IN WIDER SOCIAL MILIEU AND AT WORK 9.1. 9.2.

SES and the wage labor system in organizations Trends, myths, and fallacies about social class in the United States 9.3. Intersectionalities of social class identity with age, ethnicity, gender and physical/psychological ability 9.4. Doing “social class” at work 9.5. Discussion Key Terms “Say on pay” and shareholder activism in response to high CEO executive compensation Self-reflection and discussion questions

10.

ENABLING PHYSICAL AND MENTAL ABILITY DIFFERENCE AT WORK 10.1. Paradigm shift and policy making about disability 10.2. People working with a disability in organizations 10.3. Language and naming debates 10.4. Disability and other social identity intersectionalities 10.5. Discussion Key Terms “Deaf President Now!” Movement legacy endures 25 years later Self-reflection and discussion questions

11.

CONSIDERING FAITH AND SPIRITUALITY PRACTICES AND WORLDVIEWS IN ORGANIZATIONS 11.1. 11.2. 11.3. 11.4. 11.5.

What is faith/spiritual identity? Accommodating faith/spirituality at work Faith/spirituality in organizations and health The formal religion-spirituality dichotomy Lived religion

143 145 146 147 150 151 153 159 162 163 164 165 166 168 169 172 174 176 177 180 181 182 185

187 192 193 195 196 198

Contents

11.6. Conflicts about faith/spirituality in the workplace 11.7. Discussion Key Terms “Ten Commandments Judge” tests church-state separation Self-reflection and discussion questions

12.

MANAGING DIVERSITY AND CLOSING THOUGHTS Enabling people to reach their full potential across organizations 12.2. Does diversity management work? 12.3. Moving forward Self-reflection and discussion questions

ix

199 199 200 201 203 205

12.1.

208 210 214 217

REFERENCES

219

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

269

INDEX

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FOREWORD It is my privilege to pen the foreword for a book that I needed 22 years ago when I was an assistant professor starting out. In my first academic post, I taught public relations (among other things) and was always having to supplement the standard textbooks with readings about gender and race. In time, I added some on sexual orientation, but there was really very little on any of the central markers of identity in the early 1990s for those of us who took a critical approach to our teaching. I bet others, too, have needed this book in years since. Fortunately, Donnalyn Pompper has written the first comprehensive text addressing the full range of diversity issues or, as she calls them, differences in organizations. While there have been articles to emerge here and there over the years addressing one or more of the various signifiers of difference, her text is the first to unify these elements into a single well-theorized, well-researched, and well-organized book. Thus, the book immediately fills a gap and represents a model for teaching texts in organizational communication, public relations, and other strands of communications studies. It will be useful to those teaching at both introductory and more advanced levels. Pompper places her examination of organizations and their people within a framework of social identity theory, which states that we humans form our identities our senses of self through our interactions with others with whom we most feel akin. Interactions take place in a variety of modes and settings, including face-to-face and mediated. How we come to feel akin to someone, however, has much to do with our knowledge and understanding of them. Pompper’s book, from beginning to end, offers a roadmap for students to consider all of the aspects of themselves and others they will meet in this identity-building process, and to use this learning to function more humanely and effectively in those organizations. Human beings, after all, are the essential building block of any organization. If organizations are to be strong and fulfill their purposes, those within them will ideally understand and appreciate each other, and find ways to work across their various differences, be those racial, ethnic, gender, age, physical ability, sexual orientation, or otherwise. In this way, the xi

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book recognizes the intersectionality of identity, that is, the complex aspects of ourselves marked by our genetic heritage (e.g., skin color, male or femaleness) but also other characteristics, such as our social class, our religious or spiritual practices, our psychological abilities, etc. Pompper has organized the book’s 12 chapters thematically. The chapters contain subsections on how a particular identity concern relates to both the self and to the organization. Chapters end with summary discussions, key terms, and self-reflection questions, and discussion questions. The book’s final chapter suggests “enabling people to reach their full potential” as a principle of managing diversity within the organizational setting. The book is at once practical and probing, straightforward, and deeply thoughtful in its undertaking. I congratulate the author for bringing forth this long-awaited book, which will benefit generations of professors and students to come. Carolyn M. Byerly Howard University, USA

PREFACE This book represents an integration of numerous theory streams, orientations, approaches, and techniques to support researchers, students, and managers of intersecting social identity dimensions and difference as they play out in organizations and are impacted by the larger social milieu. Theories and bodies of research from a variety of fields are incorporated to bring greater clarity to a complex set of issues relative to influences of power in formation and articulation of social identity dimensions in the workplace. It is a go-to resource for engaging with a wide range of literatures connected by a common thread: a desire to rid organizations of overt and covert frameworks and practices that outgroup and marginalize people. Social justice is the overarching goal. Difference work entails much complexity and potential pitfalls; a formidable challenge for many. Hence, I offer advice and highlight multiple analytical, ethical, and methodological challenges. The broadness of so many incorporated literatures is useful for inviting researchers, students, and organizations’ managers to engage in their own expanded study. Yet, the detail which crystallizes central arguments and debates also is useful for bringing readers up to speed quickly so that they easily may come to terms with formulating their own research designs. Informed self-reflection and awareness of power in researcher-researched dynamics are, indeed, compass points for a researcher’s journey of discovery when investigating social identity dimensions and difference in organizations. Until recent years, formal research method textbooks were curiously silent on most social identity difference dimensions of age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more. Back then, perhaps one chapter of edited qualitative research method collections attended to “race.” When I launched my difference-in-organizations research agenda about 15 years ago, there were next to no roadmaps to follow. One could attribute neglect of intersecting social identity dimensions and difference in research processes to paradigms and traditional scholarly journal conventions for producing chilling effects. The positivist paradigm assuming a stable, law-like reality by using primarily

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quantitative methods was long the institutional norm for prestige academic journal boards and for policymakers who considered social identity difference variables moot. On the other hand, the newer interpretive (naturalistic) research paradigm involves using qualitative methods to embrace shifting, multiple realities. Unfortunately, some interpretive researchers still struggle for legitimacy among institutions clinging to positivism. On the whole, today’s view is much clearer and there are formal research methods texts that address two or three of these dimensions. However, Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations is the first book to offer an expansive view of multiple social identity dimensions, to articulate the importance of intersectionality approaches, and to explore specific paradigms and philosophies for negotiating challenges inherent in social identity difference research. This book is written for advanced undergraduate and graduate students engaged in a variety of public relations, business/management, organizational communication, and research methods courses, as well as academic researchers, and coordinators of training programs for organizations’ human resources and other managers. Each user-friendly chapter includes definitions of key terms and a list of thought-provoking questions for deeper, personalized interrogation of important issues relevant to social identity dimensions in organizations. Even though organizations’ managers, especially those in human resources departments, seek to foster harmonious workplaces and social researchers attempt to build theory for greater predictability and understanding, as well as to study issues that have very practical import in the real world rarely are we told how to overcome challenges that may derive from differences between ourselves and the people we write about. Fundamentally, such challenges may negatively impact a researcher’s ability to expand worldviews for embracing diverse social identity constructions or to question them as a legitimate arena of inquiry in the first place. This book explores various usages of social identity difference (and its original Caucasian/European/White-centric roots), how difference frames the way we think about ourselves and others, how social identity dimensions may be used to build applied theory, and reasons why a new (or a renewed) commitment to embracing social identity and difference is needed if organizations hope to thrive globally through the third millennium. Without careful understanding of power dynamics and creating actionoriented steps for reversing organizational systems which have become bogged down with negative practices, it is virtually impossible to create harmonious-yet-prosperous, diverse organizations.

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People hold a wide variety of opinions as to which terms are appropriate (and which ones are offensive) in social identity dimensions and difference discourse. I agree with my friend and colleague, Lee Edwards, that we run the risk of reifying categorizations and social constructions. This is why I have devoted significant space to addressing definitions, paradigm shifts, and ongoing debates. Naming/labeling matters. I still tend to use “race” only when referring to the human race and set it off by quotation marks to indicate others’ usage. I also tend to avoid the Hispanic label. So many people who have participated in my research projects over the years have told me that they find it extraordinarily offensive. Because many of the issues and terms covered in this book are linked to sensitive topics, it is important to consider contexts of history, politics, economics, work settings, and more. Quite simply, it’s all about power and social construction. Moreover, I seek to balance so much negativity with hope and optimism for the future when work environments are spaces where all kinds of people may equitably contribute, grow and achieve their maximum human potential. How this book is organized Theoretical and Practical Implications of Doing Difference Research features 12 chapters and is designed to serve as a guide for social identity research with emphases on dimensions’ intersectionalities. Part I provides the foundation for examining social identity by defining it in terms of systems of hegemonic forces, by offering discussion of relationships between researchers and their participants (or, employees), and by focusing on an everexpanding literature which addresses the many ways that social identity dimensions overlap and intersect. Part II offers in-depth looks at specific social identity dimensions of culture, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical/psychological ability, and faith/spirituality. The final chapter brings it all together in terms of managing diversity and offers some final thoughts for moving forward. When assembling this volume, I had to make conscious decisions about where to write about specific issues. While it was a challenge to avoid doing what I have warned against essentializing social identity categories or presenting them as piled-on or added-on personality facets I resolved that one way to do it was to fully acknowledge that all social identity dimensions intersect and overlap in every chapter. Connections are made across chapters via the intersectionality lens so that chapters are linked rather than standing as individual silos. At the outset, Chapter 2 is devoted

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to intersectionality in order to introduce readers to the framework, but then all chapters in Part II include intersectionality as a subtheme and explore empirical studies which have probed key issues. Because social identity intersectionalities are infinite in number, it was impossible to cover all of them in Theoretical and Practical Implications of Doing Difference Research. For example, some social identity difference dimensions that are not included here are: skills, functional area of expertise, management styles, tenure, vocational interests, career aspirations, geographic differences, communication styles, personality attributes, working styles, organizational departments, and region or nation (beyond what is covered in Chapter 4’s attention to culture). Forgivably, there is some overlap where it seemed necessary to do so since policies and concepts such as affirmative action, bias, difference, discrimination, diversity and its management, and multiculturalism play a significant role when investigating social identity dimensions and difference in organizations. Finally, chapters include a sidebar to devote greater attention to some key episode or example which expands upon key issue(s) addressed in the chapter. On a personal note, how this book came to be I was born in and have returned to live in a rural part of southern New Jersey, USA. In the 1960s, I was a small child but have vivid memories of social movement events unfolding every night on the evening news. One of my earliest TV memories is the deafening bass drum beating time throughout coverage of U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s funeral motorcade. I also remember body counts and protests associated with the Vietnam War. While too young to really grasp the full socioeconomic political backstory, I did get that people were being hurt, were unhappy, and were unable to get along. By the time I was in second grade and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while I was on Easter break, my mother explained that when I returned to school some people might be upset. The meaning did not become clear until my teacher, Mrs. Kathleen Jackson, answered my questions. She was an African-American/Black woman and one of the great inspirations in my life. Another was Mrs. Thomas who taught ninth grade U.S. Government/Civics. These women of color motivated me to learn; instilled a sense of curiosity about inequality and set me on an academic career path that no one could have predicted back then given my low-SES upbringing. A female Caucasian researcher, I have spent the past 15 years teaching and researching across social identity difference lines and publishing in

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high-quality academic and applied communication, public relations, and organizational management journals and textbooks. At the outset, I worried that my Caucasian/White standpoint might inhibit an ability to hear, understand, and explain social injustice experiences. Over the years, meetings with incredible women and men via focus groups and interviews enabled me to collect and analyze stories of multiple social identity dimension discriminations and strategies for coping at work and at home. Findings underscored effects of enduring patriarchal practices, shedding light on covert activities that threaten to hinder career advancement and negatively impact lives. I have written Theoretical and Practical Implications of Doing Difference Research to aid others in amplifying such stories in order to affect real and significant change in organizations. Another goal is to encourage ongoing discussion of the ethical, emotional, analytical, and methodological dilemmas generated by radical ideologies. I have tried to write a book that is useful for readers from multiple backgrounds and orientations. While my orientation is the United States, I cite empirical studies and engage with discourse about social identity dimensions and difference in organizations which extends across geopolitical boundaries. We live in that kind of world. Sincere gratitude Much inspiration has been drawn from the women and men who have collaborated with me as research participants these years. A few stand out for their support, encouragement and trust in my ability to do justice with their stories: Donna Alston, David Brown, Sharon Bryant, Lourdes Carerra, Silvia Cavazos, Susan Jin-Davis, Theresa Hernandez, Gina Kinchlow, and Dora Tovar. Public relations scholars who have inspired me include Larissa Grunig, Linda Hon and Elizabeth Toth. I also am indebted to my students at Cabrini College, Florida A&M University, Florida State University, and Temple University who always brought their refreshing perspectives to classes. Much gratitude also goes out to colleagues who read early versions of chapters and/or offered advice and suggestions for this project: Lee Edwards, Margarette Morganroth Gullette, and Beth Haller. I also am grateful to critical scholars whom I have yet to meet, but they have inspired me, nonetheless. And where would any of us be without a supportive librarian? I am particularly indebted to the kindness of Temple University’s English and Communications Librarian, Kristina DeVoe. Huge thanks, also, to faceless audience members at academic conferences who have engaged in important conversations, offered suggestions,

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and become inspired. I am particularly grateful to individuals who have approached me at conferences after a presentation to ask me in a whisper: “Are you a woman of color?” The frequency of that timid, yet meaningfilled, question inspired me to further engage with the “matching” paradigm. Last, but by no means least, I offer sincere thanks to Kim Eggleton, acquisitions editor at Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Mustafa F. O¨zbilgin, series editor at Emerald, Sarah Hill, managing editor at Emerald, Zoe Sanders, publisher at Emerald and to the Emerald production staff and Mr. Jayanambi (Project Manager, MPS Limited, Chennai, India) and anonymous reviewers. Donnalyn Pompper Ph.D., APR

PART I SPEAKING IN HUSHED TONES AND THE WAGES OF IGNORANCE

CHAPTER 1 DIFFERENCE AND SOCIAL IDENTITY

ABSTRACT Now well into the 21st century, the world’s most powerful organizations’ highest executive levels and boards of directors still fail to represent a diverse collection of people shaped by unique social identity dimensions according to age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more. Offered in this book is an investigation into why a homophily framework, or a similarity-attraction hypothesis, continues to perpetuate leadership by predominantly Caucasian/White males and reinforces barriers that keep qualified people possessing a multiplicity of social identity dimensions from achieving their full human potential. To understand interactive processes through which discrimination is reproduced in the workplace, social identity theorists explore connections between ways that people create social identity and that organizations become socially constructed. Social identity theory explains how people seek to develop oneness with groups that help them to develop and/or to enhance positive self-esteem and to better understand how people develop notions of high-status ingroups and low-status outgroups. Both of these frameworks are central to this book’s attention to difference in organizations. Difference is positioned as a positive advance in organizational dynamics; advocating respect and appreciation for multiple and intersecting social identities not for profitability and other business case reasons but because it is morally justified to eradicate inequitable and exclusionary practices in organizations. This book offers an introduction to doing difference research by introducing a number of theoretical underpinnings, addressing methodological challenges, and presenting 3

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a wide cross-section of numerous bodies of literature which have been attending to difference work. Chapter 1 is divided into subthemes of: applying social identity theory, emphasizing the “center” and the “margin,” managing organizational climate, and avoiding business case thinking and other flawed models by advocating for real diversity. Keywords: Center; difference; diversity; margin; objectivity; othering; social identity; subjectivity

The concept of social identity offers a means for theoretical prediction and applied understanding of how difference (e.g., age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more) plays out in organizations. First, social identity theory is used to explain how ingroups and outgroups form (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Turner, 1985) in organizations; a cauldron for negative perceptions about the other which contribute to systemic discrimination and can become embedded in formal organizational policies and informal relations which follow people across their life course. Second, social identity theory is used to explain how people learn to think of themselves by interpreting others’ reactions to them (Van Maanen, 1979). When examining difference in organizations, conceptualizations of identities as shifting, multiple, and crosscutting boundaries and interests means that it is impractical for human relations and other managers to categorically consider group boundaries as solid fortifications; rather, social identity dimensions intersect and overlap. Social identity theory and explanatory frameworks introduced in this chapter present useful tools for critique of enduring mindsets which have obscured opportunities to really support diversity in social identities represented throughout organizations. Overall, this chapter lays groundwork for Practical and Theoretical Implications of Successfully Doing Difference in Organizations by defining central concepts used to explain social identity difference dimensions in work environments in multinational contexts including those which incorporate virtual conditions. Discussion of ways that organizations have considered social identity difference are presented, including shortcomings which suggest that majority groups in organizations continue to perpetuate inequities and exclusionary practices even while purportedly endorsing diversity, which Cox (2001) defined as: “… the variation of social and cultural identities among people existing together in a defined employment or market setting” (p. 3) [wherein] “social and cultural identity

Difference and Social Identity

5

refers to personal affiliations with groups that research has shown to have significant influence on people’s major life experiences.” (p. 4)

One likely reason that organizations experience such low success in attracting and retaining workforces that mirror the larger population is that they adhere to what Acker (1990) called the “abstract job” concept in a flawed-logic attempt to be neutral on employee social identity dimensions. Such bases ultimately are thwarted since different rhetorically positions Caucasian/European/Whiteness as the benchmark, or dominant standard in the United States and many other parts of the world; a norm from which all else is considered separate, distanced, or marginal. Monge and Contractor (2001) posited that much organizational demography research is premised on a homophily framework explained by the theory of self-categorization which posits that people define themselves and others according to demographic categories (Turner & Oakes, 1986) or by the similarity-attraction hypothesis (Byrne, 1971) which suggests that people seek to reduce potential conflict in relationships by gravitating toward people similar to themselves (Sharif, 1958). Ultimately, the kinds of work environments yielded by this mindset generally are unwelcoming of management applicants who do not fit the Caucasian/White male template. Difference, in this book, is positioned as a positive advance in organizational dynamics; advocating for respect and appreciation for multiple and intersecting social identities not for profitability and other business case reasons but because it is morally justified to eradicate inequitable and exclusionary practices in organizations. After reading this chapter, organizational members, researchers, and students (present and future leaders) should develop a heightened sense of thinking beyond normalized hegemonic worldviews that have driven policy decisions, standards, and even academic research agendas for decades. When organizations consider implications of difference between or among groups as rooted in ethical, moral, and political grounds and move toward strategizing ways to incorporate new thinking about social identity difference and heterogeneity into core competencies, social change becomes possible. In other words, actively considering issues usually ignored or discussed only in hushed tones behind closed doors constitutes a first and important step. Central to researching difference is recognition that social identities are complex, multiple, overlapping, and shifting (Hall, 1990) both those of researchers who collect and analyse data with their research participants, as well as social identities of organizational managers with their employees. The positivist to interpretive shift nearly 40 years ago de-emphasized objectivity and reframed science as a socially constructed process wherein the

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knowledge produced is shaped by the researcher’s identity, methods and procedures used, and those researched (Putnam & Pacanowsky, 1983). The interpretive paradigm is undergirded by high value on the social construction of reality and acknowledged existence of multiple versions of it. Conceptually, objectivity is an attempt to work beyond our individual worldviews and a key consideration in all science even though it never can be entirely objective. In fact, some scholars and qualitative methods researchers argue that researcher subjectivity is a preferable mode for social science and critique is a researcher’s raison d’eˆtre (e.g., Eisenberg, Goodall, & Trethewey, 2010). Of course, debates ensue about whether social science researchers intentionally should inject their ideological leanings and normative recommendations in official research reports even though social research in relation to controversial issues cannot remain objective or apolitical for long. Some suggest that social science devoid of action is only half the story and could be considered irresponsible such as pointing out examples of discriminatory behavior without offering possible solutions, for this outcome easily could be interpreted as perpetuating and justifying bias and ultimately discriminatory practices. A participatory action research paradigm has emerged from the work of developing world researchers who support erasure of researcher-researched boundaries and hold traditional research norms accountable for perpetuating elitist frameworks that ultimately objectify research participants (Eversole, 2003; Whyte, Greenwood, & Lazes, 1991). Some critical scholars who study social justice issues support “engaging actors in a dialogic relationship with the researcher” (Crozier, 2003, p. 79). Involving those researched in designing solutions for their own communities suggests that social research also functions as a tool for education and transformation (Hickey & Mohan, 2005). Arguably, acknowledging that social science involves some degree of subjectivity need not be some carte blanche justification for injecting personal biases and beliefs in social science reports. Also, researchers who mix quantitative and qualitative methodological tools can benefit from including statistical reliability tests and/or verification steps to ensure quality standards. Furthermore, it may be desirable to enlist assistance of practitioners and/or researcher-colleagues for data analysis steps in order to maximize intersubjectivity while refining theoretical conclusions. There is much complexity with which to engage and to reveal throughout phases of research design, data collection and analysis, and presentation of findings. This chapter is divided into subthemes of: applying social identity theory, emphasizing the “center” and the “margin,” managing organizational climate, and avoiding business case thinking and other flawed models by advocating for real diversity.

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1.1. APPLYING SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY All individuals, in many respects, are: a) like no other individuals, b) like some individuals, and c) like all other individuals.

According to this “old Asian saying,” Sue and Sue (2003, p. 11) intimated that human identity is a complex set of processes. Social psychology scholars introduced social identity theory in order to explain how people seek to develop oneness with groups that help them to develop and/or to enhance positive self-esteem and to better understand how people develop notions of high-status ingroups and low-status outgroups. Both of these frameworks are central to this book’s attention to difference in organizations. According to social identity theory, people are quite proficient at developing systematic means by which to classify themselves (avowed identity) and others (ascribed identity) into groups or cohorts by demographics such as age, ethnicity, gender, religious affiliation, social class, and according to social environment dimensions like work function and organizational membership (Ashforth & Mael, 1989; Tajfel & Turner, 1986; Turner, 1985). Critical scholars who study cultural identity and politics of location have used social identity theory as a means to further interrogate modalities of power inherent in social identity processes, since “identities can function as points of identification and attachment only because of their capacity to exclude, to leave out, to render ‘outside’, abjected” (Hall, 1996, p. 5, italics in original). Hence, acts of inclusion and exclusion among people are acts of power inherent in constitution of social identity. Hall (1996) further explained that identities are constructed through (not outside) difference as he incorporated Heath’s (1982) concept of “suture[ing]” (p. 106) to explain how identification processes are constructed within discourse, shaped by historical and institutional sites, and linked together to produce subjectivities making identities “points of temporary attachment to the subject positions” (p. 6). Simply, social identities operate through exclusion; shaped in association with some other, which it is not. To understand interactive processes through which discrimination is created and reproduced in the workplace, social identity theorists have explored connections between ways that people construct social identity and social construction of organizations. The study of social identity processes at work has a long history in the organizational culture literature with much early attention focused on ethnic and national identity in a comparative management context (Eisenberg & Riley, 2001) designed to reveal ways to make businesses more efficient and profitable. Certainly, spill over from larger social contexts seeps into organizations. For instance,

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U.S. citizens who hold jobs and pay taxes are highly critical of illegal immigrants and ethnographic study findings have suggested that lower-class Caucasian/White men blamed African-American/Black men for taking all the jobs instead of creating social class solidarity based on shared economic interests (MacLeod, 1995). Some researchers have argued that organization managements actually encourage subcultures which form according to these oppositions “since they function to mitigate overt resistance and to stabilize relations of inequality” (Schwalbe et al., 2000, p. 429). In some parts of the world, caste systems stratify groups according to family lineage and place social restrictions. And across history’s pages, it is well documented that culture, gender, religion, sexual orientation, and seemingly unremarkable physical characteristics such as height and jaw line have been used to justify eugenics and genocide. Lower-status, outgroup classifications usually rely on stereotyping to quickly classify people; an integral feature with generally negative consequences (Operario & Fiske, 2001). More recent social identity studies, however, have focused on quality of life issues for employees by revealing othering processes and boundary maintenance strategies. All suggest that inequality, homophily and exclusion persist in the workplace (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Organization scholars posit that social identity processes are cognitive, so that an ideational perspective is used to study organizational culture by probing values, norms, and ways that ideas and symbols are used at work. Often, people are aware of degrees of social value placed on group membership defined by specific social identity dimensions since social identity takes on meaning according to comparison to others within the groups (Williams & Giles, 1978). So, it makes sense that individuals try to play up positive social comparison with certain groups and downplay negative instances. Collective esteem refers to group opinions of self-worth, making members feel highly valued by their cohorts (Colquitt, 2001). Indeed, individuals play an active role in strategically navigating their social identity toward positive distinctiveness, by comparing themselves to others among an ingroup and via social mobility to a higher group (Cleveland, Stockdale, & Murphy, 2000). Members of lower-status groups may reframe social identity dimensions considered negatively by others (e.g., accent, skin tone) and celebrate within their group, as with the Black is beautiful movement (Tajfel, 1974). On the other hand, employees engaged in stigmatized tasks and occupations deny that their job represents a facet of their own social identity (e.g., physically, socially, morally “dirty work” such as bill collector, bootblack, butcher, exotic dancer, miner, prison guard) (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999). Some social identity groups perceive and react more defensively to social identity

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threats. Berdahl (2007) suggested threats on gender identity may take the form of: blurring distinctions between men and women, challenging one’s status as a good man or woman, categorizing a person against her/his will, or threatening the value of all women or men. One research team hypothesized that social identity threats that fall in either of the first two categories may explain why some men harass women (Maass, Cadinu, Guarnieri, & Grasselli, 2003). Social identity researchers have discovered over the course of decades of research studies that people use even the most arbitrary or mundane circumstances to categorize ingroup and outgroup members; resulting in potent, biased evaluations of people (e.g., Moghaddam & Stringer, 1986). Perhaps taking the lead of Butler (1993), researchers also have examined ways that some social identity dimensions (e.g., gender) are performed, powerful virtual selves are created, and hierarchies and differences become embedded. Examining how individuals react to bias in terms of subordinate adaptation and emotion management reveals the depth and gravity of social identity schema. Communication aids in the construction of social identity and its performance through enforcement, renegotiation, and management (e.g., Ashcraft & Allen, 2003; Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004), particularly through interplay with difference, as a means for developing authentic relationships (e.g., Craig, 1999) and for promoting oneself as a professional (Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007). One research team has suggested that early social identity theorists’ distinction between personal and social identities is bridged by communication (Alvesson, Hardy, & Harley, 2008). Some have further linked communication with social identity by suggesting that people shift into using fake or temporary identities, as when underage teens talk their way into adult nightclubs (Scheibel, 1992), as well as by proposing new theory to explain how and why people choose personal narratives for creating and sustaining particular social identities (Eisenberg, 2001). Critical race scholars have noted that one’s ability to shape self-identity provides a powerful agentic turn for African-American/Black women who may choose to perform their “race” by making choices about how to groom their hair as “straightened, ‘natural’ and short, Afroed, or dreaded” in anticipation of treatment at work (Carbado & Gulati, 2003, p. 1772). These researchers explained that employers, such as law firms, may use straightened hair as a cue that African-American/Black women job applicants are team players who wants to fit in but also rhetorically questioned employers’ “racializing” in this manner (Carbado & Gulati, 2003, p. 1773). Postmodern scholars concur that self-identity is self-reflexive, fragmented, and shaped by narratives at hand (e.g., Giddens, 1991); a

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“mosaic of organizational, familial, and societal roles … a metaphor for our time, a struggle for coherence amid multiple discourses and optional organizational forms” (Eisenberg & Riley, 2001, p. 305). Inequities at work are sustained when ingroup members create powerful virtual selves as when e´lites (including wanna-be e´lites) manage impressions to suggest that they are on their way up (Jackall, 1988), legitimate their status (Haas & Shaffir, 1977), and promote strength and masculinity (Hall, 1979). Lesserstatus employees adapt to subordination via coping strategies, such as trading power for patronage as when women coal miners acquiesce to male co-workers’ sexual harassment because doing so seems to affirm their femininity and because they gain some degree of protection and approval in an otherwise masculine setting (Yount, 1991). Similarly, findings of a study of social identity performance at a strip club suggested that female strippers enhance their act by tapping into men’s sexual fantasies and, in turn, are rewarded with larger tips (Ronai & Ellis, 1989). On a broader scale, however, many of these types of adaptations end up reproducing inequities that may harm other members of lesser-status social identity groups (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Thus, social identity is not some “stable core of the self” (Hall, 1996, p. 3); rather social identities are manifold, change, overlap, crosscut boundaries and interests, and are multiply constructed and increasingly fractured and fragmented. Individuals also may identify with their social identity dimensions in varying degrees and at different points in time and contexts (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Because uniform intra-group identity is rare due to members’ individual intersecting social identity dimensions, intra-group difference, or difference dimensions within social identities also must be considered. For example, religious practices and beliefs rub against one other in unique ways so that not every member of a given faith/spirituality group is the same; instead more loosely connected than may be apparent (Chaves, 2010). The plurals emphasizing polyvocality among femininities (e.g., Rakow & Wackwitz, 2004) and masculinities (e.g., Kimmel, 2001) more accurately capture variety in schema used to construct, perform, and enact in social context (Levant et al., 2003). Even identity groups can become fragmented and people affiliate with the ones they believe correspond with their own sense of identity (Hogg & Terry, 2000). Moreover, Hughes (2004) posited that analyses of social identity formation as fluid and shifting processes enable researchers to overcome limitations of staid categorical approaches that, for example, oversimplify social class in terms of hierarchy or job title. Instead, multifaceted and dynamic pictures of social class emerge when considered are overlapping social identity

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dimensions of ethnicity, gender, mental/physical ability, political affiliation, sexuality and more, and how these combine to shape self-identity perceptions as well as ingroup-outgroup treatment by coworkers and managers (Acker, 1999). Social identity theorists have expanded the visible/nonvisible framework used by individuals as they categorize people according to schema to which they have become socialized in order to incorporate possibilities afforded by technology; namely, virtual team contexts. Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1998) posited that trust is a significant factor among work teams tasked to accomplish organizational objectives. Social identity categorization processes play out as team members consider degrees to which they trust and accept one another. Understanding how trust develops is central to the success of virtual teams (Avolio, Kahai, Dumdum, & Sivasubramaniam, 2001). In virtual conditions, such as when employees communicate via email, physical appearance may play a lesser role than it might in face-toface settings with factors such as experiential background, training, and education taking on a more salient role for determining acceptability in virtual environments. Avolio and his colleagues (2001) posited that the social identity dimension of culture or team members’ disciplines take a back seat to team leadership and a team’s common goals or mission in terms of trust building at least in early stages of virtual work and concluded that while social identity categorization processes may promote efficiency and solidarity, these acts simultaneously minimize “important objective differences among members” (p. 354). It is not difficult to understand why social identity difference research processes can take people out of their personal, emotional, ideological or political comfort zones and just getting started may be the most difficult phase. Becker (2000) suggested that this may be because “we never know for sure just what results our work will have” (p. 253). Qualitative researchers have encountered confusion among readers of their studies; those who fail to understand the relevance of noting research participants’ social identity dimensions (Fine, Weis, Weseen, & Wong, 2003). Sometimes social research findings are used to affect positive policy change, as was the case with Gunnar Myrdal’s (1944) classic U.S. “race” relations study that undergirded a Supreme Court decision to overturn the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka “separate but equal” 1954 ruling. Other times, distorted or taken-out-of-context social science research finds its way to popular media reports. Carol Gilligan (2003), a psychologist and professor of education and law at New York University, turned to YouTube to set the record straight when she found her work misattributed in a Time

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magazine guest column to suggest she believed that same-gender families are unhealthy for children (Thacker, 2006). Meanwhile, some equate difference with affirmative action initiatives that they now consider passe´ or a form of reverse discrimination (Reskin, 1991). Also, some people are weary of political correctness trends (Chong, 2006) and/or are concerned about possibly offending someone. Importantly, research participants also may be uncomfortable with identifying or discussing their social identity dimensions of gender, “race,” and social class (Reinharz, 1992). Knowledge that emerges as a result of study is produced through researcher-researched interaction (Schwandt, 1994). Among the first steps to launching a research project that involves attention to social identity difference is recognizing that one’s own social identity, or self-image, is a product of belongingness (or not) to certain socially constructed categories. Hence, the social constructionist sociology of knowledge school of thought (Berger & Luckmann, 1966) suggests that we are socialized to internalize certain values and norms that we then use to define ourselves and others. When doing difference research, it is crucial to explore the social in social identity.

1.2. EMPHASIZING THE “CENTER” AND THE “MARGIN” Social identity difference research critiques spatial categories and oppositions that affix values to social identity difference dimension and reflect embedded power and hierarchical ordering. Usually, conceptual schemas emerging along a similarity ↔ difference continuum support us/them frameworks and result in negative outputs (Turner, 1987) which fuel oppressive ideologies and further perpetuate binary dualisms and their related by-products of centering, othering and marginalizing. Gutterman (1994) suggested that oppositional binarisms historically have “provided the governing logic of identity formation in the West” (p. 220). Thus, social identity difference is essential to defining whom one is not such that social identity and difference are inextricably linked; with difference grounded in otherness (Goffman, 1963). Because processes used for defining ourselves and others seem to be “relational and comparative” (Tajfel & Turner, 1986, p. 15), Ashforth and Mael (1989) suggested that a category of “young is meaningful only in relation to the category of old,” for example (p. 21). Social researchers across disciplines have critiqued pervasive, essentialist outcomes of binarisms, also referred to as binary dualisms, binary codes,

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systems, and classifications; binary of opposites, and two-valued evaluation. At the root of this logic is pitting that which is “dominant,” “normal,” or “mainstream” against that which “deviates” from it. For instance, Gardiner (2002) argued that binaries “divide men and women, masculine and feminine, heterosexual and homosexual, White and Black, individual and society, structure and agency” (p. 12). Other examples of dominant binary dualisms include: mind/body, other/self, disabled/non-disabled, East/West, feminine/masculine, old/young, them/us, poor/rich, adult/child, liberal/conservative, atheist/religious, domestic/foreign, and democracy/ socialism. Comparison processes seem endless. Blue-collar and white-collar workers are compared according to education and social class. Christians and Wiccans are contrasted by faith-belief systems. Hearing-impaired and able-bodied people are considered in relation to body features. Gay and straight men are distinguished by sexual orientation. Over time as these binaries are invoked during conversations at work, and in classrooms, news reports, feature films, and government policies, they reaffirm difference in negative terms. Indeed, powerful institutions, organizations, and authorities contribute to enduring stereotypes and labels borne of binary dualistic thinking. As conceptual schemas, binary dualisms may offer shortcuts for considering individuals, groups, and issues along the similarity ↔ difference continuum, but more often than not, outcomes are negative and usually come in one of two varieties visible characteristics (e.g., accent, age, dialect, ethnicity, gender, hair texture, language, physical appearance, skin tone, speech patterns) and nonvisible characteristics (e.g., culture, education, faith/spirituality, health/illness, national origin, occupation, regional affiliation, sexual orientation, social class, worldview) (e.g., Goffman, 1963; Tsui & Gutek, 1999). Whether employees highlight or minimize their social identity is highly relevant in organizational settings (Browne & Misra, 2003; Shelton, 2003). Goffman (1963) noted that nonvisible, stigmatized identities often are regulated or managed such as among ex-mental patients. Some social identity dimensions, such as physical and psychological ability, may be visible or not. As compared to visible social identities, the dynamics of nonvisible social identities have received significantly less attention among social identity researchers (Clair, Beatty, & Maclean, 2005). Schlossberg (2001) drew from what he called the “logic of visibility,” or face value based on cultural norms of expected behavior, when explaining that those of Western culture “trust that our ability to see and read carries with it a certain degree of epistemological certainty” (p. 1). Several social identity difference researchers have noted an abundance of research on

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ethnicity/race and gender, but far less attention to most of the other social identity dimensions. People who define their social identity according to nonvisible dimensions may consider social identity management (e.g., Button, 2001); a choice in whether or not to reveal at work (to hide what they consider to be a potential stigma) or to pass (conceal or closet). Dynamics associated with the choice may result in generating positive feelings of authenticity, creating opportunities for consciousness raising, education, social changes and coalition building (Bernstein, 1997; Clair et al., 2005; Creed & Scully, 2000) or conclude in negative outcomes such as repressing one’s true self (Reimann, 2001). Ragins and Cornwell (2001) found that presence of gay support groups at work positively related to gay employees’ decision to be out at work. Enabling employees to be authentic contributes positively to the workplace because employees who self-describe according to stigmatized social identity dimension(s) otherwise would spend significant resources in managing their social identities. Critical scholars have argued that social identity formation and sustenance is far more complex than such simple dichotomies purport. Social researchers must be accountable for relying on binary dualisms, too. Among sociologists, Ault (1996a) noted a practice of negotiating uncertainty by forcing subcategories within existing groupings rather than creating new ones as when people who self identify as bisexual are required to tick box categories of either gay, lesbian, or heterosexual, even though their sexual preference clearly is more diverse. Recognizing the multiple social identities and experiences of research participants beyond binary dualisms is essential to embracing difference, avoiding negative outcomes in promoting a wider worldview, facilitating non-essentializing theoretical frameworks, and for respecting diversity at work. For organizations’ managers, attention to employees’ multiple and overlapping social identity dimensions goes a long way in fostering inclusivity and social identity heterogeneity. Organizations that seek to create a harmonious workplace while being competitive and earning the highest-quality global reputation know that it requires conscious, concentrated, ongoing effort; a balance that does not happen overnight or by magic. Gutterman (1994) argued that social identity difference need not be framed as “indicative of otherness” (p. 221), and hooks (2000a) cautioned that most of us are socialized “to think in terms of opposition rather than compatibility” (p. 31). As Brod and Kaufman (1994) urged, this book also seeks to “[avoid] the pitfalls of a politics of guilt and blame” (p. 3) while advocating for structural change in organizations and the larger public sphere with regard to respect for people

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of all walks of life. Hence, it is useful to examine three interconnected implications of binary dualisms. First, marginalization is a function of outgroup consequence created when individuals and groups consciously (or unconsciously) separate themselves or exclude people whom they consider to be too different from themselves, at work and in the larger public sphere. hooks (2000a) explained: “To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body” (p. xvii). She advanced a radical intervention for using the margin as a site for counter-hegemonic discourse, or resistance (hooks, 1990). For instance, some separatist members of the LGBTQ community have opposed gay marriage for its “normalizing” practices that assimilate queers into and fortify “heteronormativity” (Green, 2008, p. 10), as well as legitimize heterosexuality’s hegemony at the exclusion of other relationships (Badgett, 2009). Us versus them spaces are mutually exclusive so that many oppressed groups seek to de-stabilize self-reinforcing binaries and their ideologies. Reinforcing marginalization trends in industrialized nations around the globe are mass mediated images generated by advertising and journalism. For example, midlife-aged men and women increasingly feel victimized as a “despised age class [being] hounded off the stage of life” (Gullette, 2004, p. 52) as a result of changes in post-industrial capitalism that affected downsizing trends beginning in the 1990s and widened a generation gap between Boomers and Xers. Feeling increasingly pushed to the margin, midlife-aged people in the U.S. experience “Boomer-bashing” which plays out in ads that ridicule and news reports that disempower. Likewise, in his assessment of museums’ degrees of access for disabled and special-needs patrons, Kaushik (1999) posited that mediated images marginalize in terms of “evil and horror,” “overcoming all odds,” “charity,” and “the medical model.” In other words, these members of worldwide populations are “judged in terms of their deficiency and rarely in terms of their individual personalities” (p. 48). Second, aforementioned human schema processes of thinking in terms of that which is “dominant,” “normal” or “mainstream” also has been described spatially as being firmly situated at “the center” of discourse. With her groundbreaking assessment of the late-20th century feminist movement, hooks (2000a) critiqued leaders’ centering of only certain women’s standpoints. In particular, she condemned Friedan’s (1963) analysis of “the problem that has no name” (p. 387) in The Feminine Mystique for focusing exclusively on ways “sexist discrimination affected highly educated white women with class privilege” (hooks, 2000a, p. x). In effect, the movement had rendered invisible the perspectives and experiences of

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women of color, relegating them to places beyond “the center.” Thus, hooks (2000a) proposed amending feminist theory to acknowledge ways interlocking social identity difference dimensions such as gender, ethnicity, and social class overlap, challenge and complicate theory building about women’s realities. Third, behind-the-scenes power and hierarchical infrastructures must be made visible and thoroughly interrogated to reveal influences on ingroup and outgroup formation; side effects such as othering. Othering can be a form of collective identity work that directly or indirectly creates and/or reproduces inequity via three general processes oppressive othering, implicit othering by creating powerful virtual selves, and defensive othering among subordinate groups (Schwalbe et al., 2000). Sometimes othering processes and effects can be positive, as when working-class unionization efforts to battle oppressive factory managements fosters group solidarity (Fantasia, 1988). Conversely, results of othering usually are quite negative. Fine (1994) argued that dominant groups intrinsically create inferior groups to illustrate superiority. For example, neo-Nazi group members build community superiority by othering homosexuals and positioning them as scapegoats for immorality (Blee, 1996). Oppressive othering occurs when one group seeks advantage by defining another group as morally or intellectually inferior especially incidents that involve negative racial/ethnic classification schemes. Said (1978) introduced Orientalism to describe effects of 18th- and 19th-century European imperialism on ways Eastern peoples collectively are considered subservient (Shi, 2008) and willing to work for less (Hossfeld, 1994). Similarly, people of Africa and the New World were classified as inferior and turned into commodities as slave labor by Europeans and North Americans (Roediger, 1991). Rollins (1985) found that middle/upper-middle-class Caucasian/White women characterized women of color in their employ working as domestics as careless, childlike, and happy to serve. Also, presuming that the values of Protestant Christianity are somehow natural and universal contributes to othering of non-Protestant faiths (Gupta-Carlson, 2008). Othering also can apply to naming outsiders within a given nation by agenda-setting journalists who use labels like “crack mothers” to describe homeless drug-addicted women with children (Reeves & Campbell, 1994). In a socioeconomic context, temporary workers experience oppressive othering at work sites where they are classified as entirely lacking (Rogers, 1995). In other words, oppressive othering involves overt or subtle reaction to social identity difference as a shortcoming or deficit.

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1.3. MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATE Organizations are “arenas for conflicting interests” (Stewart, 1987, p. 289); important social settings and a large part of an “everyday world as problematic” dynamic rife for study (Acker, 2006; Smith, 1987, p. 181). Tracing connections among gender and disability dimensions of social identity, Albiston (2005) noted that the workplace features an invisible cognitive framework that tends to focus on seemingly natural features which support the drive toward productivity such as the daily time clock and standard 40-hour workweek but rarely consider employee social identity dimensions involving perspectives (e.g., parent, daughter, son) which might include a need for leave for family or medical purposes. Such an organizational climate is an ongoing process of structuration (Poole & McPhee, 1983) where a good worker is defined as one who make no personal demands of these features (Schor, 1992). Organizational climate researchers have shifted from gauging employee perceptions of organizational goals and roles shaped by their social identities to foci on culture management (and organizations’ personalities); ways that organizations strive for maximum effectiveness and foster cultures which will support these goals. Organizational acquisitions, mergers, restructurings, reengineering, and globalization trends have inspired researchers’ to alter research agendas. In particular, globalization effects include a “new social contract” with employees who fear for stability, feel alienated (Barnet & Cavanaugh, 1994), express lower levels of identification and loyalty with organizations (Carbado & Gulati, 2003), and fear being downsized because of their stigmatized social identity (Clair et al., 2005). Organizations, particularly corporations, have responded to such outcomes by producing work environments with powerful leaders, strong cultures, and change via strategic culture management. Significant resources are invested in organizational cultures by “engaging in aligning values, systems, personalities, communication, and practices through ongoing socialization and monitoring” (Eisenberg & Riley, 2001, p. 310). Yet, findings of studies designed to measure links between strong organizational culture and performance/profit are mixed (Saffold, 1988; Siehl & Martin, 1990) and reveal potentially damaging outcomes (Kotter & Heskett, 1992). Social identity theory is useful for studying such organizational climates, particularly ongoing conflicts such as “multiethnic cliques” (Eisenberg & Riley, 2001, p. 315) and other workplace intergroup relations and role

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conflicts (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). For instance, organizational newcomers still unsure of policies, routines, and employee groups risk missteps when they fail to fulfil role expectations and recognize power and status hierarchies (Ashforth, 1985). Critical researchers have suggested that much of the organizational climate literature in its current turn leaves too little room for exposing business case approaches’ bottom line orientation (e.g., Metcalfe & Woodhams, 2008), especially when employees and diversity aims are considered means to profit generation (Ely & Thomas, 2001).

1.4. AVOIDING BUSINESS CASE THINKING AND OTHER FLAWED MODELS BY ADVOCATING FOR REAL DIVERSITY Workforce diversity research and social identity theory are inextricably linked. Some researchers suggest that there must be as much diversity within an organization as there is outside it for the organization to be optimally effective (Weick, 1979) especially those organizations which must compete on a world stage (Conrad, 1994). Allen (1995) opined that rhetoric such as this made little more than a “buzzword” out of diversity (p. 143) that emerged in the 1980s in response to a widely circulated Workforce 2000 report published by the Hudson Institute predicting that by 2000, five-sixths of U.S. workers would be women, African American/Black, Latino/a and immigrants (Johnston & Packer, 1987). As the popularity of the report grew, so too did organizational response in terms of positioning employees as strategic assets who required skillful management (Boxenbaum, 2006). In fact, one group of social identity researchers (perhaps ironically) called diversity “the new business paradigm for differences” (Zanoni, Janssens, Benschop, & Nkomo, 2010, p. 12). Workforce diversity is about the study of inequity with regard to “composition of work units in terms of the cultural or demographic characteristics that are salient and symbolically meaningful in the relationships among group members” (DiTomaso, Post, & Parks-Yancy, 2007, p. 473). Pessimists more than 25 years ago worried about how employees representing multiple social identities shaped by culture would be able to work together and whether or not Western management philosophies could keep up with so much organizational change (e.g., Cox, Lobel, & McLeod, 1991; Zak, 1994). Ultimately, critical scholars have questioned such business case approaches as myopic and capitalistic exercises that reflect a flawed understanding about the

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nature and ultimate aims of diversity programs (Metcalfe & Woodhams, 2008). Eventually, business case cost benefit analysis has supplanted equal opportunity discourse; a politically strategic maneuver, some critics charge. Noon (2007) called the transference “an alluring argument” (p. 773); one that completely misses the point of advocating social change for universal social justice and for “equality, diversity and inclusion at work” (O¨zbilgin, 2009). Because “the notion of difference lies at the heart of the diversity concept,” valuing difference is a responsibility given globalization, immigration, and business trends and an opportunity to genuinely maximize benefits of inclusive human resource approaches. Yet, dominant organizational norms in the United States remain largely heterosexual, able bodied, Christian (Corsun & Costen, 2001) and Caucasian/White (Carbado & Gulati, 2003), with a preponderance of men serving as CEOs at the top at Fortune 500 companies; only 21, or 4.2% women (Catalyst Research, 2013c). Over the past several decades, numerous academics and popular media journalists have written about the glass ceiling that blocks career advancement for women and people of color (e.g., Barreto, Ryan, & Schmitt, 2008) and the importance of leadership in embracing diversity initiatives (e.g., Bassett-Jones, Brown, & Cornelius, 2007). Yet, interviews with Fortune 1000 upper-level managers revealed their general inability to “effectively elaborate on their company’s diversity policies or practices” (Embrick, 2011, p. 541). Multiple corporations continue to endure charges of racism and sexism in the United States and pay millions in settlement costs also inspiring nationwide boycotts among consumers led by advocacy groups. So long as women and people of color continue to dominate the least favorable organizational positions and Caucasian/White men continue to dominate the most favorable ones where they enjoy privileged access to structural advantages, then real diversity remains a work in progress. As one means for urging organizations to restructure, social identity theorists continue to seek new ways to challenge categorical schema used in organizations to differentiate ingroups and outgroups. For instance, Brickson and Brewer (2001) recommended inspiring new social identity practices through decategorization, recategorization, crosscutting differences, as well as enhancing intra-group relational links among members that foster interdepencencies and positively encourage groups to work harmoniously. Perhaps more fundamentally, Ahmed (2007a, 2007b) found that diversity practitioners struggle to strike a balance between business case thinking and equality when it comes to gaining acceptance of diversity

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programming among organizational stakeholders. Another set of social identity theorists advanced what they called “principles for constructively engaging differences” which involve trust and relationship building through manipulating emotions associated with conflict by replacing defensive mechanisms with alternatives such as constructive cross-cultural interactions (Ely, Meyerson, & Davidson, 2006, p. 82). Also, some multinationals have affected infrastructural change in policies and procedures with regard to recruitment, hiring, retention, mentoring, training, and career development for “minorities.” Overall, alterations in structural relationships “that define what differences make a difference” (DiTomaso et al., 2007, p. 492) rather than “comparative and additive thinking” (Andersen, 2005, p. 446) is where social identity theory offers applicable benefits to organizations.

1.5. DISCUSSION Understanding social identity theory and ways that processes unfurl in organizations in shaping self- and collective-identity and ingroup and outgroup formation and maintenance sets the tone for this book’s explorations of how most social identity difference dimensions at work tend to be regarded negatively, with low-status employees being pushed to the “margin” and privileged ones residing at the “center.” Paradoxically, contemporary organizations worldwide may speak of striving for maximum efficiency through careful manipulation of organizational climate and via business-case attention to diversity, yet genuine equity, fairness, respect, and inclusion remain elusive goals since most multinational corporate top hierarchies are dominated by the same kinds of people who perpetuate homogeneous organizational managements. Ely and her colleagues (2006) coined the term, “identity abrasions,” to illustrate identity assaults that people experience daily in the workplace. Having one’s self-identity attacked through conscious or unconscious offensives hurts everyone and pain is perpetuated when victims are taunted for being “overly sensitive” (Ely et al., 2006, p. 81). These researchers remind us that injuries play out on both sides since those accused of inflicting harm react defensively, sometimes prolonging incidents. Diversity and social identity difference in the workforce are more than catchwords. They are ideals worth striving for. Globalized organizational structures built upon systems of power and privilege, hierarchy, and status

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must be reconfigured to affect real diversity among social identities represented throughout organizations. Human resources and other managers in organizations must take to heart a responsibility for restructuring power relations, developing action plans, and for measuring their outcomes to ensure that real diversity goals eradicate homophily effects throughout the organization. In the words of masculinities scholars Brod and Kaufman (1994), the way to end phobias and -isms involving social identity dimensions among those at the “center” is to consciously, routinely, and vigorously take note of ways “we and our brothers get hooked into privileges” (p. 3); ultimately investigating why biases are so resistant to change. Also, while critical scholars and many other researchers have sharpened the focus on only a few singular social identity dimensions, there are many others that deserve further scrutiny. Collectively, critical scholarship has advanced several fields (e.g., communication, cultural studies, feminist studies, psychology, public relations, queer studies, sociology). Findings generally suggest that no single factor accounts for perceptions that fuel discriminatory processes along social identity dimensions, so it is important to continue expanding empirical research of social identity difference dimensions of age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and beyond as well as their intersectionalities (Brah & Phoenix, 2004). Finally, needed are further investigations into systemic organizational structures which support certain group status group identities, enabling them to endure in the workplace while so much else in organizations is in a constant state of change. This book offers an introduction to doing difference research by introducing a number of theoretical underpinnings, addressing methodological challenges, and presenting a wide cross-section of numerous bodies of literature which have been attending to difference work all between the same cover.

KEY TERMS Business case thinking Positioning organizational diversity as merely an opportunity to grow market share and ultimately contribute to an organization’s bottom line positions diversity in self-serving interest terms rather than an opportunity to positively contribute to ongoing human rights struggles as they play out in the workplace. Center bell hooks (2000a) introduced the concept of placing oneself (or being placed) at the “center” or “the main body” (p. xvii) to the exclusion

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of those whose standpoints are ignored or not considered relevant. The term came with critique of the late-20th century feminist movement for privileging views and experiences of highly educated White women. Difference Examining the multiple, complex, and overlapping facets that define a person’s social identity in terms of age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more is an important consideration when doing research in support of heterogeneity, diversity, or social identity difference. The term also is used when considering relationships among researchers and their research participants. Diversity This is a means to develop workplaces populated by managers and employees at various hierarchal levels whose social identities vary greatly and reflect characteristics of the general population where an organization provides its products or services. Margin bell hooks (2000a) suggested that residing or being relegated to in the “margin” means that one’s experiences and perspectives are considered superfluous or are ignored. She emphasized that interlocking difference dimensions such as gender, ethnicity and social class overlap, challenge and complicate theory building about women’s realities. Objectivity Max Weber (1925/1946) coined the phrase “value-free” social science, suggesting that our work should be devoid of personal values. Later, an interpretive shift reframed science as a socially constructed process. Objectivity-subjectivity dialectics are criticized by those who argue that we cannot entirely overcome subjectivities to present a value-free take on phenomena we study. Conceptually, objectivity is an attempt to work beyond our individual worldviews, but some argue that researcher subjectivity is a critical tool and a preferable means for social science. Organizational climate In response to rapid change and trends affecting organizations worldwide, many have sought to maintain control by strategically creating climates at work which minimize conflict and promote organizational goals; often accomplished through powerful leadership. Othering This term has come to refer to processes whereby a dominant ingroup defines into existence a group considered to be inferior (Fine, 1994); an outgroup. This process entails inventing categories and of ideas about what classifies people as belonging to these categories relegating them to the margin in the workplace. From an interactionist perspective, othering is a form of collective identity work aimed at creating and/or

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reproducing inequity (Schwalbe & Mason-Schrock, 1996). Effects of othering can be significant, such as less social support, mentoring, and networking opportunities. Social constructionism Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann (1966) suggested that humans are socialized to internalize certain values and norms that then are used to define ourselves and those people who are not us (others). Researchers of this orientation suggest that science’s early biological explanations of “naturally-occurring” phenomena failed to account for contexts shaped by culture, economics, politics, history, and more. Social homophily thesis A social homophily thesis underpins preservation of the status quo in order to facilitate ease in communication and reduce management costs (Appold, Siengthai, & Kasarda, 1998). Often, this term is used to describe a predominantly Caucasian/White and heterosexist workplace which is preserved in organizations based on an assumption that sameness maintains harmony and avoids conflict. Critique of the social homophily thesis in organizations reveals several negative outcomes for social identities shaped by difference such as othering, tokenism, pigeonholing, and other microaggressions. Social identity Ways that people consider themselves in terms of who they are as shaped by social constructions of those dimensions including age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more. Tajfel and Turner (1979) first considered social identity when theorizing about ways that people interact (or not) with one another. More simply, “the social component of identity is the perception of ‘oneness’ with others” (Ashforth & Mael, 1989, p. 21).

Urban Outfitters wrangles with stockholders over lack of director board diversity Some people have taken their desire to see greater social identity difference represented among corporate executive suites to a new level. Undaunted by a string of defeats to shareholder resolutions that Urban Outfitters’ all-male board of directors give way to including women and other minorities among their ranks by including language ‘‘to seek qualified women and minorities for the board of directors’’ (Why investors care, 2013), a ‘‘vocal band of institutional investors’’ keeps plugging away (Morgenson, 2013, p. BU1).

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Even though the resolution was defeated again in 2013, the Philadelphia-based global retailer of casual clothing and housewares founded in 1970, sought to appease activists’ demands by placing the name of the Urban Outfitters CEO and president’s wife, Margaret Hayne, on the ballot. She won. She had been a long-term employee and served as president of the corporation’s Free People division (Morgenson, 2013, p. BU1). According to the New York Times follow-up report, one of the activists represents an investment management firm. Apparently, he was not satisfied with Urban Outfitters’ action: ‘‘To nominate someone who is also a long-term employee, an insider and married to the C.E.O. and chairman … doesn’t pass the smell test of really trying to find someone that adds to diversity and is going to be an independent voice’’ (Morgenson, 2013, p. BU1). Urban Outfitters’ proxy filing opined that any gender or minority requirements for board member selection ‘‘would undermine the company’s holistic evaluation of candidates’’ (Morgenson, 2013, BU1).

Self-reflection and discussion questions 1. Why, do you suppose, social research in relation to controversial social identity issues cannot remain objective or apolitical? 2. Have you ever traveled back to your home town for, say, a high school reunion? In what ways have similarities and/or differences between you and your former classmates’ social identities changed over time? 3. What value judgments might be made about your social identity? 4. Clearly, social researchers often have more college degrees and/or a greater number of years spent in higher education than many research participants. How will you avoid asymmetrical power dynamics inherent in social research processes that hierarchically place you at the ‘‘center’’ and those you research in the ‘‘margin’’? How will you avoid ‘‘othering’’ in your research? 5. Navigating the well-traveled road of using binary dualisms in everyday living, as well as research projects, can be quite challenging. Do you agree that sometimes using binary dualistic logic is beneficial social in research? When can it be detrimental?

CHAPTER 2 SOCIAL IDENTITY AND POWER IN RESEARCHER-RESEARCHED DYNAMICS

ABSTRACT Research projects designed to examine social identity difference in organizations are driven by a passion to affect positive change that ultimately leads to a more just society rather than one which enables status quo power perpetuation and continues to marginalize certain people and inhibit them from achieving personal and career goals. This important change requires the support of all people and not just those who use a simplistically essentialist dyad because they feel a personal connection or because such avenues of inquiry are considered off limits when a researcher or a manager does not “match” members of specific minority groups. Polyvocality is necessary to exorcise -isms in the workplace and larger global communities, so this important work is everyone’s responsibility. In Chapter 2, difference is operationalized and it is acknowledged that recognizing power differentials between ourselves as researcher and our respondents or participants as researched is a starting point in any important journey when exploring social identity difference. Researching across social identity difference is examined, the simplistically essentialist dyad or racial-matching paradigm is critiqued, and the partial perspective and lived experience orientations are advanced. Useful guidance and methodological techniques also are offered for self-reflexive moves when considering research paradigms, theoretical underpinnings, data collection procedures, data interpretation and analysis steps, and dissemination of findings – as well as discussion about ways that 25

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institutionalized power can intervene in potentially risky ways for researchers of social identity and difference. This book represents an integration of numerous theory streams and approaches so that researchers of social identity difference will have at least one go-to source for engaging with potential analytical, ethical, and methodological challenges. Chapter 2 is divided into these central subthemes: what is social identity difference?, power issues among researchers and the researched, techniques for doing social identity difference research, and researching across social identity difference and the matching paradigm. Keywords: Autoethnography; binary dualism; hermeneutic phenomenology; lived experience; matching paradigm; partial perspective; power; standpoint epistemology; reflexivity

This chapter seeks to inspire introspection about researchers’ and organizational managers’ own social identity in relation to employees, individuals and social groups and to explore new ways to consider overlapping social identity dimensions and power dynamics inherent in research processes and in relationships between researchers and research participants. Examining the numerous and complex facets that define people’s social identity in organizations in terms of age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/ spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more are important considerations when performing work in support of social identity difference, diversity or heterogeneity. Overall, research projects intended to expand an ever-increasing body of scholarship about social identity difference are driven by a goal to affect positive change in awareness and/or behaviors that ultimately will lead to a more just society. To begin, attention to dominant ideologies that bubble below the surface and perpetuate power hierarchies and outcomes of inequity and bias requires diligence. Allen (2004) coined the phrase, “thinking under the influence” (p. 192) in the first edition of her Difference Matters book as a means for recognizing points when power and persistence of mainstream belief systems about social hierarchies embolden and perpetuate social identity stereotypes and prejudice. Questioning our own perceptions triggers aha! moments that bring underlying assumptions, or hard-wiring, into focus. This resonates well with a social constructionist framework; some social science researchers’ position (and the foundation for this book) that biology is significantly less influential in shaping power structures and

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interactions among people than ways that people themselves collectively craft reality, knowledge and meaning. Organizational members and social researchers must appreciate the value of sensitivity and respect toward social identity difference dimensions and degrees of social biases and inequities that have negatively impacted so many. Fundamentally, concern with power in critical studies and diversity research gives it a social purpose and provides a collective mantra for exorcising inequality, homogeneity, and exclusion from the workplace. Attending to ways people are socialized to accept enduring negative frameworks, discriminatory practices, and stereotypes is required for 21st century workplaces locally and globally. Furthermore, effectiveness of communication is diminished when scholars and organizational managers impose their ethnocentric assumptions on other cultures. Relatedly, researchers may overlook opportunities to address hierarchical researcher-as-powerful/ researched-as-weak data collection and analysis process challenges. Dominant groups rarely ask questions from beyond their own standpoints, so that advantages of “matching” a researcher’s and researched’s social identity dimensions as a means to narrow the power gap sometimes may seem logical but can prove impractical and in fact, emerge as an outcome of flawed logic. Even when matching is attempted, the social distance of academic to layperson (or manager to employee) may remain a major communication barrier. To inspire self-reflection and use of the powerful thinking under the influence heuristic, this chapter is divided into these subthemes: what is social identity difference?, power issues among researchers and the researched, techniques for doing social identity difference research, and researching across social identity difference and the matching paradigm.

2.1. WHAT IS SOCIAL IDENTITY DIFFERENCE? Defining social identity difference is one point of departure in any attempt to inspire a just society, in addition to advancing scholarship and theory building that benefits employees and organizations, as well as students and colleagues. Social identity difference is reflected in considerations about the focus of research, the relationship between the researcher and the participant, and more. Rhetorically, difference is a somewhat problematic concept because it is developed and deployed in various ways; fueling vigorous debates among sets of social researchers who point out contradictions and voice their objections. Thus, this word must be used carefully. Brah (1996)

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celebrated the analytic value of the difference concept for enabling researchers to dissect large social group categories to discover how difference manifests and is expressed in relation to practices and discourses through modalities of experience, social relation, subjectivity, and identity and suggested that “it is useful to distinguish difference as a marker of the distinctiveness of our collective ‘histories’ from difference as personal experience inscribing individual biography” (p. 117). So, social identity difference may be considered in terms of collectivity as well as selflevels. Of particular interest in this book is the fourth modality, “difference as identity … [I]dentity may be understood as that very process by which the multiplicity, contradiction, and instability of subjectivity is signified as having coherence, continuity, stability; as having a core a continually changing core but the sense of a core nonetheless that at any given moment is enunciated as the ‘I’” (Brah, 1996, p. 124). Yet, Gunaratnam (2003) further problematizes the difference concept by suggesting that “sets of differences … cannot be read off from each other” since these are context specific (p. 134). Difference also is defined and used in ways particular to scholarly fields. In feminist politics, Barrett (1987) teased out two opposing frameworks for ways the difference concept has been used with one model positioning women/men as different and another model emphasizing multiplicity within the category of woman. Among critical race theory scholars, use of the difference concept tends to position Whiteness as a dominant standard the norm at an idealized center by which all else is considered separate, distanced, or marginal. Radical organization scholars, such as Grimes (2000), have argued that ignoring or denying difference will thwart researchers’ attempts to advance social justice agendas so she recommended coalition work and “flexible ways to think about the self” in an effort to ponder inherent dilemmas associated with scholarly communities and perhaps unconscious exclusionary moves. Critical research has as its goal the unmasking of institutionalized power structures and relations that underpin legitimized, yet arbitrary, discourses. A danger is that results from research focusing only on traditional and essentializing interpretations of axes of social identity difference according to binary dualisms (e.g., Christian/Islam, old/young, men/women, heterosexual/homosexual, able bodied/disabled, mind/body, other/self, disabled/non-disabled, East/West, feminine/masculine, them/us, poor/rich, adult/child, liberal/conservative, atheist/religious, Black/White, domestic/foreign, and democracy/socialism) neglect aspects of experience that resist such norms and fail to account for intra-group diversity, or multiplicity within any given group.

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A conscious awareness of social identity difference as something experienced rather than something that is categorized and imposed is a crucial first step even when the primary focus of a particular research project may not call for it in any obvious way. Great care must be taken in respecting and developing relationships with research participants as individuals. For example, labels such as Hispanic must be used with caution since this is a social demographic category created by the U.S. Bureau of the Census and imposed upon groups of people who self-identify in multiple ways according to their own unique heritages and experiences. Also, researchers should avoid conflating -isms with their referents (e.g., ageism/age diversity) because they are not the same.

2.2. POWER ISSUES AMONG RESEARCHERS AND THE RESEARCHED Acknowledging power differentials between ourselves as researcher and our respondents/informants/participants as researched is a significant point of departure when exploring social identity difference. Differences between researcher and researched are embedded in social discourses that define each party, which in turn inform research projects (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). Bhavnani (1988) argued for greater attention to power within social research, noting problems associated with its invisibility. Clearly, there is an asymmetrical power relation between the researcher (dominant, active, an insider) and the researched (outsider, passive, vulnerable). While the former is named in publications, the latter is anonymous; conflated and subsumed in categories and themes, typologies, and data sets. The researcher maintains control over academic discourse, secures funding (or not), selects phenomena for inquiry, defines the research problem and identifies the research questions and hypotheses, and then decides whose voice can be heard when analysing and presenting results. Engaged scholarship paradigm scholars emphasize both voices and Haraway (1988) advocated for “splitting” voice (p. 586). There is perhaps no better forum to apply this approach than in social identity difference studies, since researchers must return to research participants and discuss interpretations with them; opening the process to critique, correction and possibly disagreement because participants may not agree with the researcher’s choices. Researcher-researched social identity differences can wedge distance between both parties (Barnes, 1992), yet such differences must be

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acknowledged. Moebius (1995) argued that researchers generally have attained a higher education level than informants and may possess additional privileges if a Caucasian/White or a male; hence it is misleading to assume that the researched are full participants in studies. This also may prove difficult in organizations when managers have a hierarchical status edge over employees. Researcher-researched difference has long been debated in social work, counseling and mental health, urban planning, public health, education, human resources, and law. Even though emancipatory approaches encourage research participants to cocreate data with the researcher, final writing largely is carried out at the researcher’s desk away from participants (Parker, 1995). Unmooring contexts from the academic theories that purport to represent them and interpreting experiences of people who reside at the margin whilst in environments defined by dominant norms is risky. Fine and Weis (2002) resolved to responsibly write selfreflexively by “com[ing] clean at the hyphen”; interrogating their own social identities as coproducers of narratives collected (p. 284). Regarding who owns data, researchers or the researched, critical approaches used to address social justice goals may suggest mutual ownership (Crozier, 2003). Moreover, social identity difference researchers must adjust the volume among voices to account for “potential hearers [and consider] why they do not hear” (Bhavnani, 1988, p. 49). Exactly how to navigate research terrain to meet researcher-researched power differential challenges has not always been readily apparent. In the United States, those who build communication theory mostly have been silent on power and methodological issues associated with researching social identity difference in published research, methods handbooks, and graduate course seminars. Very useful, however, have been scholars in sociology and feminist studies especially those who raise issues about the center and margin and the self-reflexive ethnographers who have dealt with ways ideology and position affects research methods (e.g., Twine, 2000). Useful techniques for researchers who may find self-reflexivity challenging is to maintain field notes and diaries and to routinely refer and contribute to them throughout projects. Undeniably, a researcher’s social position has consequences for the interpretation s/he makes of data (Reay, 1996). British researchers have debated issues of racial matching, reflexivity, race-of-interviewer effects, and experimenter effects and the fruits of their labor have been useful for social identity difference research. Also, researchers must ensure that theories themselves do not become reified academic truths by affecting a double epistemological break with their work; generating a picture of the patterns of practical logic that determine

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practice and then reinserting the findings into narrative context (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). The interpretive, naturalistic, research paradigm often involves using qualitative methods. Perhaps this is serendipity for social identity difference researchers who subscribe to various paradigms and theory streams; usually migrating toward interview, focus group, observation, and ethnography methods in order to embrace shifting, multiple realities via openended and unstructured techniques which facilitate the uncovering of in-depth slices of research participants’ lives and experiences. With these methods, rich language is the medium for communicating “inner and outer realities” (Svensson, 2009, 168), for sharing emotions and for describing events, everyday routines, intentions, memories, and situations. van Manen (1990) opined that: “Ordinary language is in some sense a huge reservoir in which the incredible variety of richness of human experience is deposited” (p. 61). In fact, the interview research method may be the most popular among many social science subfields (Bryman & Cassell, 2006). Kahn and Cannell (1957) suggested that “the ideal interview is something that springs from the soul of the respondent to the notebook of the interviewer without encountering any contaminating influences en route” (p. 59). Yet, some researchers worry that using the same research methods among the same population (especially small homogenous samples) can limit the breadth and scope of inquiry (Cannon, Higgenbotham, & Leung, 1991) and fail to reveal larger themes, as well as inhibit investigations of intra-group diversity. Also, the nature of social identity difference research involves topics of great sensitivity so that traditional techniques used during qualitative data collection (video and audio equipment) might prove intrusive. Moreover, sampling issues arise as in how to best represent certain social identity dimensions (without essentializing) while knowing that all identities are intersectional and not all of them may be known to a researcher at the outset anyway. Reed (2000) characterized this issue as one of “seemingly endless diversity.” Sometimes researchers keep power dynamics in check by returning to respondents to interrogate epistemological foundations and methodological practicalities by performing an analytic autoethnography. Such a reflexive turn draws attention to the researcher as part of the world being studied and to the ways in which the research process constitutes what it investigates (Taylor, 2001). Autoethnography also liberates researchers and participants to more freely answer questions about themselves (rather than avoiding them) (Oakley, 1981). Gaining insight into research participants’ perceptions of the researcher may seem “messy” and not particularly

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germane in the moment, but ultimately doing so contributes depth and breadth to projects (Bhavnani, 1988). As autoethnographers who examine others’ experiences, researchers are themselves “cultural agents” (Berry & Warren, 2009, p. 603) capable of self-doubt (e.g., Ellis, 2004), reproduction of power (Warren, 2001), and healing possibilities (DeSalvo, 2002). Using the autoethnography method, Pompper (2010) reflected on how the Caucasian/White dimension of her social identity may have impacted interviews and focus groups with African-American/Black women and Latinas and discovered reasons why research participants were receptive to project participation. Such inquiries are consistent with Van Manen’s (1988) confessional tales; the self-narrative of researchers’ experiences or self-reflexive writing linked to an autoethnographic impulse: Confessionals do not usually replace realist accounts. They typically stand beside them, elaborating extensively on the formal snippets of method description that decorate realist tales. They occasionally appear in separate texts and provide self-explanatory and self-sealing accounts of how the author conducted a piece of work reported elsewhere. (p. 75)

Ellis (2004) defined autoethnography as “research, writing, and method that connects the autobiographical and personal to the cultural and social … featur[ing] concrete action, emotion, embodiment, self-consciousness, and introspection” (p. xix). As a Causasian/White woman, Reed (2000) interrogated education, gender and social class identities in an investigation of health behaviors among South Asian-British mothers using the interview research method: “I was able to explore the tensions and interconnections within women’s accounts between the local and global, and to move away from a hierarchical view of medical systems in which western biomedicine always takes precedence.” Most researchers of social identity difference fully accept that research is a socially-constructed process and reject realist epistemology, which assumes that there is a unitary truth to be discovered, but tend to downplay validity issues. Multidisciplinary feminist theorizing long has engaged with critiquing mainstream, positivistic research for its assumptions that the researcher is objective and value-free in relation to the study of her/his respondents (Archer, 2002, p. 109). Furthermore, critical researchers such as O¨zbilgin (2009) persuasively have argued that research on inequality, diversity and inclusion at work involves “tackling injustice”; work that inspires passion (p. 5). Power differentials and validity concerns demand total candor when reporting findings in social identity difference research. It is relevant to include in final reports the behind-the-scenes details

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associated with data collection and analysis. Generating a singular objective truth is neither possible (nor, preferable). Usually, representation (or re-presentation) often is a more desirable goal so that the degree to which research participants and their narratives are accurate may determine validity. This includes avoiding imposing categories on activities or individuals that they themselves would not use. Social identity difference research projects have been characterized as transformative and empowering. First, the transformative potential of using a range of techniques and fully involving people in research projects as consultants or technical advisors, data collectors, and data analysts invites participant validation and encourages them to support projects as disseminators of findings (Mercer, 2002). For instance, disabilities researchers who subscribe to a social model framework (as compared to the old medical model) subtly transform researcher-researched power relations by carefully phrasing questions such as: “In what ways does the workplace fail to accommodate your ability to do your job?” rather than “How does your multiple sclerosis keep you from working?” (O’Day & Killeen, 2002, p. 11) and “Do you have problems at work because of the physical environment or the attitudes of others?” instead of “Does your health problem/disability affect your work in any way at present?” (Oliver, 1990, p. 7). Second, researchers of various scholarly streams have well noted a sense of empowerment which can emanate from social identity difference research projects. If power is a capacity to challenge socio-historical forces, then feelings of empowerment constitute an intrinsic (and often welcomed) side effect of social identity research endeavors that enable research participants to speak out about issues to those who are trained to listen. Yet, there are distinct disadvantages to social identity difference research, with regard to power in the academy and in organizations. First, involving research participants in projects, specifically, inviting lay people into the academic world, or employees into management policymaking, and asking them to judge it, is a potentially dangerous move. The academy is one of the most status-conscious, influential institutions in society (Bourdieu, 1988); as members, it is in researchers’ nature to protect that status. What if participants don’t like what researchers do with their experiences? Perhaps worst of all, what if they decide researchers are irrelevant? To be honest about this is to relinquish ownership of a project (Foley & Valenzuela, 2005) and to acknowledge the irony that those who are powerless still are capable of disempowering researchers. Second, social identity difference work still is not entirely at home among some fields’ publications and strategically selecting the “right” journal is no simple task. Also, social

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identity difference research generally requires extra space for explicating multiple layers of analysis and self reflexivity; a particular challenge in fields where journal space is a commodity. This point relates to the invisibility of power associated with research processes noted earlier, for the availability of extra spaced for further explaining behind-the-scenes processes is rare. Third, responding to reviewer critique particularly those who do not do social identity “difference” work can be quite challenging and ultimately affects published reports. For example, some reviewers may require manuscript authors to include citations of their own works even if connections are remote or demand statistical analyses even when doing so is inconsistent with critical frameworks used. In these cases, researchers and participants simultaneously lose some control. Finally, hooks (1990) cautioned researchers who speak about the researched framed as other to avoid appropriating voices without being reflexive about their own position and power stance: Often this speech about the ‘other’ is also a mask, an oppressive talk hiding gaps, absences, that space where our words would be if we were speaking, if there was silence, if we were there … No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself. No need to hear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. I want to know your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way. Tell it back to you in such a way that it has become mine, my own. Re-writing you I write myself anew. I am still author, authority. I am still colonizer, the speaking subject and you are now at the center of my talk. (p. 343, italics in original)

Nakayama and Krizek (1995) also encouraged reflexivity which involves examining institutions that produce inequities and supported researchers’ articulating positionality by investigating “strategies that mark the space of whiteness” (p. 292) and disengaging its “normative essence” (p. 293). In organizations, social identity difference research also involves risk. Organizational managers may be especially concerned about effects on their reputation such as being called “ageist,” “racist,” or one of any number of other uncomplimentary labels associated with social identity difference that are attached to people. Moreover, individuals from certain groups may resent being singled out for questioning about their social identity. Furthermore, justifying research goals for examining social identity difference in an organization may prove a challenge in itself. Attention to diversity in organizations is a sensitive issue, Allen (1995) explained, since some employees “may feel more threatened than ever, while others may be tired of talking about diversity because they do not believe that the talk

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will lead to constructive outcomes” (p. 150). And, in the end, managers’ reporting of findings that reflect poorly on the organization is tricky.

2.3. TECHNIQUES FOR DOING SOCIAL IDENTITY DIFFERENCE RESEARCH Critical scholars, in particular, have developed several techniques for addressing researcher-researched power differentials. Three are explored here: building bridges, lived experience and partial perspective, and the hermeneutic phenomenology philosophy approach. According to Twine (2000), even those whose research is not specifically concerned with social identity difference, will consider the significance of difference as a methodological issue in qualitative research. First, researchers have shared advice on building bridges across social identity difference dimensions to address power issues. Wood (1993) recommended use of standpoint epistemology; examining reality through the eyes of marginalized lives as a means for framing research questions and interview probes, designing research, and interpreting results. This approach is inherently critical and has the added benefit of revealing systemic causes for perceptions of inequality, exclusion, and homogeneity in organizations. For example, when collecting stories from research participants, it is important to probe their standpoint; how and why they feel the way they do and why they chose to share the specific stories that they did. Experiences of both researcher and researched reveal similarity as well as difference, offering bridges for connection as well as contexts for comparison. This generates better understanding of the historical, social and political contexts that have shaped both individuals and may help overcome difficulties in relating to one another and understanding each other’s perspectives. Here, researchers’ reflexivity is crucial because they co-produce the narratives they presume to collect and must keep an accounting of how they contribute to the process. Building researcher-researched bridges is considered especially important in disability studies. Oliver (1992) explained that people with a disability feel disconnected from and hostile toward research that seems irrelevant. Avoid using terms unfamiliar to research participants (exclusionary language) (Moebius, 1995) and be very careful to avoid unintentional othering of research participants whilst operating from a dominant culture standpoint (Fine, 1994). Also, refining social identity difference at every

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phase of a research project enables reflection and multiple interpretations that ultimately builds a solid set of understandings upon which researcher and researched can relate. In this sense, research projects are a “bricolage,” evolving in a process of “construction, reconstruction, diagnosis, negotiation and readjustment” (Kinchloe & McLaren, 2005, p. 317) rather than being set in stone from the outset. Second, many social identity difference researchers have pondered the researcher-researched power differential dilemma by incorporating a lived experience and/or the partial perspective concept which builds interpretative understanding across difference and underscores the social location and multiple, fractured identities of knowers as epistemologically significant. Haraway (1988) emphasized that knowledge always is partial, embodied, and locatable within social and historical forces, meaning that researchers may address challenges associated with researching across social identity difference by partially identifying with research participants while simultaneously focusing on similarities and differences between themselves and those participants. Using the partial perspective concept as a base, Reed (2000) developed a postmodern ethnographic dialectal approach to transcend difference by bringing the research participant to the center of research and supporting polyvocality and reflexivity. She explained that an existing research hierarchy remains in process, but that it moves back and forth as when she studied South Asian-British women and compared/ contrasted social identity differences of religion and culture. Hindu and Sikh respondents noted during interviews that Reed was different young, unmarried, and not a mother and at other times that she was similar to them: Taking a dialectical approach we can recognise that we move in and out of similarity and differences. At times there are opportunities to develop commonalities between researchers and respondents. For example whilst not overcoming structural difference, my originating from Leicester fostered commonality across difference. My experience of spending time in India also built on commonalities as we shared tales of visits and compared areas. (Reed, 2000)

A self-described biracial anthropologist studying African diasporic community in Stockholm, Sweden, employed a partial perspective concept through “blurred situatedness” in the phenomenon she was researching and participants’ social identities enabled her to cast a critical eye toward categories generally used to define a community (Sawyer, 2002, p. 15): As I was trying to ‘place’ interview subjects and figure out how they negotiated Swedish politics of racialization and color, they were doing the same to me, sometimes with disconcerting results. My own claims to black (and Swedish) belonging were sometimes

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not met with the sense of community and acceptance I expected. Instead I was taught about the criterion for inclusion and/or exclusion to Swedish and African diasporic community. (p. 15)

Other examples of using the partial perspective include an age-gender studies researcher who interviewed Jewish retirement home residents: “[W]e began to recognize this view from the body that enabled us to engage as interwoven subjects of knowledge, always partial, always positioned, and always looking for ways to come together to explain and change real lives” (Norris, 2006, p. 64). Also, a disability studies researcher applied the partial perspective approach to address inherent challenges with words and to negotiate involvement of a third party, a sign language interpreter (Corker, 2001). Third, some social identity difference researchers have adopted van Manen’s (1990) hermeneutic phenomenology philosophy; a useful technique for addressing researcher-researched power differentials. Even though van Manen (1990) did not position his approach this way, his advice for data collection and writing (inseparable pedagogical activities) involves questioning “the way we experience the world … theorizing is the intentional act of attaching ourselves to the world” (p. 5). Hermeneutic phenomenology “is a human science which studies persons” (p. 6), so as a philosophy, van Manen’s (1990) techniques complement collection and analysis of narratives about social identity inequities and bias in the workplace and elsewhere. Hermeneutic phenomenology is the study of lived experience, but differs from some other approaches because it relies on insightful descriptions free of classifying, abstracting, or taxonomizing. Dilthey (1985) described lived experience as “awareness, unaware of itself … there for me because I have a reflexive awareness of it” (p. 223). van Manen (1990) explained the purpose of phenomenological research: … to ‘borrow’ other people’s experiences and their reflections on their experiences in order to better be able to come to an understanding of the deeper meaning or significance of an aspect of human experience, in the context of the whole of human experience …. We gather other people’s experiences because they allow us to become more experienced ourselves. (p. 62)

2.4. RESEARCHING ACROSS SOCIAL IDENTITY DIFFERENCE AND THE MATCHING PARADIGM Some scholars have debated the best means for investigating ethnic/“racial” and other social identity dimensions, raising concerns about “matching”

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and “experimenter effects.” Findings of studies designed to redress researcher-researched power imbalance have found that having a researcher who is similar in social identity to research participants may be best qualified for a project so that findings withstand scrutiny of validity and reliability tests. In the 1940s and 1950s, U.S.-based survey researchers reported on experimenter effect, based on an assumption guiding survey methodology that similarity between interviewers and respondents on important demographics increases the validity of findings (e.g., Rosenthal, 1966). Among qualitative method researchers, Hyman (1954) posited that the interviewer “race” had dramatic effects on interviewees’ responses, but Hurtado (1994) found inconclusive evidence of experimenter effect. Overall, this “methodological rule of thumb” (Twine, 2000, p. 6) evolved during post-World War II decolonization and antiracist movements of the 1960s when it was presumed that ethnic minorities were distrusting of Caucasian/White authorities and many raised the issue of Caucasian/White researchers undertaking research with people of color as respondents (Zinn, 1979). Importantly, “racial matching” also was invoked as part of a movement to ethnically diversify the academy. In other words, “racial matching” was seized upon by those less concerned with whether Caucasian/White people could study people of color than with democratizing the social scientific community by opening it up to scholars of color (Twine, 2000, pp. 7 8). It has been widely accepted that “shared racial identity is generally presumed to promote effective communication between researcher and subject and, conversely, disparate identity to inhibit it” (Rhodes, 1994, p. 550). Essed (1990) suggested that engaging in research among one’s own group has the advantage of making it easier to discuss negative views about an outgroup and Bhavnani (1988) argued that if minimizing the impact of researcherresearched power inequities in a research project through “matching” is the goal, then the enterprise must be expanded to interrogate the power issue rather than “side-stepping” it (p. 43). On the other hand, some researchers have argued that “matching” is rooted in a realist epistemology; an assumption that there is a unitary truth about participants’ lives which interviewers need to obtain. Ang-Lygate (1996) explained implications for those who still subscribe to the researcher-researched “matching” paradigm: It is impossible to conceptualize identities that obey the rules of binary dualism because this would necessitate a complicit silencing of many aspects of our identities. The trouble with asking feminists how we are to represent members of groups to which we do not ourselves belong is that it presupposes that complex realities can be reduced to

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simple binary equations. Binary dualism … has limited currency in attempts to theorize multilayered, hyphenated, hybridized and potentially conflicting subjectivities. Therefore, as a Chinese woman researching other Chinese women, it would be methodologically misleading for me to assume that I ‘belonged’ simply because I am myself Chinese, if I neglected to account for other social differences based on ethnicity, sexuality, class, religion, and so on. (p. 57)

The question of standpoint embedded within researcher-researched matching logic has been thoroughly critiqued as “too simplistic” (Phoenix, 1994, p. 49). In his study of insider research, Aguilar (1981) argued that the matching model rigidly implies that researchers are either inside or outside. In disability studies, Barnes (1992) argued that having a disability neither necessarily translates to an affinity with people with a disability nor a predisposition toward engaging with this type of research at all. Even Rhodes (1994) argued that a person’s multiple social identity dimensions complicates the insiderness concept. Qualifying herself as an insider, Facio (1993) found that she was expected to conform to cultural norms among Mexican-American/Chicana respondents and thus, her gender was cited as a rationale for limiting her access to men. Some researchers bring on additional informants who represent social identity dimensions of research participants for data analysis support (e.g., Pompper, 2004; Vernon, 1997) It is imprudent to claim a monopoly of insight, perception, or awareness (Brah, 1992). Conceptualizations of social identities as shifting, multiple, and crosscutting boundaries and interests mean that it is impossible to match researchers/participants exactly for same-dyads in all criteria (even if one wanted to) (Anthias & Yuval-Davis, 1992; Bhavnani & Phoenix, 1994). Moreover, racial matching restrains social identity difference work because Caucasian/White scholars are excluded and because there are still far too few scholars who are people of color. Also, matching logic may contribute to marginalization of scholars relegated to studying only those of the same social identity groups.

2.5. DISCUSSION This chapter’s attention to conceptualizations of difference, researcherresearched power dynamics, techniques for doing social identity difference research, and researching across difference and the matching paradigm offers useful heuristics and frameworks for performing social identity

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difference research. Doing this kind of work requires patience and experience; work that is neither simple, nor risk free “… personally, emotionally, ideologically, and politically” (Becker, 2000, p. 253). Difficulties arise in relating to research participants, understanding their perspectives and remaining faithful to their voice, lived realities, and experiences while simultaneously generating additional insights. But it is worth it. For academics who teach and research in a college or university setting, there is an additional backdrop of power to consider. In order to advance toward tenure and/or promotion in academe, new faculty in many systems worldwide are required to hit the ground running; to continue to build a stream of research begun with their doctoral dissertation or to build a new agenda that is consistent ideologically with a particular department, school or university (or, at least, not in conflict with it). These processes can seem lengthy, lonely, frustrating and tedious and tend to involve soul searching and cognizant attention to details such as theories invoked, phenomena investigated, research methods used, and journals selected for peerreviewed publication. One area where this plays out is in grant writing and pursuit of other funding opportunities. Developing persuasive applications is challenging in and of itself, but sometimes a researcher must negotiate how to present findings in ways that do not reflect negatively on or offend a funding agency. Also, adhering to a funders’ timeline and other specifications may not be possible for researchers who study social identity dimensions and difference given the nature of this work which may require additional time, explorations beyond arenas initially identified, or changes in direction dictated by field research conditions and stories relayed by research participants. Another area where institutionalized power can intervene in potentially risky ways for researchers of social identity and difference is via internal assessment processes. For example, committees charged to decide junior faculty petitions for advancement are composed of senior colleagues who may have biases which are brought to bear on judgment of dossiers and ultimately promotion and tenure decisions. Sometimes all it takes is one negative vote cast because a particular committee member clings to a dying research paradigm to which the candidate failed to give a nod, or is ideologically predisposed against critical race theory, queer theory, feminist theory, or qualitative research methods and that junior colleague fails to gain contract renewal or loses a tenure bid. Albeit unfair, such negative outcomes can inflict emotional damage and taint an academic career with lasting effects. So, researchers of social identity dimensions and difference issues

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have weighty self-interest decisions to make when embarking upon this important research and the reasons are linked to power issues embedded in institutional systems. When conducting research globally, whether in organizations or in the academy, researchers must do more than simply pay lip-service to equity goals, avoid essentialism, be receptive to new meanings, foster mutual respect, and make connections with those whose social identity differs from those of dominant groups. Failure to do so risks succumbing to simplistic dichotomies, feeding stereotypes, and exposing findings to flaws in their relevance, utility and validity. Indeed, doing social identity and difference research in organizations is a clear indicator that at the heart of their mission is a real commitment to social identity difference and diversity.

KEY TERMS Autoethnography Autoethnography is self-observation; linked to a heightened self-reflexivity, an increased focus on emotion in the social sciences, and postmodern skepticism toward generalization of knowledge claims. Binary dualism Also known as binary oppositions, these tend to stifle opportunities for alternate explanations and meanings. For example, heterosexual/homosexual leaves no space for bisexuality. Similarly, masculine-feminine implies that a person is one or the other and fails to account for displays of multiple roles and behaviors. A person who selfidentifies as multiethnic but is forced into selecting Black or White on a survey questionnaire is experiencing limitations of a binary dualism. Hermeneutic phenomenology van Manen (1990) described this as a philosophy and a technique for questioning the way people experience the world. Lived experience These are the narratives which social identity difference researchers and organizational managers collect to examine ways that people make meaning about their particular circumstances. Matching paradigm Research traditions begun over the course of the last century suggest that the best way to minimize researcher-researched power differentials is to ensure that both parties are as similar as possible. In

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recent decades, a number of scholars have argued that the paradigm is based on flawed logic and have offered alternate ways to lessen the researcher-researched power gap. Partial perspective Adopting a partial perspective that promotes interrogating researcher-researched similarities and differences means that each party considers issues from the other’s outlook. This stance can go far in building trust and revealing the most useful research outcomes. Reflexivity For a social researcher or organizational manager to overcome challenges associated with social identity difference research, it may be useful to interrogate one’s own social identity as part of the research process; becoming co-authors of narratives collected among research participants. Standpoint epistemology Standpoint theorists generally support the idea that all truths are rooted in some subjective standpoint and that not all group members occupy the same standpoint. Using these processes can help to avoid essentializing while simultaneously building solidarity among group members. LaClau and Mouffe (1985) use the image of a chain of linkages binding individuals to join together in opposition, resistance, and transformation.

‘‘Partial perspective’’ as a research driver To help social identity difference researchers navigate the pitfalls of positivistic approaches undergirded by a hidden assertion that ‘‘objectivity’’ equals ‘‘good science,’’ critical, postcolonial, and feminist theorists across disciplines offer useful clues in addressing researcher-researched dilemmas. Haraway’s (1988) ‘‘partial perspective’’ concept has provided a useful technique for social identity difference researchers of multiple social science fields. Adopting a partial perspective involves interrogating researcher-researched similarities and differences. This grid offers works informed by the partial perspective concept.

Caucasian/White researcher studying health beliefs and behaviors among South Asian-British mothers

Phenomenon

Interviews

Research Method(s)

Age, gender

Ethnicity, faith/ spirituality Gender, ethnicity

Sensation, as privileged by masculinist notions of presence, visibility, material reality, and identity as given

Feminist epistemology and pedagogy

Multifaith, multiethnic prayer observance and tolerance

African diasporic degree of community belongingness in Sweden

Corker (2001) disability studies

Norris (2006) gender studies

Gupta-Carlson (2008) political science

Sawyer (2002) anthropology

Sensory (dis)ability associated with seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting

Interviews

Interviews

Participant observation

Critical analysis, interviews

Nationality, ethnicity, Survey, interviews, critical analysis of class, age, essays sexuality

Language, culture, religion, social class, caste

Difference Dimension(s)

The partial perspective in action.

Wilcox (2009) Embodied ways of knowing women’s studies

Reed (2000) sociology

Researcher Identity and Field

Table 2.1. Theoretical Underpinning

Feminist theory

Researcher examining honey-colored, blue-eyed, blonde/brown curly haired appearance while identifying as African American-Swedish

Government management of people and faith

Offer a service learning literature and gender course in a Jewish retirement home

Cultural studies

Feminist theory

Feminist theory

Dialogue across difference in Disability theory, feminist theory ways that dislocated disability from its devalued position

Conversations about embodied knowledge

Postmodernism Use of a dialectical framework to find similarities and differences among researcher and women researched

Outcome(s)

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Self-reflection and discussion questions 1. What is your perception of the ‘‘matching’’ paradigm? Should researchers mirror their research participants on all social identity dimensions? One or two? 2. Have you ever caught yourself ‘‘thinking under the influence?’’ How did you reconcile the situation? 3. Does ‘‘self reflection’’ mean that only researchers who have a strong understanding of self should perform social research or conduct research on diversity in organizations? Why or why not? 4. In what ways can quantitative research methods (e.g., content analysis, experiment, survey) incorporate attention to shifting multiple realities which are central to social identity difference inquiry? 5. What social identity dimensions of difference exist beyond age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and religion? How do these play out in organizations in ways that suggest people think under the influence?

CHAPTER 3 SOCIAL IDENTITIES ARE INTERSECTIONAL

ABSTRACT Intersectionality research is normative; rooted in a desire to improve society as inspired by Sojourner Truth’s 19th century writings and Kimberle´ Crenshaw’s ongoing contemporary legal crusade. Overlapping social identity dimensions which constitute every human individual must be recognized and multidimensionality of lived experiences among people embraced. These dimensions intersect such that no one is just a gender or an ethnicity or a (dis)ability or a sexual orientation or a social class or a religion, and so on. Furthermore, intersectionalities are not some collection of layers that are piled or added on. Humans possess many distinctive social identity qualities simultaneously and they interplay in unique ways. Those who embrace multiplicity of social identity dimensions and explore how they intersect also posit that uneven power distribution in a society complicates situated identities by more firmly entrenching some people at the center and others in the margins. Researchers dedicated to dismantling infrastructures supporting inequality and desirous of elevating multi-textured voices of the disenfranchised are drawn to intersectional analyses. Overall, intersectionality scholars question perceived group homogeneity, essentialist categories, and argue that there are substantial intra-group differences. Intersectionalities of social identity dimensions play a significant role in organizational work environments. Critiqued in this chapter are ways that organizations use the business case to gain advantages when thinking of social identity intersectionality in terms of “double dipping” and recruiting the “two-fer” in order to satisfy government-imposed 45

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policies. In particular, occupying a liminal space due to social identity intersectionality, stereotypes, and othering effects are explored. Chapter 3 examines these issues and more according to themes of: defining intersectionality, “unbending” social identity intersectionalities, applying intersectionality in organizations, and advancing intersectionalities scholarship. Keywords: Boundary work; intersectionality; social identity; two-fer

Intersectionality is a field of study inspired by the 19th century writings of Sojourner Truth, an African-American/Black woman who worked as an abolitionist and women’s rights activist. Truth questioned “Ain’t I a Woman?” at an Ohio Women’s Rights Convention; a clarion call that Black feminist scholars have heeded over the past several decades to consider social identity in terms of overlapping ethnic and gender dimensions registering effects of differentiated power. Legal scholar Kimberle´ Crenshaw (1989) coined intersectionality to emphasize the extreme importance of recognizing multidimensionality of lived experiences among people living in the margin. In subsequent decades, researchers of many fields have applied a critical lens to examining ways that “race,” gender and other social identity dimensions (e.g., age, physical ability, religion, sexual orientation, social class, and more) are inextricably linked, inseparable, uniquely shape people as individuals, and impact ways that people interact with one another. In particular, intersectionality researchers probe power-identitysocial-location interplay and ways it results in inequity in contemporary policy and negatively impacts people over the course of generations, as illustrated by fewer job opportunities and access to benefits at work, low numbers of women of color working at highest organizational levels, challenges in accessing higher education among those of lower socioeconomic status, and insufficient funding for public service programs designed to alleviate poverty among people of color (Zambrana & Dill, 2009, p. 275). Hence, intersectionality scholars question perceived group homogeneity, essentialist categories, and argue that there are substantial intra-group differences. For example, Clair (1998) theorized about intersectionality in occupational settings as some groups become privileged and others are relegated to outgroups such as among female nurses who harass male nurses using microaggressions by asking them about their sexuality and “race.” Researchers who embrace multiple social identity dimensions as

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constituting an individual posit that each dimension is not some layer that is piled or added on; rather that uneven power distribution in a society complicates situated identities by more firmly entrenching some people at the center and others in the margin. McClintock (1995) argued that colonialism and postcolonialism only can be understood by exploring ways that class, ethnicity/“race,” and gender are connected rather than isolated experiences. In the United States, Crenshaw (1989) explained that AfricanAmerican/Black women share ethnic discrimination experiences in common with African-American/Black men and sexism in common with Caucasian/ White women but also uniquely as African-American/Black women and “not the sum of race and sex discrimination” (p. 149). Similarly, Kessler and McKenna (1978) studied ways that social class and gender “abrade, inflame, amplify, twist, negate, dampen, and complicate each other” (p. 42). Intersectionality serves as a font for human rights activists, political figures, lawyers, and community organizers who seek to expose and eliminate injustice. While most consider intersectionality as a means for examining relationships among multiple axes of social identity as they are shaped by economics, politics, history, and methodology (e.g., Flintoff, Fitzgerald, & Scraton, 2008), some refer to intersectionality as a field of study. Others have characterized it as an analytic tool, a systematic research approach, a critical analytic strategy or lens for contesting ways social identity dimensions have been examined in the past, inspiration for advocacy of equity and social justice, a tool for social change, and a pedagogical instrument, while some think of intersectionality as a framework for theorizing identity and oppression. Such nuances are explored in this chapter. A recent review of a “burgeoning field of intersectional studies” suggested that the field consists of three general themes: (1) applications of intersectionality as a framework, (2) debates on intersectionality as a theoretical and methodological paradigm, and (3) intersectionality used in political interventions (Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013, p. 785). At the heart of the concept of intersectionality is an understanding that social identity dimensions are social constructions which work in tandem; neither created in isolation nor acting independently as silos. Instead, identity facets intermix to create unique personalities, experiences, and relationships. Understanding these dynamics and developing new means for grappling with multiple and complex power relations continues to challenge researchers, however feminist and critical race scholars have made significant headway in incorporating intersectionality across several research streams such as: critical race theory, cultural studies, diaspora studies, ethnic/“race” studies, feminist

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theory (especially poststructuralism and postcolonial analyses), literary theory, organizational communication, political science, public relations, psychology, queer theory, and sociology. The goal is about the same: To improve society by “understanding human life and behavior that is rooted in the experiences and struggles of marginalized people” (Dill & Zambrana, 2009, p. 4) and by revealing power structures that perpetuate social inequity (Collins, 1998; Crenshaw, 1991). Privilege and oppression must be considered concomitantly and the outcomes matter because social location impacts one’s quality of life. Social identity dimensions become bases for institutionalized inequities such as unequal control of education, employment, healthcare, housing, land, money, and property. Inequities, in conjunction with unearned privileges according to group membership and a hierarchically organized society, contribute significantly to social and economic positions. Thus, intersectionality research is important as a means for reinventing institutions, reconstructing public service systems, and reforming organizations and government policies in order to ensure that social justice is achieved. Crenshaw (1991) also noted that intersectionality serves as a useful reservoir of resistance for empowering social movements. Importantly, research that overlooks or ignores historical context, linkages and systematic connections between social identity dimensions runs the risk of having groups of people erased, ignored, or misunderstood (Dill & Zambrana, 2009). For organization members with profit-centric orientations, considering social identity intersectionality can significantly enhance relationship management models otherwise limited to fully explain ways that people seek and process information. Often, management models are inadequate because they rely on ethnic/gender binaries which oversimplify social identity. A wider vocabulary is required for organizations to more fully capture lived experiences often subsumed within overly broad, essentialist categories which do not provide for intra-group difference. This chapter explores these issues and more according to themes of: defining intersectionality, “unbending” social identity intersectionalities, applying intersectionality in organizations, and advancing intersectionalities scholarship.

3.1. DEFINING INTERSECTIONALITY Intersectional scholarship has been built upon a foundation of women’s studies and ethnic/“race” studies. Nineteenth-century activists and

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feminists advanced agendas for anti-slavery and women’s suffrage campaigns and local and global social movements since have championed civil rights, Black power, and politics focused on peace, workers, LGBTQ members collectively making attention to social identity intersectionality inevitable. For instance, the Combahee River Collective, a Black lesbian feminist organization from Boston, campaigned in 1977 for scrutiny of interlocking systems of oppression. So, by the late 20th century, a central object of feminist analysis of intersectionality was to decenter the normative Western Caucasian/White, heterosexual, middle-class woman to make room for greater inclusivity for a wider variety of social identities needed to pluralize feminism (Brah & Phoenix, 2004; Brah, 1996; Collins, 1991; Crenshaw, 1997a, 1997b; hooks, 1981, 1984; Mirza, 1997). This work continues, since difference remains “one of the most significant, yet unresolved, issues for feminist and social thinking” (Maynard, 2002, p. 33). Researchers also continue to question conceptualizations of difference in research design and debate which social identity dimensions receive most attention (Flintoff et al., 2008; Meekosha, 1998). Collectively, intersectionality studies have challenged the Caucasian/ White heterosexual male social identity benchmark against which all people have been assessed. Performing intersectional analysis promotes respectful understanding across difference lines and more appropriately identifies root causes for social inequity; an advancement over traditional social science, education, and public health research which rarely digs deep enough to expose problem sources or offers complete solutions (Zambrana & Holton, 2007). MacKinnon (2013) considered these shortcomings to be “monocular vision”; a result of overlooking people’s experiences in conjunction with social forces: “Intersectionality fills out the Venn diagrams at points of overlap where convergence has been neglected, training its sights where vectors of inequity intersect at crossroads that have previously been at best sped through” (p. 1020). Valentine (2007) explained that over time researchers have speculated about how social identity dimensions occupy a person through “geometries of oppression” by using arithmetic metaphors of location, position, addition, and multiplication as if social identity dimensions are separate things (p. 10). Brah (1996) and others have noted that discrimination along lines of class, gender, “race,” and sexuality “cannot be reduced to independent variables” since each is interdependent with other social identity dimensions (p. 109). For instance, Brah (1994) studied the lived cultures of Muslim women who migrated to Britain and discovered that their social identity dimensions included country of origin, rural/ urban background of household prior to migration, regional and linguistic background in the subcontinent, class positions in the subcontinent as well

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as in Britain, and regional location in Britain; women who lived intersecting and enmeshed realities as part of an “Asian British” fusion (p. 159). Earlier, Collins (1991) similarly argued that working-class AfricanAmerican/Black women should not be perceived as experiencing triple oppression because their social identity dimensions are interlaced. McCall (2005) also opined that any backsliding in attempting to separate social identity dimensions must be reversed since doing so implies that social identity dimensions be ranked; a move that many intersectionality researchers vigorously have opposed. Hence, a significant body of knowledge has developed around intersectionality and although arguments persist, intersectionality generally means examining social identity dimensions and ways their “combination plays out in various settings” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 51) and how “any particular individual stands at the crossroads of multiple groups” (Minow, 1997, p. 38). Such dialog inspires researchers to emphasize a fundamental and crucial lived experience wherein dimensions of inequity are inseparable and power systems are mutually constituted (Verloo, 2006). Intersectionality means difference is located in spaces within identities, not between them (Fuss, 1989). Also, even though most intersectionality researchers initially attended to connections among social identity dimensions of class, ethnicity/“race,” and gender (e.g., Arrighi, 2001; hooks, 1994; Kenny, 2000; Zambrana & Dill, 2009), others also have widened the lens to incorporate sexual orientation (Bowleg, 2008; Ragins, Cornwell, & Miller, 2003), physical ability (Valentine, 2007), and culture and religion (Essers & Benschop, 2009). Also, intersectionality research has expanded to engage with international human rights (Yuval-Davis, 2006). Some researchers take issue with use of the terms intersectionality and alternatives of cross cutting, difference, and communities. Some still design research studies which consider ethnicity, gender, social class and more as separate and distinct dimensions. The term cross cutting has been debated, as well, but mostly it has been shot down because it could imply some fixed point around which social identity dimensions revolve, as if they all eventually can be separated at some point (e.g., Archer, Hutchings, & Leathwood, 2001). Some researchers take issue with both terms of intersectionality and cross cutting for suggesting that implied, fixed realities and homogenized social groups (e.g., Francis, 2001). Questions also persist about whether and in what degree all categories are important and at what points in time (Flintoff et al., 2008). Also, Cockburn (1991) warned of leaning too heavily on the concept of difference in intersectionality studies, as use of this term suggests to some that if women are different from men, then women are mostly similar; a judgment error since there is much

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diversity among the larger population of women and neglecting this fact further exacerbates marginalization of certain groups of women. Zambrana & Dill (2009) also shared their discomfort with use of the term communities “as if they were homogenous units rather than the hothouses of contradiction they actually are” (p. 278). A team of critical ethnographers seems to concur when they pondered: What constitutes community? … as if the contours of geography or a standard metropolitan statistical area adequately define the boundaries of these two ‘communities’. Coherence organizes life within, whereas difference defines life between. (Fine & Weis, 2002, p. 271)

3.2. “UNBENDING” SOCIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTIONALITIES Intersectionalities occur in tandem, yet researchers have discovered ways that individuals unbend, manipulate, and resist their social identity dimensions in daily interactions with people since subjugation and privilege often coexist. The term “unbending” is borrowed from Williams’ (2000) usage describing ways that women and men negotiate and reconfigure traditional gender roles to ensure that public and private sphere responsibilities are met. A research team compactly described the phenomenon in terms of social identity intersectionalities; the way one defines oneself is contextual and a negotiated process of selecting some dimensions while leaving others out and co-creating “individualized meaning in interaction with the people and systems around us” (Alvesson, Ashcraft, & Thomas, 2008, p. 10). Furthermore, because avowed and ascribed social identity dimensions surface through a historically and socially constructed and organized “matrix of domination” (Collins, 1991, p. 18), intersecting oppressions tend to hold ranked positions in people’s minds. Thus, possessing (and/or demonstrating) two or more low status qualities can result in “multiple jeopardy” and conversely, display of two or more high status qualities can result in “multiple privilege” (Bowleg, 2008, p. 313). This argument seems to run counter to intersectionality researchers’ position that social identity dimensions must not be essentialized (e.g., Baca Zinn & Dill, 1996) or considered discrete or exclusive. However, critical organization scholars’ research findings have suggested that individuals are actively involved in producing their own lives (Valentine, 2007) so that social identity dimensions become co-articulated by people as they mold themselves to fit in at

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work (Adib & Guerrier, 2003; Ashcraft & Flores, 2003; Kondo, 1990; Mattis et al., 2008; Pompper, 2004, 2007). Thus, individuals may perform identity work by “forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening or revising the constructions that are productive of a sense of coherence and distinctiveness” (Sveningsson & Alvesson, 2003, p. 1165). For example, AfricanAmerican/Black openly gay male athletes are quite rare; an outcome that Anderson and McCormack (2010) attributed to their possessing two lowstatus social identity dimensions which they suggested reinforces perceptions that homosexuality is “a problem” only for Caucasian/White people (p. 146). Moreover, Andersen (2005) said these social identity dimensions are further compounded for African-American/Black gay athletes of lower socioeconomic status who choose to keep their sexuality in the closet so as to avoid diminishing chances for escaping poverty. The time has arrived for researchers to more broadly frame intersectionality. For, in addition to urging for radical change to deinstitutionalize inequity and discrimination while simultaneously promoting diversity and inclusion, intersectionality scholars also act as coauthors of narratives which explain ways that people may overcome classification according to fixed categories of oppressor or oppressed by actively “producing their own lives” (Valentine, 2007, p. 14). Intersections between social identity dimensions are unstable and fluid; a “situated accomplishment” (Valentine, 2007, p. 14). Carbado (2013) argued that power at work behind the scenes is obscured when fixed hierarchies are mapped onto social identity and perhaps also suggests a “whose group is worse off” tendency which is less relevant than identifying distinctiveness of oppressions experienced by people of specific intersecting social identities (Purdie-Vaughns & Eibach, 2008, p. 378). West and Fenstermaker (1995) have encouraged researchers to place greater emphases on means by which people accomplish their identities through interactions without necessarily succumbing to preconceived social roles, categories or biological essences. Similarly, Fernandes (2003) supports this intersectionality approach because it adds nuances to the term difference by attending to conflict, controversy, and dispute effects.

3.3. APPLYING INTERSECTIONALITY IN ORGANIZATIONS Intersectionalities of social identity dimensions play a significant role in organizational work environments. Holvino (2010) resolved that connecting

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work identities to wider societal phenomena promotes fine-grained analyses of underlying power relations. During the end of the twentieth century, organizations recognized that hiring employees who represented two or more social identity categories would be recognized as “politically correct,” help them to keep pace with changing consumer demographics, and enable them to comply with the legal case by favorably reporting attention to gender and ethnic diversity in hiring. Ahmed (2009) noted that Black women in the United Kingdom “embody diversity” for organizations; a move that encourages organizations to commit to diversity. Being considered a “twofer” (Wilson & Gutierrez, 1995) has been welcomed by some women of color working in U.S. broadcast media; a competitive advantage since employers capitalize on hiring under both gender and ethnicity categories designated in affirmative action guidelines. Likewise, Asian-American women and Latinas working in journalism and public relations also bring bilingual language skill sets and community outreach efforts to employers and clients (Pompper, 2007, 2011). Muslim businesswomen of Turkish and Moroccan origins, entrepreneurs whose social identities are shaped by ethnicity, gender, and religion, engaged in identity work required to negotiate boundaries associated with their Islamic faith (Essers & Benschop, 2009). On the other hand, organization managers soon learn that advantages gained by thinking of social identity intersectionality in terms of “double dipping” and recruiting the “two-fer” may negatively impact coworkers’ competitive sensibilities so that women of color, in particular, often are perceived by coworkers as inherently incompetent (DiTomaso & Smith, 1996). Hence, occupying a liminal space due to social identity intersectionality means that employees may experience marginalization (King, 1995), endure a hostile climate (Solo´rzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000), and be exposed to painful stereotypes (Steele, Spencer, & Aronson, 2002). On the whole, unequal power distribution in organizations fosters a hierarchy of privilege which often leads to an us versus them work climate (Sherwood, 2009), as well as boundary work processes of inclusion and exclusion designed to create differences between groups (Bartkowski & Read, 2003). Called an othering effect, majority individuals and groups set themselves apart and superior to people who are considered dissimilar and inferior. Processes depend upon knowing one’s position with respect to others (e.g., Hall, 1991). Indeed, because social identity dimensions and their intersections are socially constructed in a context of power relationships (Hayman & Levit, 2002) and are steeped in ideological paradigms shaped by negative biases

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about individuals and groups (Mattis et al., 2008), these outcomes spill over into the workplace. Masculinities scholars Brod and Kaufman (1994) urged men to overcome a tendency to view lives in terms of “generic human beings” by developing new vision based on: … seeing how we and our brothers get hooked into the privileges and psychological life of a patriarchal society … identifying the sticking points that make change so difficult sensing the diverse experiences and diverse articulations of sexism among our brothers of varying classes, races, sexual orientations, ages, physical appearances and abilities, ethnicities, religions, and nationalities. (p. 3)

Such an inspired view would promote respecting and embracing intersectionalities among coworkers’ and employees’ social identities.

3.4. ADVANCING INTERSECTIONALITIES SCHOLARSHIP Precisely how to theorize about intersectionality and ways to research it and analyze data, methodologically, are issues that face the field as it grows and matures. Intersectional scholars do seem to agree on one point, however, and that is an ongoing interest in issues which are of paramount importance to marginalized groups that were barely acknowledged 30 years ago (Dill & Zambrana, 2009). While some intersectionality scholars associate theory as part of their explanation of ways to reveal connections between social identity and inequities experienced at work and in wider social arenas, there lacks clear consensus as to whether or not intersectionality actually has achieved theory status. Scholars have challenged one another to build theory around relationships among social identity dimensions and to theorize “difference.” Indeed, intersectionality routinely is invoked among critical race theory scholars (e.g., Crenshaw, 1989, 1991; Delgado, 2011; Matsuda, 1991). Zambrana and Dill (2009) posited that intersectionality is a theoretical framework offering “tools” for investigating dimensions of inequity, privilege, and effects (p. 275). Moreover, Nash (2008) questioned whether intersectionality is “a theory of marginalized subjectivity or a generalized theory of identity” (p. 10). Valentine (2007) referred to intersectionality as a “theoretical concept … used to theorize the relationship between different social categories” (p. 10), and several others have attempted to develop intersectionality as a social science theory (e.g., Brah & Phoenix, 2004; Burman, 2004; McCall, 2005). Hancock (2007) categorized intersectionality as an “emerging

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paradigm” (p. 74). Intersectionality research is ready to advance to theory building; an important step necessary to explaining and predicting “an array of subject experience(s)” (Nash, 2008, p. 10) and a means for overcoming disembodiment tendencies by offering applied circumstances for organizations. New research suggests the importance of theorizing about culture, ethnicity, and “race” in a context of organizational crises (Liu & Pompper, 2012). Nevertheless, tensions over theorizing intersectionality have neither jeopardized its utility nor diminished its value among an ever-widening set of international researchers. Throughout the intersectionality body of literature, it seems that many researchers avoid definitively categorizing intersectionality as a method, theory, technique, or framework; perhaps because it is useful and serves several functions. Dill and Zambrana (2009) acknowledged that scholars debate degrees to which intersectionality research is methodological or theoretical as they position intersectionality as “an analytical strategy” and as an “intersectional approach” (pp. 4 5); celebrating intersectionality’s “viability and analytical power” for exposing social relation complexity that institutions’ power dynamics tend to obscure (p. 274). A rigorous intersectional methodology is required to study fluid, overlapping and multiple subject positions (e.g., MacKinnon, 2013; Said, 2000), inspiring researchers such as McCall (2005) to consider anticategorial, intracategorical, and intercategorical complexities. Methodological limitations associated with performing intersectionality research are widely noted (Bowleg, 2008; Brah & Phoenix, 2004; Dill & Zambrana, 2009; Hancock, 2007; Valentine, 2007). McCall (2005) lamented that an “unintended consequence” of intersectionality research is new methodological problems; challenging and complex because so, too, is social life (p. 1772). Throughout a gender-intersectionality special issue of Sex Roles in 2008, authors explored a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods and techniques, opining about their pros and cons and resolving that no clear winner is evident given the nature of intersectional phenomena which are multidimensional, intermeshed, fluid, and unstable. Among many studies that have contributed to the intersectionality body of scholarship, it seems that there is much support for qualitative methods research designs which promote amplifying of voices steeped in lived experiences, as well as the case study method which facilitates beginning with some individual, group, context, or event and then expanding outward to reveal ways that social identity dimensions are experienced. Hancock (2007) resolved that the ability to produce both normative and

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empirical results lends itself to multiple methods and that “no project can be addressed by a single method” (p. 74). Overall, McCall (2005) urged for researchers to avoid disciplinary boundary disputes about which methods are best for studying intersectionality. Instead, researchers like Zambrana and Dill (2009) encouraged colleagues to balance benefits of comparing individuals or groups with the potential of jeopardizing phenomena complexity or risking essentialism, to engage in more interdisciplinary work, to advance critiques of critical assumptions, and to continue theory development enterprises. Harris (1991) introduced “feminist essentialism,” the notion that all women universally share common oppressions as women. While the sound of worldwide sisterhood united in a common cause has a romantic ring, researchers of intersectional social identity dimensions have problematized the concept for its blindness to unique contexts as when hooks (1984) argued that class and “race” identities override common gender experiences and Grimes (2000) posited that feminist essentialism creates myopia for privileged women who are unable to see beyond their own experiences and circumstances. Whiteness researchers also have warned of essentialism risks (e.g., Nakayama & Krizek, 1995). As Brah (1996) resolved, intersectional dimensions cannot be measured as if they are independent variables used as part of quantitative statistics; a finding with which several intersectionality scholars have concurred since relying on concepts that measure linearity, summation, and unidimensionality contradicts intersectionality’s core concepts of interdependence and multidimensionality (Allen, 2011; Bowleg, 2008). For example, attempts to develop scales of intersectionality for quantitative-method studies have revealed limitations when items measure individual social identity dimensions rather than intersectionality (Greenwood & Christian, 2008). Hence, many researchers support use of qualitative research methods for their strengths in assessing language and meaning. Despite some difficulties associated with further developing the body of scholarship on intersectionality, Valentine (2007) and others have pushed forward and urged colleagues not to return to a pitfall of focusing primarily on experiences of non-privileged groups without considering ways that power and privilege is created and sustained. For instance, she suggested that NGOs frequently fall into this trap in order to comply with funding competitions. On the whole, researchers are encouraged to engage with intersectionality’s “contradictions, absences, and murkiness” (Zack, 2005, p. 1), while Nash (2008) recommended addressing four tensions across the literature: imprecise definition and methodology for intersectionality,

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predominant use of Black women as subjects, and empirical validity concerns.

3.5. DISCUSSION Social science researchers have spent several decades building, broadening, and strengthening the concept, framework, and critical analysis lens of intersectionality. This work endures and interest grows stronger, as “We have an enormous amount to learn about these processes and the impact they can have” (Cho et al., 2013, p. 807). McCall characterized intersectionality as “the most important theoretical contribution that women’s studies, in conjunction with related fields, has made so far” (p. 1771). Undoubtedly, this work is important to social identity research because it clearly represents a departure from early research designs which used the Caucasian/White, heterosexual, able-bodied male as the foundational social identity upon which other dimensions are benchmarked. Since the work of critical race theorists and feminist scholars, intersectionality has developed into a salient paradigm for unmasking ways that social hierarchies keep certain people marginalized and weak through institutionalization of power. Performing intersectionality work legitimates narratives and life courses of people and groups who, historically, have been situated as irrelevant and unimportant. Research processes involving attention to intersecting social identity dimensions can empower people and their communities. Indeed, teaching about intersectionality also constitutes a new approach to studying inequality (Dill & Zambrana, 2009). Intersectionality scholars’ contributions to the body of scholarship also serve to counterbalance diversity studies which subscribe to color-blind rhetoric (Bonilla-Silva, 2009; Collins, 2006). Hence, intersectionality research is normative; steeped in a desire to improve society. Researchers dedicated to dismantling social structures which perpetuate inequity, and a simultaneous desire to elevate multitextured voices of the disenfranchised, are drawn to intersectional analyses. What began as an interest in interrogating ways that social class, gender, and “race” overlap has expanded to include attention to a wide variety of social identity dimensions. Areas identified by intersectionality scholars as deserving of further or expanded attention include study of sexual orientation, globalization, international human rights, and studies that link theory and practice.

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KEY TERMS Boundary work This refers to techniques for fostering processes of inclusion and exclusion, or, differences between groups (Bartkowski & Read, 2003). Identity work People take an active role in ways they present themselves to others; actively articulating their social identity dimensions in order to fit into certain environments, such as the workplace. They can emphasize certain dimensions, while playing down (or hiding) others. Individuals also make repairs to and strengthen their social identity dimensions. Intersectionality Crenshaw (1989) explained that intersectionality is more than a car crash at the nexus of a set of separate roads. Rather, intersectionality is a concept, critical lens, or analytical framework for exploring underlying power hierarchies which create and perpetuate inequities among people based on overlapping, enmeshed, inextricably linked, and inseparable social identity dimensions of: age, culture, ethnicity, gender, physical ability, sexual orientation, social class, religion, and more. Two-fer This shorthand for “two for the price of one” is considered a positive outcome in organizations where management desires to seek recognition for meeting affirmative action guidelines (Nkomo, 1988) or to more altruistically embrace diversity goals by hiring employees who represent two or more social identity dimensions considered as representative of minority groups. Venn diagram This is an illustration, or a model, which involves using circles or ovals to represent sets, issues, or ideas which overlap to indicate relationships, similarities, and differences among the circles or ovals.

Latinas living intersectionalities Over the years, I have had the honor and pleasure of interviewing hundreds of Latinas working in communication-related fields (e.g., journalism, public relations, radio, telecommunications, television) as part of research projects designed to discover how women negotiate their social identities at work and in their private lives. According to the Pew Research Hispanic Center, ‘‘[n]on-Hispanic Whites, who made up 67% of the population in 2005, will be 47% in 2050 [and] Hispanics will rise from 14% of

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the population in 2005 to 29% in 2050’’ (Passel & Cohn, 2013). Demographers, among others, have long predicted large population growths in the United States among Latino/as and much attention has been focused on this social identity group. Labels such as Hispanic, Latino/a, ethnic, minority, and Third World are politically charged (Oboler, 1995) and in the absence of ‘‘a more enlightened terminology,’’ we must use them carefully (Flores, 1993, p. 246). I tend to use Latina (unless a ~ or research participant tells me she prefers a term such as Puertoriquena Chicana) and I agree with cultural theorists’ position that such groups ‘‘do not comprise even a relatively homogenous ethnicity’’ (e.g., Flores, 1993, p. 199; Oboler, 1995). Centuries of imperialism and colonialism have fostered diaspora among peoples whose cultural roots lay in Mexico, Latin America, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. Mexicans and Puerto Ricans1 began en masse migration to the United States during the early 20th century to work as field laborers, and the first large-scale wave of Cubans sought political refuge from Fidel Castro in 1960. Oboler (1995) explained that others came despite the U.S. historical presence in their native lands, such as economic development and/or military intervention in: Guatemala in 1954, Dominican Republic in 1965, Nicaragua in the 1980s, Panama in 1989 and overthrow or undermining of democratically elected leaders such as in Chile in 1973. Hence, multiple contexts have shaped U.S. Latino/as’ heritages. According to Said (1993), new alignments challenge the fundamentally static notion of social identity, yet it is not an enclosed system. The U.S. Bureau of the Census originated the term Hispanic in 1980 to categorize people who originate from Spanish-speaking countries or regions (Flores-Hughes, 1996). Since then, Spanish-language broadcast and print mass media have grown exponentially, and U.S. popular culture has embraced Latin music, dance, actors, and cuisine. So, as workforces and organizations’ stakeholders increasingly become diverse along multiple social identity dimensions, it is relevant to consider ways that age, culture, ethnicity and gender intersect in unique ways among Latina employees. Unfortunately, such inquiries tend to run counter to organizations’ standard operating procedures. Human resources and other managers in organizations think they are performing in neutral mode by downplaying sexuality and ignoring other social identity difference dimensions when making formal policy decisions and establishing organizational routines. Such a response, though, makes most organizations ill prepared to create work environments that enable all employees to achieve their full potential. Generalizing that all Latino/as are Catholic, poor, uneducated, and cannot speak English perpetuates ‘‘stigmatizing labels’’ (Oboler, 1995, p. xvi). Indeed, Latinas in the United

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States have experienced negativity as a result of ‘‘the English-only debate.’’ Even though the Bilingual Education Act of 1968 endorsed learning one’s mother language and culture to promote positive self-image, immigrants were offered special English instruction instead (Flores, 1993). A bilingualist has argued that such acts constitute ‘‘discrimination under the ideology of pluralism’’ (Oboler, 1995, p. xix). Over the past several decades, Latinas in the United States have experienced numerous difficulties involved in trying to reconcile social identity intersections as employee at work (between identity) and as wife, mother, sister, daughter, cousin, and friend (among identity) at home. Latinas who have participated in my research studies have shared many stories about the relevance of age, culture, ethnicity, and gender social identity intersectionalities in their lives as they described parents who serve as caregivers and teachers of Spanish among grandchildren and as Latinas spoke of ways they care for their aging family members and young children of their own. A Texas-based Latina explained: ‘‘That’s especially important in our culture, because we do have a culture where our parents help. My mother has been my partner for years, because I raised two boys on my own.’’ A Latina working in Miami told how age, culture, ethnicity and gender intersect for her: I’m expected to work. Mom’s thing is she’ll retire when I have kids. That’s what abuelitas [grandmothers] are for. That’s what she expects from my sisters and me. The grandmothers raise the kids. They cook, they clean. I don’t have to worry about that nanny kind of dollars … And I told my cousin that if he doesn’t speak Spanish, he’s going to be behind. He has grandparents who he can practice with.

A Latina who works in New York described ways she and her husband share chores so that she has time to take care of her 89-year-old grandmother three times a week and another shared the challenge of being separated from extended family members abroad: In Mexico we used to have a whole ancillary group of people that helped you. You had tias [aunts], primas [female cousins]. It’s not like here, where you’re suddenly uprooted and abruptly moved from your family and you’re on your own in some strange city and trying to take care of a home and a career.

Another Latina living and working in Miami explained her decision to become a mother at age 37 and to start her own public relations business: My mother always worked and my grandmother took care of us while she worked. But now, she’s still working. I had a child last year and so I decided to leave the cable station and start on my own consulting business. So, I do

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have help at home. Usually women have children earlier. I’ve been too set in my ways. I’ve been working and achieved too much to just give it up. I reset my priorities and my child comes first and all, but I still need my career.

Latinas are rarely the focus of organizational communication research. Elevating their voices and sharing their stories sharpens the view on how social identity dimensions connect, overlap and intersect. When organizations attend to these phenomena, new light is cast on implications of family care policies and other seemingly ordinary everyday decisions about employees such as Latinas.

Self-reflection and discussion questions 1. In what ways do your social identity dimensions overlap and intersect? 2. What experiences have you had with othering as both the person performing the action and as the person made to feel dissimilar or inferior? 3. When might you feel it necessary to perform identity work? 4. What research methods do you think are most conducive to incorporating intersectional analysis in social science research projects? Why? 5. What must be done to advance intersectionality so that it becomes a theory?

NOTE 1. Puerto Ricans became U.S. citizens with the 1917 annexation of the island.

PART II FRAMEWORKS FOR RECOGNIZING, RESPECTING, AND APPRECIATING “DIFFERENCE” IN ORGANIZATIONS

CHAPTER 4 EXPERIENCING CULTURE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE ORGANIZATIONS

ABSTRACT This chapter offers an introduction to the major directions that the study of culture as a social identity dimension has taken theory building and practical application. Culture is explored as it relates to a way of life of a people through arts, beliefs, ceremonies, communication, customs, ethnicity, food, gossip, language, lifestyle, music, nation of origin, religion, ritual practices, stories, and more and ways that this filters through organizations. Various interpretive and critical approaches are used to scrutinize the nature/culture debate, challenges in operationalizing culture, the circuitous process of culture, culture’s interactions with social structures, and intersectionalities of culture with other social identity dimensions. Culture dimensions of social identity have been explored by social scientists intrigued by ways that people report negotiating among two or more cultures double consciousness and making cognitive shifts for strategic reasons. Too often, even well-intentioned social policies and research designed to advance cultural plurality or multiculturalism ends up focusing primarily on ethnic difference while overlooking other social identity dimensions and ignoring bases of cultural differentiation. Organizational culture as an outgrowth of communication, globalization contexts, profit-centric motives, and culture’s intersectionalities with other social identity dimensions is critiqued. Chapter 4 also explores these issues according to subthemes of: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, culture and social identity, problems with culture and social identity for individuals, and managing organizational culture. Keywords: Bicultural efficacy; culture; Hofstede’s cultural dimensions; organizational culture 65

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Culture has been among the most problematic of social identity dimensions for researchers across multiple disciplines and theory-building arenas to operationalize. Culture is applied in so many ways by anthropologists, sociologists, and others that there is little consistent agreement among those who lay claim to the word. Moreover, multiculturalism often is found at the heart of biology/nature versus social constructionism binary dualism discussions; at times to disrupt the dichotomy (Hall, 2000) or to advance a moral movement for promoting awareness of marginalized groups (Fowers & Richardson, 1996). At other times, multiculturalism talk may begin with good intentions but devolve into a strategy for sidestepping power issues (McKie & Munshi, 2007). Despite these challenges (or, perhaps because of them), this chapter explores the social identity dimension of culture used in two very broad ways, as it: (1) relates to a way of life of a people and serves as a context for understanding among certain groups of people (Geertz, 1973/2000) through arts, beliefs, ceremonies, communication, customs, ethnicity, food, language, lifestyle, music, nation of origin, religion, ritual practices, stories, and more, and (2) plays out in organizations. To set the tone for any discussion of culture, it is useful to consider the Western positioning of nature and culture as “binary opposites” (Perera & Pugliese, 1998, p. 73). This paradigm suggests that all which does not emerge in nature is shaped by culture because it is learned. Goodenough (1964) explained: As I see it, a society’s culture consists of whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves. Culture, being what people have to learn as distinct from their biological heritage … . (p. 36)

However, such a broad-based position must be tempered with admitting that culture is not one overarching meaning system, but rather an outcome of local influences (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000), multiple thought communities (Zerubavel, 1996), and rival interpretive communities (Smith & Windes, 1997). Culture is “an active living phenomenon through which people create and recreate the worlds in which they live” (Morgan, 1986, p. 131). Integral to culture’s influence is shared communication (Hall, 1959), meanings (Gregory, 1983), values (Tichy, 1982), behaviors (Tunstall, 1983), and symbols (Barley, 1983). Considering culture-ethnicity intersectionality, Dalton (1995) suggested that ethnicity “is the bearer of culture … [i]t describes that aspect of our heritage that provides us with a mother tongue and that shapes our values, our worldview, our family structure, our rituals, the foods we eat, our mating behavior, our music …” (p. 107).

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Schall’s (1983) review concluded that most definitions of culture imply sharing, commonality, interrelatedness, beliefs, assumptions, and expectations. Culture also is considered a circuitous process wherein one’s worldview is shaped by values and beliefs. That worldview, in turn, shapes culture which then is expressed in arts, business (e.g., decision making and resolving ethical issues), education, media, and religion (Kim, Fisher, & McCalman, 2009). Culture helps people to develop meanings that shape everyday life (Polletta, 1997), to make sense of themselves and to determine ways to function among others (Loseke, 2007). In these ways, culture becomes a “template for interaction” and is negotiated across such dealings (Jackson & Crawley, 2003, p. 29). Cultural stories, or formula stories, are recounted in the “background of thinking” (Loseke, 2007, p. 673) and serve as filters or stock framing devices through which people shape perceptions, posit hypotheses, and promote formulae. For example, Entman (1993) suggested that a Cold War frame gained currency in the United States among “the communicator, the text, the receiver, and the culture” (p. 52). Also, stereotypes may be embedded and promoted in culture, as when Caucasian/White employers profile female African-American/Black job applicants according to a “single mother element” (Kennelly, 1999). Various interpretive and critical approaches have been applied from early anthropology studies to view, explain, and predict ways that power and social stratification play out in culture. This variety of academic research on culture has greatly benefited from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Max Weber, and others. In particular, Raymond Williams and Stuart Hall have expanded contemporary thinking about culture as critical to understanding ways that customs, traditions, and contexts shape social identity and interactions among groups of people. Swidler (1986) explained that such analyses are challenged to discover how culture interacts with social structure over time and in context. Furthermore, critics suggest that culture remains an unmoored, freefloating concept (e.g., Callero, 2003) and that researchers in cultural studies, social anthropology, and philosophy rarely define culture and/or conflate distinct concepts involving ethnicity and lifestyle (e.g., Verma, 1989). Stuart Hall agreed that culture is among the more difficult concepts in the human and social sciences. An influential founder of the British cultural studies tradition, Hall (1997) differentiated between high culture and popular culture, arguing that shared meaning is essential to any definition of culture; a process or set of cultural practices that reveals much beyond an earlier definition of culture as simply “the best that has been thought and said in a society” (p. 2).

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Challenges associated with some researchers’ methods and processes further complicate lack of operationalizing of culture. For example, culture has been overlooked among Western scholars, especially those in the United States, who have developed research paradigms and theories in management and communication (Limaye & Victor, 1991). In the end, this translates to research with built-in assumptions that concepts and foundations in these two fields are universally relevant and applicable across world geopolitical boundaries. Myrdal (1944) characterized this shortcoming in the study of culture, by calling it a fog and warned that errors and omissions accompany myopic views. Bell and Nkomo (2001) posited that too often U.S.-based researchers enable culture to coalesce with the concepts of “race” and ethnicity and form one potent construct used to explain White/non-White difference. In general, Caucasian/White people are considered to have a general lack of awareness of non-White cultures (e.g., Nakayama & Martin, 1999) perhaps because a Caucasian/White cultural standpoint is taken for granted (Frankenberg, 1993) and has achieved normative status such that “White cultural interests” are considered national interests (Tranby & Hartmann, 2008, p. 347) and become mainstream (Doane, 1997). Using the euphemism “majority population” to describe Caucasian/White people, French and Vernon (1997) posited a general lack of understanding of ethnic minorities’ lifestyles, social customs, and religious practices (p. 62). Others have argued that lack of attention to culture perpetuates Caucasian/White dominance and power (e.g., Roediger, 2002); an effect that critical race scholars such as Crenshaw (1997b) posited relegates people of color to inferior spaces. In her widely regarded “unpacking the invisible knapsack” essay, McIntosh (1989) chronicled how “as a participant in a damaged culture” she was unable to see White privilege as a member of “the main culture” (pp. 10 11, italics added). Moreover, Delgado and Stefancic (2001) opined that social scientists have scrutinized ethnic minority groups’ culture, but noted that many researchers also tend to move within a circle of people like themselves and consequently lead monovocal, isolated lives. Hence, culture also may constitute “a way of not seeing … a collective blindness to important issues” (Gherardi, 1998, italics added). In an organization context, culture has been used to represent various ways that people interact at work and two major research traditions have emerged. A functionalist approach suggests that culture is something an organization has and an interpretive approach suggests that culture is something an organization is (Smircich, 1981). Organizational communication scholars have studied workplace culture (Singley & Hynes, 2005), with

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many attracted to diversity issues and multiculturalism. Often, researchers use both words to suggest foci beyond Caucasian/White workers, so that culture and ethnicity may be conflated and diversity invoked to mean celebration of multicultural identities at work. Donald and Rattansi (1999) called this exoticizing phenomenon a “saris, samosas and steel-bands syndrome” since such treatment suggests “superficial manifestations of culture” (p. 2), often ends up further disenfranchising people of color at work, and fails to interrogate the full complexity of cultural formations. Similarly, Jackson and Crawley (2003) posited that such events and celebrations are no substitute for authentic cultural understanding. In other words, organizations must foster environments where all people are equally respected and appreciated amidst cultures that link individuals in an organization together over time (Schein, 2004). Culture in an organization refers to ways that communities are “rendered specific and differentiated” (Donald & Rattansi, 1999, p. 4). This chapter explores these issues and more according to these subthemes: Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, culture and social identity, problems with culture and social identity for individuals, and managing organizational culture.

4.1. HOFSTEDE’S CULTURAL DIMENSIONS Perhaps the most widely recognized and exhaustive study of cross-national uniqueness in cultural orientation was conducted by Hofstede (1983) as he compared/contrasted workplace cultures among 64 countries. Hofstede’s (1980) germinal research of work-related attitudes and cultural values (importance of work goals, interpersonal orientation, job satisfaction, managerial style, need fulfillment, organizational climate, work role) and the identification of five European clusters (Anglo, Nordic, Germanic, Latin, Near East) significantly has influenced social scientists the world over for decades. Broadly, Hofstede and colleagues have posited that culture as a concept and as a research term must be used with great care since national and organizational cultures are differently constituted phenomena. At the core of an organization’s culture reside shared perceptions of daily practices; not necessarily some shared national or ethnic values (Hofstede, Neuijen, Ohayv, & Sanders, 1990). Overall, Hofstede (1980) considered culture “the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another” (p. 25) and he developed a

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comparative schema enveloped within his theory of cultural dimensions. Other researchers have used these findings to compare management styles as organizational culture artifacts. For example, Western egocentric cultures have been contrasted with Eastern sociocentric cultures and study findings have suggested quite different mental maps and behavioral expectations (Shweder & LeVine, 1984). Eisenberg (2001) explained that, very broadly, social identity in the West is individualistic wherein people are “born into the world” in the East, cultures suggest that people are part of a collective; a “web of socially meaningful relationships” (p. 535, italics in original). Other researchers have used Hofstede’s theory of cultural dimensions to probe differences among ethnic social identity groups (e.g., Wise, 1993). Yet, some researchers have critiqued Hofstede’s research findings and approaches, calling them an oversimplification and overgeneralization with perhaps slightly dated findings given contemporary technologies which promote virtual work teams, global movements of peoples as economic migrants and political refugees, and permeable national geographic boundaries supported by globalization trends and joint multinational corporations’ business relationships (e.g., Eisenberg & Riley, 2001). Because global economic pressures have forced corporations to do more with less, labor forces are highly unstable and less loyal than once supposed and corporate concern about local communities and allegiance to place has diminished over time (Barnet & Cavanaugh, 1994). It may be difficult to enact onesize-fits-all approaches to culture; even within larger, seemingly homogeneous nations.

4.2. CULTURE AND SOCIAL IDENTITY People are tightly connected to their cultures and the relationship is seamless and inseparable. Hence, “[b]eing human can thus make sense only in the context of culture(s), and the existence of any culture relies heavily on the thoughts and behavior of humans” (Eisenberg & Riley, 2001, p. 312). So linked and complex are connections between being human and being of a culture that processes are fluid; constantly in motion as people actively engage with and modify their social identity, as appropriate, to keep it simultaneously unique and unremarkable as part of a general larger social group or organization. Furthermore, local culture serves as a resource for

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construction of various social identity dimensions (e.g., age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, sexual orientation, and more). Cultural practices “are inseparable from the stream of human life” (Eisenberg & Riley, 2001, p. 312). Study of individual meaning systems by scrutinizing overt behaviors in order to ascertain how and why individual members of groups perceive, think, and feel as they do is essential to understanding culture (Schein, 1985). Barnett (1988) explained that culture “consists of the habits and tendencies to act in certain ways” (p. 102). One commonality among designs for research about social identity and culture as it plays out in the larger public sphere and in organizations is a tendency to frame culture as a source of conflict; a problem element or variable. Largely, this research on culture involves examining antecedents which thwart organizational plans for diversity, cultural pluralism, and/or multiculturalism. Often, a business case approach is adopted among multinational corporations which seek to capitalize upon and to minimize risk associated with cultural distinctiveness shaped by geopolitical borders; intercultural difference. Some researchers warn that organizations that resist cultural diversification risk limited talent pools in the future. Too often, even well-intentioned social policies and research designed to advance cultural plurality or multiculturalism ends up focusing primarily on ethnic difference while overlooking other social identity dimensions and ignoring bases of cultural differentiation (e.g., economic, sexual orientation, etc.) (Verma, 1989). In his critique of British education systems that seek an antidote to Caucasian/White prejudice and intolerance toward Blacks in order to foster cultural pluralism for “a healthy cultural diversity,” Rattansi (1999, p. 25) suggested that “other” cultures are greatly oversimplified. Sue and Sue (2003) considered ways that multiculturalism excludes certain social identity dimensions from the conversation and pondered philosophical disagreements as to whether or not social identity dimensions of gender and sexual orientation constitute “distinct overall cultures” (p. 7). Moreover, Eck (2007) called for a widening of multiculturalism discourses to include religious pluralism, especially in Canada, Europe, and the United States where religious diversity flourishes. On the other hand, Sen (2006) argued that reductionist critiques that prioritize religion over other social identities in India have tended to exacerbate violence. In the United States, as in other countries populated largely by immigrants, cultures are influenced by many groups of people who make up a population.

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4.3. PROBLEMS WITH CULTURE AND SOCIAL IDENTITY FOR INDIVIDUALS Culture dimensions of social identity have been explored by social scientists intrigued by ways that people report negotiating among two or more cultures and making cognitive shifts for strategic reasons. Operationalized as “biculturalism,” it is fairly common for people of color to “navigate a course between two different circles” (Ibarra, 1993, p. 74) so that knowledge, meanings, and behaviors associated with more than one culture are integrated “within the same person” (Vargas-Reighley, 2005, p. 40) and available on demand depending on a given environment or as dictated by the social identity of people with whom one seeks to communicate. The ability to make this “shift” (Jones & Shorter-Gooden, 2003), also called “bicultural efficacy” (Kawahara & Van Kirk, 2004), proves a useful technique for people of color working in homogeneous organizations where ethnic diversity levels remain low. For example, Latina public relations practitioners told of how they consciously play “the corporate game” in order to “fit in” by dressing more conservatively, using their hands less when they speak, and wearing less makeup when work environments consist primarily of Anglos (Pompper, 2007, p. 299). The “twoness” and “double consciousness” phenomenon with regard to navigating more than one culture was first identified by Du Bois (1965/1935) when he sought to explain how African-American/Black people in the United States seek access to organizational and institutional resources and privileges usually reserved for Caucasian/White people. This ability constitutes “wide-angle vision … a transcendent position allowing one to see and understand positions of inclusion and exclusion margins and mainstreams” (Ladson-Billings, 2000, pp. 260 262). Anzaldu´a (1987) wrote of mestiza consciousness and overlapping spaces: “… I, a mestiza, continually walk out of one culture, and into another, because I am in all cultures at the same time” (p. 77). The potential for discrimination is greatly increased for people who possess multiple social identities, namely because effects of oppression can occur simultaneously (Collins, 1990). For example, enjoying a privileged social class position may override biases attached to intersecting social identity dimensions of physical/psychological ability, gender and “race” whereas a working-class social identity may activate multiple -isms among ingroups who further marginalize people with multiple intersecting social identity dimensions (Vernon & Swain, 2002). Hence, social identity dimensions of individual people are considered unique cultures with context-specific outcomes. Code switching and

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acting White also are terms attached to this phenomenon wherein people of color engage with “a constellation of cultural survival strategies linked to the common denominator of overcoming historic and contemporary formations of White supremacy,” according to Akom (2008, p. 250). Straddling two or more cultures is challenging work and can take a toll on one’s emotional well-being. Studies of bicultural life experiences among career-oriented African-American/Black women, in particular, reveal high levels of anxiety and exhaustion associated with cultural shifting processes (hooks, 1990). Also, researchers have explored what has come to be called a “burden of acting White” among members of “Black culture” who exist in public and private spaces shaped by hegemonic Whiteness (Akom, 2008, pp. 250 254). Researchers of culture as a social identity dimension have underscored the importance of investigating systemic causes for reasons why people of color feel compelled to “act White” (Tyson, Darity, & Castellino, 2005), as well as problematizing “White culture,” resisting impulses to homogenize “Black culture” (Akom, 2008), and eliminating instances were Whiteness is confused with nationality (Nakayama & Krizek, 1995). Karp (1999) described a “paradox of culture” wherein people sometimes “create their social worlds and then are refashioned by their own invention” (p. 608). Such manipulations of one’s social identity dimensions must not be detached from critique of hegemonic structures that make these activities necessary for survival (Jackson, 2003).

4.4. MANAGING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE Beyond individuals and groups of people, the concept of culture has been associated with workplaces. Links between individuals’ social identity dimensions and ways that organizations are characterized as having a culture are quite strong. An organization is a permeable “active living phenomenon” created by the people who work there (Morgan, 1986, p. 131); people who bring to work worldviews shaped by wider social influences and their own unique intersecting social identity dimensions. Vast literatures reveal multiple markers used to examine organizational culture, including several interrelated subareas of study. A useful explanation of organizational culture highlights the significance of sharing, understanding, and creating values within a specific workplace over time (Giberson et al., 2009). The phenomenon of organizational culture has received substantial

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attention among social researchers in fields of organizational communication, management, psychology, sociology, and more. In particular, culture has become a root metaphor for the organization and its historically transmitted system of valuing some members over others along demographic lines endures. Power dynamics within organizational culture emerge from three vantage points integration/consensus, differentiation/subgroups amidst the larger group, and fragmentation/multiplicity of views (Martin, 1992). All in all, an organization’s culture simultaneously features formal structures and rules for prescribed behavior (Schall, 1983), as well as informal developmental socializing processes about how to get things done, how things work around here, and how to get ahead (Schein, 1992). An organization’s culture becomes visible by examining its multiple rites of passage, degradation, enhancement, renewal, integration, and conflict reduction (Beyer & Trice, 1987). Furthermore, Acker (2006) posited that scrutiny of organizational culture reveals “inequality regimes” wherein social identity intersectionalities interplay and employees experience barriers to achieving their full potential due to prejudicial practices that develop as a part of organizational culture (p. 443). Davidson (1993) found that large corporate cultures’ reserved and impersonal climates can be particularly unfriendly to people of color. With regard to gender, Gutek (1989) posited that so long as it is culturally acceptable that women be treated as sex objects, sexual harassment is likely to continue as part of organizational culture. Collinson and Collinson (1989) found that gender and social class intersect in surprising ways to shape organizational culture, as when blue-collar men work on shop floors as autonomous and free to engage in swearing while white-collar men who work in offices are clean, polite, and reserved. Hall (1989) looked at intersections of gender and sexual orientation in organizational culture for a study of lesbians who develop strategies for deciding whether or not to “come out” in corporate settings. Since publication of the best-selling In Search of Excellence (Peters & Waterman, 1982), U.S. organizations have sought to mirror Japanese organizational culture’s management techniques of securing genuine employee commitment, rather than mere compliance, in order to enhance bottom line performance and to gain competitive edge. Organizations’ human resources departments have become sites for managing culture through control of employees (Luthans, Marsnik, & Luthans, 1997). In recent years, however, the lifetime employment paradigm in Japan has

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eroded under competitive world marketplace pressures. Wajcman (1998) reasoned that Japanese organizations’ successes inspired management researchers worldwide to focus on the phenomenon of organizational culture (as shaped within geopolitical nation boundaries), with attention to organizational leadership styles used to create and sustain specific work climates in order to strategically craft organizational cultures. Schein (1992) posited that corporate founders and leaders can foster a specific work environment that permeates all facets of a business and leads it to profitability. Business leadership traits may be culture specific (Den Hartog & Koopman, 2011), with those partial to authoritarian leadership styles deeming a sensitive leader as weak and other cultures which prefer nurturing leadership styles partial to sensitivity as a primary quality (Den Hartog, House, Hanges, Ruiz-Quintanilla, & Dorfman, 1999). In a global context, leadership-culture relationships reveal how management styles translate across geopolitical borders. For example, findings of a study involving leaders from 60 different cultures suggested that charismatic/ value based, team oriented, and participative factors were prototypical of outstanding leadership across cultures (Den Hartog et al., 1999). Brown and Lord (2001) qualified the ability to navigate cultural differences as essential to good leadership and successful organization management. Interestingly, various individuals may group into subcultures, sometimes in resistance to official company-line organizational culture (Legge, 1994). Blumer’s (1969) symbolic interactionist paradigm is used to explore ways that subcultures form when organizational cultures are not totally consensual. Hylmo¨ (2004) found evidence of this in a study of ways some employee groups may support telecommuting initiatives, while others seek to resist them. Business leaders have worked to shape organizational culture by advancing profit-centered rationales for strategically managing organizational cultures. Yet, it seems that leaders are limited in an ability to impose their styles and models on organizations to shape their cultures since research studies reveal mixed findings. Brodbeck and his colleagues (2000) found that the greater the difference between a foreign manager’s cultural orientation and a host country’s culture, the less likely that cross-cultural leadership will succeed. On the other hand, Sue and Sue (2003) posited that it is possible to develop “cultural competence” through an “active, developmental, and ongoing process [that often is more] aspirational rather than achieved” (pp. 17 18). Some have recommended hiring consultants and liaisons to serve as cultural interpreters to ensure successful business

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dealings in various countries (Sriramesh, 1992). However, critics have suggested that local cultures often see through profit-centered logic as thinly veiled attempts to merely boost sales rather than to build authentic crosscultural relationships. Using the fast food industry as an example, McKie and Munshi (2007) argued that multinational chains may do the necessary research to discover local tastes abroad but fail to recognize that “the genre of fast food itself is essentially Western and could be alien to some cultures” (p. 52). These researchers also posited that too often corporations essentialize and stereotype culture groups without recognizing intra-group diversity; a definite drawback of business-case thinking. Finally, the dynamic nature of organizational culture may thwart attempts of managers to affect change, thereby limiting leadership control of organizational culture (Smircich, 1983). Finally, the concept of social identity is a salient theme among organizational culture research in a context of globalization trends which have inspired acquisitions, divestitures, and restructurings in recent decades. More recent postmodern approaches differ from those of earlier studies involving cross-nation comparisons in an effort to assess culture-ascognition effects. Scrutinizing ways that corporations self-identify has been used as a point of entry for identifying unique characteristics of distinct and strong corporate cultures such as those at major multinational corporations including Coca-Cola, Disney, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. Using press materials and corporate websites, these organizations routinely promote their business goals, organizational values, and leadership personalities; ingredients which suggest ties between organizational culture and high organizational effectiveness/performance levels (Deetz, 1992). Tests of these links, however, reveal inconclusive findings (Kotter & Heskett, 1992) which some critique as methodologically flawed (Siehl & Martin, 1990) and overly simplistic given the complexity of culture dimensions (Saffold, 1988). A frequent theme among organizational culture as identity study is specific attributes which shape an organization’s personality (Falcione, Sussman, & Herden, 1987) and communicate what it is like to work there (Hellriegel & Slocum, 1974). These qualities endure over time as group members come and go. Communication facilitates organizational equilibrium and structures organizations (Poole & McPhee, 1983). In fact, some researchers consider organizational cultures to be outgrowths of communication; “distinct social units doing things together in ways appropriate to those shared understandings of the ‘we’” (Schall, 1983, p. 560). Others have suggested that the optimum means for investigating organizational

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cultures is to examine “patterned speech and behavior” (Spradley, 1979, p. 9) since “culture is communication and communication is culture” (Hall, 1959, p. 191). Collectively, organizational communication researchers conclude that society, culture, organizations, and communication “are inextricably and reciprocally bound” (Mumby & Stohl, 1996, p. 65). Falcione and Kaplan (1984) assessed organizational climate by describing employee perceptions of policies, goals, and degrees of support experienced in organizations.

4.5. DISCUSSION Culture may be invisible, but it remains an extremely powerful social identity dimension that rarely may be relied upon to suggest clues for “penalt[ies]” when one makes missteps due to lack of awareness of cultures beyond one’s own (McIntosh, 1989, p. 11). So ubiquitous is the social identity dimension of culture, that it is used to differentiate among Western culture, Eastern culture, Latin culture, Middle Eastern culture, and African culture. Culture is paired with other nouns to describe milieu such as celebrity culture, political culture, youth culture, protest culture, lifestyle subcultures, countercultures, and a myriad of ethnic cultures such as Black culture. Given permeability of geopolitical boundaries and ways that globalism trends inextricably link multinational organizations with countries where they do business, often as part of the work of exploiting developing nations and their cultures (Munshi, 2005), national cultures “rarely develop in isolation” (Ashcraft & Allen, 2003, p. 15). Ultimately, academics continue to debate what culture really is and no one can be certain that the word is correctly interpreted in discourse. This chapter offers an introduction to the major directions that the study of culture as a social identity dimension has taken theory building and practical application. Perhaps Schall’s (1983) explanation of culture offers the most useful starting point: Cultures, then, are created, sustained, transmitted, and changed through social interaction through modeling and imitation, instruction, correction, negotiation, story-telling, gossip, remediation, confrontation, and observation all activities based on message exchange and meaning assignment, that is, on communication. (p. 560)

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KEY TERMS Bicultural efficacy When someone believes and has confidence in her/his ability to effortlessly live and move within more than one culture, such as African Americans/Blacks or Latina/os in organizations who take on roles as cultural ambassadors. Culture For decades, researchers have advanced numerous definitions and used the term in multiple ways. Although consensus on some definition has proved elusive, researchers tend to agree that the phenomenon is complex and many definitions attend to sharing, communication, commonality, interrelatedness, meanings, beliefs, values, behaviors, assumptions, symbols, and expectations among a group of people. Hofstede’s cultural dimensions Geert Hofstede is a Dutch researcher widely acknowledged for investigating cultural orientation among countries around the globe. He and other research team members uncovered workrelated attitudes and values said to be specific to particular nations. Hofstede and colleagues posited that culture as a concept and as a research term must be used with great care since national and organizational cultures are differently constituted phenomena. Organizational culture (as identity) This is when workers socially interact and collectively share certain beliefs, values, understandings, and behavioral expectations central to operations in a particular organization. Organizational culture has been characterized, roughly, as the way we do things here. Over time, some corporations become well-known for having a unique identity for hosting a specific work climate and reputation for routinely linking organizational culture with effectiveness and high performance levels.

Clash between cultures: Organizations and individual social identities Meet Dr. Li,1 a tenured associate professor of the humanities at a large metropolitan U.S. university. She is in her mid-fifties, married to an academic, and Asian American. While cultural diversity is welcomed in many academic settings, this is far from Dr. Li’s experience in an organizational climate where she feels excluded and undervalued. Reflecting on negative incidents that have shaped her 20-year academic career at two public

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universities, Dr. Li’s story very easily could have been set pre-1950s or earlier. It is not, because her narrative is unfolding now; episodes that involve coworkers’ lack of cultural awareness in an organizational culture where discrimination has become institutionalized. Because Dr. Li describes herself as ‘‘an outgoing person’’ and ‘‘an overachiever’’ who loves and cares deeply about people, it is paradoxical that she should find herself employed in a setting that fails to embrace diversity. Growing up fending for herself on city streets, Dr. Li went on to graduate Phi Beta Kappa while working fulltime in restaurants. Today, she channels her energies into researching and teaching a ‘‘deep understanding of humans’’ in her field of literary studies where she has published several books about literature and pedagogy. She searches for ‘‘truth through the written word’’ because ‘‘powerful writing can make a difference in our society.’’ Indeed, Dr. Li has accomplished a great deal as a scholar and educator despite colleagues who cling to ageist, racist and sexist stereotypes about older Asian-American women. Dr. Li says her work culture undervalues people of color and those whose cultural identity differs from the majority. Dr. Li’s story of hostile workplaces is peppered with phrases like: ‘‘There’s a wall of prejudice … I’m a survivor in a lessthan-ideal culture … I’m up against White folks who really refuse to play fair … People try to destroy me because they’re threatened by my presence … These people are just going to wipe me out because they refuse to acknowledge this issue at all … It took me a long time to understand what it means to be such a minority in this kind of culture.’’ In the United States, many Asian Americans have high levels of educational achievement and a model minority public image. Once male dominated, the university where Dr. Li works now is mostly female with a wide range of age groups, but few people of color. Organizational cultures bereft of cultural diversity suffer from power imbalance. Dr. Li strives to be a contributing and collegial faculty member, yet sees that a severe lack of open communication greatly reduces the likelihood that she will ever achieve her career goals. She explained: ‘‘I’m so outnumbered in terms of power issues that it doesn’t matter how strong I am as an individual. In department meetings, I’m silenced and invisible. That’s the culture. It’s been this way for a long, long time.’’ Other manifestations of an adverse organizational culture include ambiguous guidelines, shifting criteria for promotion, and a lack of mentoring. Dr. Li said: ‘‘To be promoted, my colleagues have to vote for me unanimously. Considering that they won’t even talk to me and my work has to be twice as strong as theirs simply because I’m not White I have, in effect, hit the glass ceiling.’’ Dr. Li suspects that coworkers refuse to accept her identity as visibly Asian American due to their own stereotypes. Dr. Li explained: ‘‘Most people I try to raise the issue with will not admit it at all. I get totally shot down

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just silence, like I have no business addressing this. Because AsianAmerican women are not supposed to stand up to say anything, when I do people act like I betrayed them because I’ve disrupted their comfort level. I’ve thrown off their cultural expectation of who I’m supposed to be. They can’t deal with who I am.’’ This case study of a specific organizational culture and the experiences of someone whose social identity is shaped by culture highlights conflicts that can erupt when two types of culture clash. Despite efforts to engage department chairs and faculty colleagues, Dr. Li’s situation has changed little over the years. Even attempts to seek support of university officers have failed. Dr. Li said: ‘‘I’ve tried to talk about this with every major administrator. The president has formed an advisory committee to deal with diversity and I’m not even invited.’’ Since Dr. Li’s research focuses on ‘‘race’’ and ethnicity, this outcome is even more disturbing. Organizations may offer lip service to diversity goals, but how many fail to develop workplace cultures that are accepting of people of various cultures?

Self-reflection and discussion questions 1. With which culture groups do you affiliate? 2. Compare and contrast the workplace culture (or climate) at two organizations where you have worked one which you enjoyed and one which you did not. What made the difference? 3. How can organizations improve ways that people of multiple cultures are made to feel respected and appreciated? 4. What do you think culture means in global organizations that operate in multiple geopolitical spaces? 5. At what points in time do you most feel awareness of cultural identity your own and others’?

NOTE 1. A pseudonym was used and names of university settings described herein intentionally were excluded. Quotes are the actual words of the case study participant.

CHAPTER 5 DOING ETHNICITY IN ORGANIZATIONS

ABSTRACT This chapter uses critical race theory (CRT) and postcolonial lenses to critique the postrace concept and organizational power differentials mirroring an ethnically coded society. CRT reminds us that despite antidiscrimination laws around the globe, employers still normatively pursue workplace homogeneity; not necessarily a racist impulse, but in an effort to promote perceived organizational efficiency. Understanding how organizations have become hard-wired to perpetuate White privilege helps to dismantle systemic barriers which continue to stand between people of color and an ability to reach their full human potential at work. Understanding of power and difference in organizations requires consistent diligence. Using ethnic diversity primarily as a means for advancing profit generation motives rather than as an opportunity to advance social justice, too many multinational corporations offer mere lip service to ethnic diversity. For example, organizations tend to imagine that they are more ethnically diverse than they really are and enable prejudice, racism and microagressions against people who constitute ethnic minorities. Among social researchers, attention to ethnic difference requires careful and consistent attention as well. Because skin color ranks among the most visible of social identity dimensions, diversity and ethnicity/race erroneously are considered synonymous and skin color becomes some default condition for diversity in social research studies. Chapter 5 explores these important subthemes: interrogating Whiteness and navigating diversity at work; exposing the “requisite variety” concept for its homophily thesis roots; examining effects of “othering,” liminal spaces 81

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and tokenism; racism and microaggressions have gone underground; and intersectionality of ethnicity with other social identity dimensions. Keywords: Color-blind racism; ethnicity; imagined diversity; liminal spaces; microaggression; model minority; prejudice; racism; requisite variety

Nearly two decades into the third millennium, it is increasingly common to witness declaration of a “postrace” society in the United States. From the election of a first biracial President to mass mediated representations of multiple ethnic social identities, it has become commonplace for Caucasians/Whites to deny that there is anything more to learn about prejudice. Perhaps a spirit of inclusiveness is implied at U.S. federal government levels now that multiple “racial” identity tick-box choices appear on census instruments (American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian or Pacific Islander, Black or African American, Latino/a, and White). At the time of this writing, U.S. census findings have suggested that one in eight U.S. residents is foreign-born; with most immigrating from Latin America and Asia and settled in the West and South (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010) and by 2030 it is predicted that non-Hispanic Caucasians/Whites will be a numerical minority (Jackson, Govia, & Sellers, 2011). So, from Great Society programs of the 1960s through 71 laws passed by Congress in the 1970s to encourage the hiring of women and minorities in underrepresented areas, it remains illegal for U.S. employers to hire, fire, compensate, classify, or deprive workers of opportunities based on their “race,” skin color, or national origin. Yet, these legal case perspectives have had little to do with inspiring real systemic change; the dismantling of homogeneity in organizations managed by predominantly Caucasian/White executives. While workplace advances have transpired for some people of color, organization leaders have spent much of the past five decades talking about diversity; a concept that generally ignores implications of identity differences as a combination of: (1) avowed (how people identify themselves) and (2) ascribed (identity as bestowed by others) circumstances. Moreover, one research team posited that demographic diversity (any characteristic that serves as a basis for self-identification and social categorization) breaks into two broad groups: (1) social identity dimensions that are visible and (2) those that are not (Tsui & Gutek, 1999). Because skin color ranks among the most visible of

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social identity dimensions, it is for this reason (and perhaps others) that ethnicity/“race” has been a primary focus of organizational diversity programs, so much so that diversity and ethnicity/“race” routinely are considered (erroneously) to be synonymous (Allen, 1995). In policy terms, diversity is about including “people who look different” (Puwar, 2004, p. 1). In an attempt to preserve perceived harmony and stability of homophilic workplaces, organizations reward “non-White” employees who demonstrate willingness and capacity to assimilate (Carbado & Gulati, 2003, p. 1762). Ahmed (2009) described the marketing appeal of diversity among organizations that want to look and feel good while obscuring organizational inequalities at the core so that diversity turns out to be more about “generating the right image” (p. 45). Today, ethnic discrimination primarily is covert, including passive resistance to change, “deeds undone” (Austin, 2000, p. 158), acknowledgments unvoiced, introductions not made, collaborations not offered, and opportunities withheld (Artz & Murphy, 2000). Social critics have argued that theories and business case for diversity practices (Noon, 2007) offer rosy views which cloud the realities of people of color living in the United States who may not readily agree that the criminal justice system is fair or that workplaces are equitable. Indeed, many large U.S. corporations have been named in class action lawsuits, accused of racial/ethnic discrimination: Abercrombie & Fitch, Amtrak, Burger King, Coca-Cola, Denny’s Restaurants, General Electric, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Texaco, Wal-Mart, and more. DiTomaso and Smith (1996) posited that pressures from lawsuits and government oversight have brought about the most significant organizational changes with regard to racial/ethnic demographics. The enforcement burden rests with discrimination victims to prove their claims. It would seem that Stewart’s (1987) declaration remains valid nearly 30 years later: organizations are “arenas for conflicting interests” (p. 289). On the whole, people of color continue to hold a disproportionate number of low-paying service-sector jobs (U.S. Department of Labor, 1997). Undoubtedly, affirmative action is the most controversial policy to emerge from the U.S. civil rights movement, created to hold organizations responsible for recruiting, hiring, training, and promoting women and minorities. African Americans/Blacks’ and Caucasians/Whites’ attitudes toward affirmative action vary considerably, as does their perceived fairness of the criminal justice system, the ability to acquire the “American Dream,” and the extent to which Caucasians/Whites have benefited from past ethnic discrimination (Kaiser Foundation, 1995). In the professional sector, more people of color than ever before work in private and government arenas

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(U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2000, p. v), but African-American/Black women hold only 4.5% of management jobs, as compared to Caucasian/White women (39%) and Caucasian/White men (48.3%) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011). In fact, African-American/Black women are almost always in the least favorable situation in income, job level and type, and satisfaction (DiTomaso & Smith, 1996) even though many people seem to believe that African-American/Black women are doing especially well due to affirmative action legislation (DiTomaso & Smith, 1996). Caucasian/White men, in particular, charge that underrepresented groups gain advantage at their expense (Greenberg, 1990). So, if goals of the women’s and civil rights movements set nearly 50 years ago had been realized among organizations, then the demographic landscape would feature more men and women of color at the top-most hierarchies (Pompper, 2011). They have not because Caucasian/White privilege still undergirds market forces. Many researchers and policymakers use “race” and ethnicity interchangeably. Ethnic/ethnicity are my preferred terms, as I have been inspired by Allport’s (1954) assessment that ethnicity more parsimoniously accounts for a group’s characteristics, which are fluid and shaped by social, cultural, psychological context, and biological conditions. Ethnicity also entails processes; ways groups are linked by belief systems, as well as language and nonverbal communication styles. After tracing second- and thirdgeneration members of ethnic-minority groups in Britain, Modood (1997) resolved that ethnic identities are consciously chosen, celebrated, and contested. As for “race,” there is no biological basis for the concept since there are no genetic characteristics possessed by all the members of any specific group (Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984), even though some have defined “race” by corporeal zones or physical characteristics like skin tone, hair texture, lips, and nose shape. West (1993a) discovered that the term “race” was introduced in 1684 by a physician whose job it was to classify dead bodies; making skin tone/color a useful tool. Furthermore, Bell and Nkomo (2001) argued that “race” is a word popularized by the “dominant white community … to create a social caste system or stratification hierarchy based on skin color” (p. 242). Nakayama and Krizek (1995) remind us that Whiteness also is an ethnic social identity dimension; one that left unmarked and invisible, impedes well-rounded discourse on ethnicity (Jackson & Garner, 1998). Indeed, Whiteness is a system of privilege and the center from which everyone else generally is marginalized (Anthias, 2001) so that what results is a classification system for human beings into separate “valuebased categories” (Orbe & Harris, 2001, p. 6). Hence, “race” and social power (or lack of it) are closely linked concepts (Dalton, 1995).

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This chapter uses critical race theory (CRT) and postcolonial lenses to critique organizational power differentials mirroring an ethnically coded society. CRT builds on a foundation of critical legal studies and radical feminism for “redressing historic wrongs” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001, p. 5). By naming injuries and identifying their origins, CRT approaches support research driven by a sense of moral activism (Ladson-Billings & Donner, 2005) and challenge researchers to reexamine paradigms, theories and practices whose effects inadvertently may subordinate some groups or impede their ability to reach full potential. Such a framework differs from CRT approaches in other fields, such as law, by exposing how communities of color are impacted in the course of their jobs in the workplace; an important social context. Despite antidiscrimination laws in the United States, employers still normatively pursue workplace homogeneity; not necessarily a racist impulse, but an effort to promote perceived organizational efficiency. Explored in this chapter are these subthemes: interrogating Whiteness and navigating diversity at work, exposing the “requisite variety” concept for its homophily thesis roots, examining effects of “othering,” liminal spaces and tokenism, racism and microaggressions have gone underground, and intersectionality of ethnicity with other social identity dimensions.

5.1. INTERROGATING WHITENESS Ethnic diversity is an integral component of an excellent organization (Pompper, 2004). Diversity makes people feel good because it allows them to “relax and feel less threatened, as if we have already ‘solved it’, and there is nothing less to do” (Ahmed, 2009, p. 44). So, it is astonishing that comparatively few researchers have attended to ways that organizations are “fundamentally raced” (Ashcraft & Allen, 2003, p. 5), meaning that our understanding of power and difference in organizations is “incomplete” (Grimes, 2002, p. 386). Nkomo (1992) argued that systemic roots of capitalist power structures which historically have kept people of color marginalized remain underexamined. Trust in some eventual, serendipitous future point in due time when all employees will get along and be considered equal team members seems to undergird organizations, especially those that make no provisions for diversity training, or enforce mission statements or policies that proffer lip service to diversity as an organizational value explicated in mission statements. Perhaps this outcome is not so surprising

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when one considers that Caucasian/White people dominate organizational leadership and fail to recognize their own ethnic privilege. McIntosh (1989) explained that “… whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal” and that racism tends to be viewed only in terms of “individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance” on any particular group (p. 10). Organizational researchers tend to focus on experiences of AfricanAmerican/Black employees and audiences without unmasking Whiteness and while ignoring many other ethnic groups, and overlooking social identity dimension intersectionalities and intra-group differences (Cox & Nkomo, 1986). The “Black experience” seems a template for assessing all people of color; a symptom of Black-White binary dualism (Dalton, 1995). Grimes (2002) and others have argued that making visible the structure and status quo systems by which organizations become “raced … a powerful tool for creating more just and humane organizations and thus for improving society” (p. 383), is a good first step. Yet, many researchers have described how terribly difficult it is to inspire “race” talk in organizations to the degree that it becomes “the elephant in the room [wherein] neither party wants to offend” (Edwards, 2009, p. 10). Caucasian/White people tend to avoid the topic out of respect for people of color and to avoid straining relationships (Dalton, 1995), and African-American/Black people do, too, for fear of being seen as “troublemakers or agitators bent on fomenting racial unrest” (Dalton, 1995, p. 35). Pompper (2004) found that some people of color are simply tired of talking about race because speaking from the heart is risky. Conversely, remaining silent can lead to internalized anxieties, as well as what Childs and Palmer (1999) called “going off;” displaying anger beyond the bounds of appropriate behavior. Undoubtedly, such outcomes may be attributed to failure to consider fairness and quality from a wider view that takes in revealing the invisible norm that Whiteness produces.

5.2. EXPOSING THE “REQUISITE VARIETY” CONCEPT FOR ITS HOMOPHILY THESIS ROOTS For some organizations, diversity is inspired by Weick’s (1979) requisite variety concept meaning that organizations should have as much variety among internal stakeholders (employees, volunteers) as exists among its external stakeholders (e.g., customers, stockholders, community members,

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media, suppliers, NGOs). Undergirding this concept is the notion that workforce homogeneity is, or should be, passe´. More poignantly, Aldoory (2006) opined that striving for “numerical balance” in an organization is not the issue, but that eradicating “norms in dominant-culture organizations” (p. 674) created primarily by Caucasian/White males is required to remove organizational barriers that reinforce and perpetuate homogeneity. Overall, McKie and Munshi (2007) critiqued requisite variety’s underlying “control” impulse by predominantly Caucasian/White males who serve as CEOs and members of boards of directors. Furthermore requisite variety glosses over the fact that most people self-identify with more than one social identity group. So, striving for requisite variety seems a misguided undertaking. For instance, Bell and Nkomo (2001) posited that most seem unaware that women across ethnic groups are differentially situated within an organizational gender-power system. Women of color whom Pompper (2011) interviewed urged for new ways to respect intersecting social identities. Over the past several decades, formal research findings have suggested that workplace diversity has significant downsides. Cox (2001) called some diverse workplaces “toxic … deadly” (p. 12). Negative side effects may include worker interpersonal conflicts, communication barriers, lower levels of commitment to teams/groups, and performance downturns; outcomes that emerge in heterogeneous work environments in significantly higher numbers as compared to homogeneous workplaces (Cox, 2001). Hence, a social homophily thesis underpins preservation of the status quo, supposedly to facilitate ease in communication and reduce management costs (Appold et al., 1998). Yet efforts to keep any workforce homogeneous are inconsistent with general population trends and could be perceived as discriminatory for breaking with the spirit of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

5.3. EXAMINING EFFECTS OF “OTHERING,” LIMINAL SPACES, AND TOKENISM Conditions under which certain groups arrived at U.S. shores and borders, and biases they have endured, continue to play out today in some workplaces where they are rejected, excluded and undervalued. This outcome clearly is evident in low-paying job categories where they are overrepresented. Black people were imported to North America against their will for

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slave labor (Artz & Murphy, 2000) and even after Jim Crow laws were formally abolished, African Americans/Blacks have continued to endure devalued status and are overrepresented in occupational fields of nursing aides (35%), security guards (29%), and taxi and bus drivers (about 25% each) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011). External forces compounded by internal sentiments persist as barriers to African Americans/Blacks’ ability to achieve total job satisfaction (Parker, 2001; Pompper, 2011). Asian and Caucasian/White workers far outnumber Black and Hispanic workers in management, professional, and related occupations; the highest paying major job category (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). Realities of Latino/as in the United States are so varied and multidimensional that a common history is nonexistent (Amott & Matthaei, 1991). Today, Latino/ as are overrepresented as drywall installers (59%), grounds maintenance workers (44%), construction laborers (43%), and maids and housekeepers (41%) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011). Chinese men started coming to the United States in large numbers around the mid-19th century to work in the West Coast gold mines and later as railroad construction workers (Zia, 2000). U.S. legislators soon enacted immigration laws to stem the tide and in effect, classified Asians as cheap and disposable laborers (Espiritu, 2000). Now, Asian Americans are overrepresented as miscellaneous personal appearance workers (51%), medical scientists and computer software engineers (28% each), and physicians and surgeons (16%) (U.S. Department of Labor, 2011). Postcolonialism theorists have critiqued processes by which certain individuals and group members are made to feel like outsiders in organizations; different in some way, by people who ignore or silence them. Unfortunately, too few organizations have the foresight to recognize the potential limitations of simply putting together people of various ethnic social identities without support. In particular, poor treatment of ethnic minority members in the workplace has been examined in terms of effects such as “othering” and “liminal spaces.” “Othering” prescribes a liminal status for people of color (King, 1995), and occupying a liminal space means one routinely is relegated to the margin. Exploring liminal perspectives exposes maintenance of power relations by distorting or negatively impacting realities of the “other.” Overall, being “othered” negatively impacts job satisfaction and career growth (Zerbinos & Clanton, 1993). Also, Ladson-Billings (2000) suggested that people occupying a liminal position consciously avoid trying to move beyond the margin at work because they understand a dominant group’s motive for maintaining a status quo at the center. Edwards (2009) noted that without external pressure

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on organizations to change, “structures and norms will remain largely stable, invisible to those who embody them but painfully visible to those who are ‘othered’ by them” (p. 2). Indeed, “race” is embedded in everyday life and work circumstances, representing one of the “major bases of domination in our society and a major means through which the division of labor occurs in organizations” (Nkomo, 1992, p. 488). Perhaps more than any other social identity dimension, “race” matters in America (West, 1993b) and it plays out in multiple ways in the workplace. For instance, when we encounter someone who is “racially unpeggable … we feel compelled to figure out ‘what’ the person is” (Dalton, 1995, p. 65). Goffman (1963) explained that assumed identity attributes, or virtual social identity characterized by skin pigment or hair texture, are recognizable in social situations (p. 2). Link and Phelan (2001) problematized the virtual social identity concept by pointing out how visible cues easily can be turned into stigmas. Individuals whose ethnic identity matches those of coworkers and supervisors tend to experience fewer workplace biases than people who stand out (Ely, 1995). Ahmed (2009) noted pressures among people of color employed to embody diversity for organizations given that their presence falsely “proves” that ethnic discrimination is nonexistent in that workplace. Kanter (1977) defined token as the embodiment of some social identity dimension. For example, men working in a women-dominated field may be valued for their minority status and reap workplace rewards such as speedy promotions (Cohen, 2001). Pigeonholing is evidenced by being hired to work on primarily “race-” related projects, to fill a quota, restricted from advancing to higher positions, and prevented from having real decision-making power (Pompper, 2007). Double consciousness sometimes translates into a specific type of pigeonholing of people of color in organizations. Some social identity groups simultaneously are reduced to invisibility while also being visibly marked as tokens or pigeonholed. Tindall (2007) found that organizations imply an “assumed responsibility” among certain workers to serve as liaison between organizations and “the public of their origin” (p. 1). Ferreira (1993) found that Latino/a employees are hired to communicate with Latino/a publics “to narrow the differences by explaining to the organization the culture of its diversified publics” (p. 113). Similarly, bilingual Latinas capitalize on their identities and skill sets and Anglo colleagues’ perceptions of them as “ethnic insider” (Pompper, 2007). Similarly, Asians and Asian Americans are hired to communicate solely with their ethnic or racial group, so that their work is limited to interpreting or translating (Yamashita, 1992). On the other hand, Pompper (2004) found that African-American/Black

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women take solace in an ethnic solidarity worldview that enables them to understand both “margin” and “center,” maximizing an advantage over Caucasian/White counterparts at work. From the organization’s perspective, double consciousness or multiple social identity dimensions promotes “double dipping” when employees positively reflect on hiring statistics twice under both gender and “race” categories (Wilson & Gutierrez, 1985).

5.4. RACISM AND MICROAGGRESSIONS HAVE GONE UNDERGROUND While some suggest that racism in the post-civil rights United States is in decline (or has disappeared), others argue that covert discrimination lingers on (Brief & Hayes, 1997). As compared to Caucasians/Whites, people of color are: three times more likely to be poor, earn 40% less, and exact only 1/10 of their net wealth (Bonilla-Silva, 2009). Ferber (2007) qualified these numbers with the phrase, “the new racism” (p. 13). CRTs have posited that covert microaggressions usually are invisible; symptoms of an unconscious exclusionary worldview toward others (Sue, Bucceri, Lin, Nadal, & Torino, 2007). One research team defined microaggressions as “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults to the target person or group” (Sue et al., 2007, p. 273). Often, Caucasian/Whites are “unaware that they have committed an offensive racial act” (Sue, Lin, Torino, Capodilupo, & Rivera, 2009, p. 183), yet consequences for those offended manifest in a hostile and invalidating climate (Solo´rzano et al., 2000), as well as lower work productivity and problem-solving abilities (Salvatore & Shelton, 2007), and mental health issues (Sue, Capodilupo, & Holder, 2008). Smith, Yosso, and Solo´rzano, (2007) argued that many Caucasian/White people underestimate or deny that racism exists, even though they exhibit behaviors that propagate discrimination. Even when Caucasians/Whites are made aware of any racial microaggressions, many deny intent to offend, trivialize incidents (Sue & Constantine, 2007), and believe people of color are being “paranoid,” “oversensitive,” or “misinterpret” situations (Sue et al., 2009, p. 183). A common definition for racism, “disliking others (or regarding them as inferior) because of their race,” is flawed because it neglects to provide a backdrop of power, hierarchy, and social structure (Dalton, 1995, p. 92). Indeed, hidden acts of multiple discrimination obfuscate damaging power

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relations (Fernandes, 2003), so that microaggressions against ethnicity by someone from a power standpoint yields painful outcomes (Sue, Capodilupo, Nadal, & Torino, 2008) since “race” remains America’s “hidden wound” (Berry, 1970). Among the most recent frameworks for examining these issues in the United States is Wise’s (2010) concept of color-blind racism which suggests that racism is prolonged when critics are silenced and meaningful discussions about racial matters and the real work required for achieving racial equity is squelched. Color-blindness suggests that racism is blamed on “isolated acts of bigots or racial supremacists” and in effect defends Caucasian/White advantage and advances rhetoric about “white as victim” discourse (p. 267). Bonilla-Silva (2009) argued that covert racism has “a peculiar style characterized by slipperiness, apparent nonracialism, ambivalence … apparently contradictory, and often subtle” (pp. 41 42). During job application processes, study findings suggest that African Americans/Blacks and Latino/as are less likely than Caucasian/ White people to receive an interview or job offer (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004). If they do, people of color usually are concentrated in the lower levels of organizational hierarchy (Stainback & Tomaskovic-Devey, 2009). African Americans/Blacks file the most “race” charges with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Caucasians/Whites the fewest, with Asian American and Latino/a peoples’ reports somewhere in-between (Smith et al., 2007). Similarly, Hirsh and Lyons (2010) found during a multicity telephone employer survey that African-American/Black and Latino/a employees in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, and Los Angeles were more likely than Caucasian/White employees to identify a personal experience with workplace discrimination. Myopic perspectives tend to perpetuate stereotypes rather than promoting virtues of workplace heterogeneity (Allen, 1995), even when a stereotype looks like something positive. Asian Americans, for instance, are considered a “model minority,” a group which has assimilated and excels without complaint. While “sophisticated stereotyping” (Osland & Bird, 2000, p. 65) appears on the surface to be complimentary, it simply masks institutionalized barriers like a glass ceiling which blocks Asian-American women’s career growth because they are stereotyped as poor manager material (Woo, 2000), subservient (Shi, 2008), and willing to work for less (Hossfeld, 1994). Clearly, microaggressions fuel and perpetuate stereotypes, and women of color are at a disadvantage as compared to Caucasian/ White women with whom they compete to gain organizational influence and mentor support, so they face “double marginalization” due to their overlapping ethnic and gender identity (Giscombe & Mattis, 2002, p. 117).

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5.5. INTERSECTIONALITY OF ETHNICITY WITH OTHER SOCIAL IDENTITY DIMENSIONS Another flaw of the requisite variety concept as a technique for benchmarking an organization’s degree of internal diversity is its inattention to social identity intersectionalities; a concept that critical race scholars use to capture interconnections and interdependence of multiple and overlapping identity dimensions. It is useful to examine ways that researchers of multiple disciplines have examined ethnic social identities as they intersect with gender, sexual orientation, religion, social class, and age. Among U.S. women and men, gender and ethnic social identity dimensions combine in salient ways. The glass ceiling metaphor has been tailored to illustrate experiences of women of color who seek to achieve their full potential in specific fields. African-American/Black women’s experiences have been likened to a “concrete wall” (Bell & Nkomo, 2001) and “concrete ceiling” (Higginbotham, 1999). For Latinas, it is characterized as an “adobe ceiling” and as a “two-way mirror” because they feel under constant surveillance (Woo, 2000). Also, the “bamboo ceiling” describes Asian-American women’s experiences (Woo, 2000). Intersections of ethnic, gender, and sexual identity dimensions also have captured the attention of organizational researchers and social critics. Wage differentials of about 5.8% less were experienced among non-Caucasian/White gay, lesbian, or bisexual workers as compared to Caucasian/White heterosexual counterparts (Blandford, 2003). A central argument among masculinity scholars is that heterosexist and homophobic constructions of hypermasculinity in African-American/Black, Caucasian/White, and Latino communities are shaped in reaction to systems of capitalism, patriarchy and racism as a means to resist “White domination” (Gutmann, 2003). Intersectionalites of ethnic and other social identity dimensions also have been investigated. In terms of faith/spirituality, Ward (2005) suggested that it is unclear whether or not Black churches are more homophobic than any others, yet hooks (2004) argued that conservative religious traditions that denounce homosexuality harm all communities. Pitt (2010) found that code words of “punk” and “sissy” are among homophobic rhetoric spoken from Black church pulpits. Such outcomes in wider social spheres undoubtedly spill into the workplace. Some have examined the intersection of ethnicity with social class, positing that these dimensions are inseparable (Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke, & Roberts, 1978). Cockburn (1991) pointed out that social class hierarchies are mapped onto gender, “race,”

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and other dimensions, so that disadvantages may be compounded which is the case for low-paying jobs at organizations’ lowest ranks; typically occupied by working class Black women. Also, tensions between whether to live among one’s economic or ethnic peers creates inner conflict for some upwardly mobile ethnic groups in the United States, including Chicanos (Frankenberg, 1993). In Japan, the upwardly mobile male white-collar male is stereotyped as “the salary man” (Roberson & Suzuki, 2003). In the United Kingdom, McRobbie (2009) underscored the salience of access to education and jobs in Asian communities as factors which shape opportunities or limitations. Lastly, many valuable insights have been shared among researchers who have studied ways that ethnicity and age interplay as social identity intersectionalities. In the United States, Pompper (2011) documented how women of color experience workplace ageism, racism, and sexism with most serious implications beyond midlife. Working-class women of color are highly vulnerable to negative economic fluctuations since their lower earnings over the life course (as compared to men and Caucasian/ White women) offer grim prospects for retirement income (Cruikshank, 2013). Similarly, prospects for African-American/Black men and their families also are compromised if they have been incarcerated (Malveaux, 1990).

5.6. DISCUSSION Understanding how organizations have become hard-wired to perpetuate White privilege could help to dismantle systemic barriers which continue to stand between people of color and an ability to reach their full potential at work. Indeed, understanding of power and difference in organizations requires consistent diligence in the United States because there is more work to do even though some may think that ethnic prejudices are extinct. The low numbers in certain kinds of jobs and wage differentials experienced among most people of color, as well as the stories they tell of discrimination at work are highly relevant. Using ethnic diversity primarily as a means for advancing profit-centric motives rather than advancing social justice places self-interest over morality. Similarly, thinking about ethnic diversity in terms of quotas or other numbers scenarios overlooks homogeneity’s roots. One place for organizations to begin looking is at the top among organization leadership; people whom Cox (2001) called “change leaders” (p. xviii). It is certain that Caucasian/White homogeneous

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workplaces produce multiple negative effects for people of color, such as othering, tokenism, racism, and microaggressions that are more covert than overt these days. And finally, it is not enough to simply regard people in terms of their ethnic identity; rather to consider meaningful ways that this dimension intersects with age, gender, sexual orientation, social class, spirituality/faith, and more. That so many organizations have failed to make ethnic diversity a reality really is no shock (but it is a disappointment) since so many companies are inhospitable and unwelcome places for people who look different from the majority (Cox, 2001). That Bonilla-Silva’s (2002) rhetorical analysis of ways young people’s everyday talk masks underlying color blind racism is a regret, too, given that millennials are purported to be highly receptive to multiculturalism (McGlynn, 2005). Too often, organizations cannot see beyond their front door and fail to fully embrace their stakeholder communities by developing real two-way relationships with them; a myopia that backfires during times of crisis (Liu & Pompper, 2012). Thus, organizational communication researchers and diversity managers in organizations must expand their own worldview of ethnic diversity by looking at instances of discrimination beyond management ranks by turning the lens toward experiences of people of color working at blue-collar jobs; especially those employees who otherwise are invisible because they work the graveyard shift cleaning up after everyone else. Moreover, the number of studies conducted in for-profit organizations far exceed numbers of those that use nonprofits and NGOs as context; sites where people of color often feel a strong affinity (Pompper, 2004).

KEY TERMS Color-blind racism This is a “racial” ideology for examining the enduring effects of racism in the United States. Bonilla-Silva (2009) examined subtle linguistic techniques that people use; catch-phrases for communicating about “race” or to “talk nasty about Blacks without sounding racist” (p. 41). Wise (2010) posited that the color-blind concept describes a phenomenon wherein Caucasian/White privilege remains hidden when bigotry and racism is blamed on isolated, individual acts. Imagined diversity People of color become signs or ambassadors of imagined diversity in organizations were Caucasian/White employees and

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managers dominate. Permeating such organizations is relative silence about difference. For the few people of color hired to represent or embody diversity, the false pretenses soon become obvious since they may experience microaggressions not limited to marginalization, othering, tokenism, pigeonholing, and more. Liminal spaces When considering intersectionality of gender and ethnicity social identity dimensions, for example, Ladson-Billings (2000) explained that both are highly relevant and that one is not necessarily more salient than the other since people who occupy liminal spaces are positioned beyond any normative dichotomy and offered a unique vantage point from which to consider issues, circumstances, and events. Microaggression Davis (1989) defined racial microaggressions as “stunning, automatic acts of disregard that stem from unconscious attitudes of White superiority and constitute a verification of black inferiority” (p. 1576). These might include subtle or unconscious verbal or nonverbal insults directed toward people of color. Model minority To some, Asians and Asian Americans are regarded as the perfect minority group; quiet, respectful, hard working, with strong family ties and high educational achievement. They are perceived as having assimilated without complaint. Yet, like all stereotypes, this one also can be injurious as a benchmark that is hard to live up to (Pompper, 2011) and a source of resentment for other ethnic groups who may be poor or feel blamed for not living up to high standards (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). Prejudice This is “an antipathy based on a faulty and inflexible generalization. It may be felt or expressed. It may be directed toward a group as a whole, or toward an individual because he [sic] is a member of that group. … The net effect of prejudice, thus defined, is to place the object of prejudice at some disadvantage not merited by his own misconduct” (Allport, 1954, p. 9). Racism Wellman (1993) defined racism as: “Racism can mean culturally sanctioned beliefs which, regardless of the intentions involved, defend the advantages whites have because of the subordinated position of racial minorities … racism need not be restricted to the obvious hostilities expressed by bigots, nor found solely among the ranks of lower- and working-class people. It is seen to be more pervasive, existing throughout the American class structure” (p. xi).

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Requisite variety This concept is based on Weick’s (1979) recommendation that organizations’ internal stakeholders should look like their external stakeholders. Yet, requisite variety is limited by only social identity dimensions that are visible.

‘‘White trash’’ stereotypes and ethnic pride that ‘‘dares not speak its name’’ Caucasian/White people have ethnicity, too. Indeed, social group differences and effects of social identity intersectionalities must be considered when examining the phenomenon of Caucasian/White ethnic identity. Ways that Whiteness plays out varies significantly across social locations and across groups. Indeed, the Whiteness literature is diverse and large. Rather than representing some monolithic concept, Whiteness is complex and situated (McDermott & Samson, 2005) with the poor, working-class, and lesser-educated experiencing the most negative outcomes (Hartigan, 2005; McDermott, 2006). Wise (2008) opined that Caucasian/White people who fail to live up to ‘‘high standards set by Whiteness’’ may be considered ‘‘White trash’’; people who have fallen short of high expectations established for Caucasian/White groups. Another defensive reaction monitored by Whiteness scholars is the emergence of a White pride movement when Caucasian/White workingclass people in the United States felt marginalized in the context of 1960s civil rights political actions by other ethnic groups organizing black, brown, and red power movements (Hsu, 2009). Sociologist Matt Wray (2006) was one of the White studies founders and he opined that much confusion surrounds the field: ‘‘[A] ‘white power’ movement, it doesn’t sound good.’’ Sociocultural dividing lines, or boundaries of Caucasian/White ‘‘racial’’ identities, are embodied in the ‘‘White trash’’ concept (Wray, 2006); a defensive identification (Hartigan, 2003). Also, the widespread ‘‘hillbilly,’’ ‘‘poor White trash,’’ and ‘‘redneck’’ labels blend ethnic and socioeconomic class social identity dimensions in stereotypically, derogatory ways in the United States. Hartigan (1997) explained that poor Caucasian/White people from the South long have been characterized as ‘‘White trash,’’ a denigrated form of Whiteness from which middle- and upper-class Caucasian/White people seek to distance themselves since these others have disrupted the hegemonic norm of unmarked Whiteness. Links between teen marriage and being Caucasian/White contribute to the ‘‘White trash’’ stereotype (Wray, 2006). Stories about such people make for heightened drama with cautionary tales for popular culture television

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programming (Squire, 2002). During the mid-19th century there emerged a eugenics movement in the United States to keep separate the social classes among Caucasians/Whites to avoid gene pool corruption (Graves, 2001). Even 19th century diaries of East-coast women westering as pioneers featured biases against economically disadvantaged people who basically looked like them; characterizing them as ‘‘inferior’’ and resisting opportunities to associate with them, writing: ‘‘These new folks … seem not the class I care to mingle with, so we shall keep to ourselves and our wagon’’ (Myres, 1982, p. 96).

Self-reflection and discussion questions 1. What symptoms of power relations as they construct ethnic difference have you experienced at work? 2. How might you intervene in a situation where you witness microaggressions directed against a person or group? 3. In what ways do you see evidence that some people think that ‘‘racial’’ prejudice is over in the United States? 4. How do you see White privilege playing out at work? 5. What are some examples of ways your own ethnic social identity intersects with another dimension, such as age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or social class? How do you become aware of this?

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CHAPTER 6 CREATING SPACE FOR GENDER DIFFERENCE AT ALL ORGANIZATIONAL LEVELS

ABSTRACT Gender remains a politically charged and powerful ideological social identity dimension that categorically essentializes and reproduces opportunities and limitations in organizations. Addressed in Chapter 6 are assumptions about gender and ways that gender classifications and gender roles form and spill forth into both work and home life for an overlap of public and private spheres that disadvantage women and privilege men. Furthermore, femininity and masculinity constructs strengthen the power system that undergirds them, reinforces their meanings, and perpetuates behaviors, changing over time, across and within cultures, and over the life course. In organizations, the glass ceiling metaphor has become a popular representation of inequality in the workplace for women, people of color and sexual minorities; a phenomenon expanded in recent years to include glass walls and glass cliffs to describe advancement barriers. Genderneutral mindsets and blame-the-victim strategies found in organizations are examined, as well as the breadwinner role and intersectionalities of gender with social identity dimensions of age, ethnicity, and social class. Chapter 6 is divided into these subthemes: gender, roles, femininity, and masculinity; power and gender inequality at work, and effects on women; gender, parenting, and the second shift; the breadwinner role, hegemonic masculinity, and masculinity in crisis; gendered occupations and feminization of career fields; intersectionalities of gender with age, 99

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ethnicity, and social class; and shattering schemas with androgyny and transgenderism. Keywords: Federal Glass Ceiling Commission (FGCC); Gender; gender role; glass structure; second shift; sex; sexism; transgender; transvestite

This chapter overviews a vast collection of research across multiple disciplines and theory streams shaped by an understanding that gender is learned (not something one is born with) and examines specific ways that gender difference plays out in organizations and traverses private-public sphere overlap (home life/social and work life). For centuries, sex as a biologically defining characteristic among humans came to represent what it means to be a woman or a man referring to genitalia, physicality, and reproduction. In more recent decades, gender is used (in contrast to sex) as a means for exploring the socially indoctrinated ways of considering what it means to be a man or to be a woman. An ideology of separate spheres long has justified separation of men to wage earning outside the home and women to nonwage earning labor inside the home (Goodwin & Risman, 2001). Kaufman (1994) explained gender as “the central organizing category of our psyches … the axis around which we organize our personalities” (p. 144) and Hall (2000) explained it as encompassing the “full continuum of individual, group or organizational, and institutional or societal processes of differentiation and stratification” (p. 93) while Goffman (1976) understood gender as a performance and a display. Social constructionists have considered how deeply embedded power arrangements shape social inequity according to gender. Since the 1970s, there has been much attention to ways gender relations shape labor markets. The main axis of power in many areas of the world is male domination and subordination of women and some men (Connell, 1995, 2001). Much evidence has suggested that power arrangements forge gender disparity at work with women receiving lower earnings in devalued jobs and diminished prospects for career advancement over the life course. Women continue to enter the labor force in greater percentages than men (U.S. Department of Labor, 2000). Moreover, U.S. women still find themselves working a second shift at home, balancing career and home life; some serving as family breadwinners since the economic downturn during December 2007 through June 2009. Clearly, many men the world over no longer enjoy unlimited privilege

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due to shifting world economies and experience un and underemployment, which diminishes their breadwinner status and supports redefined masculinity and male gender roles. Gendered occupations and feminization trends in women-concentrated fields also are explored. Morgan (1992) posited that experiences of men working in nontraditional occupations “can be treated as mini-dramas through which we can begin to explore the tensions and complexities of gender identities and the gender order” (p. 140). Gendered social identity intersections with dimensions of age, ethnicity/“race”, and social class also are explored since gender-based division of labor concepts must be viewed in socioeconomic contexts. Finally, this chapter examines unique gender identities that set themselves apart from traditional gender schemas: androgyny and transgenderism. Study findings of ways that these gender identities unfold in the workplace suggest that coworkers predominantly react to ambiguity and expectancy violations about gendered identity as biologically determined with confusion, hostility, and discrimination. Gender in organizations is examined according to subthemes of: gender, roles, femininity, and masculinity; power and gender inequity at work, and effects on women; gender, parenting, and the second shift; the breadwinner role, hegemonic masculinity, and masculinity in crisis; gendered occupations and feminization of career fields; intersectionalities of gender with age, ethnicity, and social class; and shattering schemas with androgyny and transgenderism.

6.1. GENDER, ROLES, FEMININITY, AND MASCULINITY Most human societies distinguish between female and male and ascribe gender-specific roles for each so much so that people of Western cultures seem unable to imagine the possibility of an un-gendered self (Butler, 1990). Characterizing gender as “a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction,” West and Zimmerman (1987) resolved that “doing gender” is unavoidable (p. 125). Such processes include categorizing femininity and masculinity so that people learn to experience, internalize, and sustain as natural this binary’s significance (MacKinnon, 2003); “prototypes of essential expression” (Goffman, 1976, p. 75, italics added). Defining masculinity and femininity challenges social researchers to avoid reductionism and generalization limitations, but nonacademics easily equate femaleness with femininity and maleness with masculinity (Hoffman, Hattie, & Borders,

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2005). While psychologists measure femininity and masculinity with instruments, precision and transparency in definitions and internalized processes remain opaque since each construct is fluid and varies according to context and time (Spence & Buckner, 1995). Eventually, masculinity “will come to have no special connection to either biological sex” (MacInnes, 1998, p. 48). Context shapes “gendered acts” that represent an organization’s “underlying character” (Mills & Chiaramonte, 1991, p. 381), so it is useful to examine gender at work in terms of masculinity (dominance) and femininity (deference) which ideologically shapes and perpetuates hierarchies (West & Zimmerman, 1987). Organizations legitimize certain gender performances over others and Kanter (1977) suggested that a top corporate manager’s image “elevates the traits assumed to belong to some men to necessities for effective management” (p. 22) such as analytic ability, lack of emotion, and tough-mindedness. Hence, masculinity becomes hegemonic and firmly entrenches a standard by which all other social identities are assessed as opposite and lesser, including those of women, ethnic and sexual minorities (Connell, 1987), some men, age groups, and able-bodied people (Kimmel, 2001). Female sexuality and women’s bodies in terms of pregnancy, breastfeeding, menstruation, child care, and emotions inspire uneasiness and prompt controls from organizations (Acker, 1990) and women who fail at practicing femininity as subordinate may be relegated to lowest status (Collinson & Collinson, 1996). Yet, men who perpetuate masculinism gain high status (Martin, 2003), even though not all masculinities are equal (Kimmel, 2001). Hence, masculinity should be considered in the plural to acknowledge intersectionality with other social identity dimensions (Beynon, 2002). Gender roles are products of gender relations, passed through generations as socially conditioned norms which become internalized and accepted as common sense. Femininity and masculinity are positioned as mutually exclusive opposites; with each depending upon the other for sex role definition and location in the labor force. Hence, male social identity depends on distance from females/femininity (MacKinnon, 2003) and homosexuality (Gutterman, 1994), such that masculinity is equated with authority and mastery and femininity with passivity and subordination (Kimmel, 1987). Even before feminism and women’s studies emerged as a research discipline, maleness served as the center or the norm, while everything female was marginalized as the other (de Beauvoir, 1949/1952). The male role involves “social ideals to which male behaviour is expected to aspire, if not actually encompass” (Mackinnon, 2003, p. 9) and includes procreating and providing for children; shaped by “not doing the things that mothers do” (Coltrane, 1989, p. 473). Womanhood includes

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prioritizing of child care and domestic tasks; markers of women’s “gendered relation to men and to the world” (Coltrane, 1989, p. 473).

6.2. POWER AND GENDER INEQUITY AT WORK, AND EFFECTS ON WOMEN Right now, women are a growing number of breadwinners in the household. But they’re still earning just 77 cents for every dollar a man does even less if you’re an African American or Latina woman. Overall, a woman with a college degree doing the same work as a man will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the course of her career. So closing this pay gap ending pay discrimination is about far more than simple fairness. When more women are bringing home the bacon, but bringing home less of it than men who are doing the same work, that weakens families, it weakens communities, it’s tough on our kids, it weakens our entire economy. U.S. President Barack Obama, April 6, 2012 (Equal Pay Task Force, 2012).

Gender balance remains elusive at many organizations since men dominate top organization levels. Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, sex, color, religion, or national origin in public accommodations, education, and employment. Also, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was established to administrate Title VII the employment section of the Civil Rights Act and received enforcement powers in 1972. Women have become increasingly vocal to gain support in the court of public opinion, often launching mass boycotts and winning class-action discrimination suits against corporations that refuse to reform hiring, promotion and wage policies. Overall, women are segregated into industries and occupations that are deemed less desirable than those where men typically work and women always have earned less than men since the U.S. government began reporting household incomes in 1960 (Dozier, Sha, & Okura, 2007). To gain perspective on these inequities, researchers of gender in organizations have found that women experience multiple workplace barriers, especially those who seek highest management levels. At the turn of the 20th century, progressive social reform legislation eventually led to improved wages and working conditions for most women. As of 2013, more than half (59.2%) of U.S. labor force participants were women (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013a); yet, men continue to out-earn women. In 2010, the median annual earnings for full-time year-round women workers was $36,931 as compared to men at $47,715 (Catalyst Research,

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2013a). In 2012, the median weekly earnings for full-time working women was $691 as compared to $854 for men and among full-time management and professional levels, women’s median weekly earnings was $951 as compared to men’s $1,328 (Catalyst Research, 2013a). Moreover, a gendered wage gap persists according to age, with women earning a range of 75.1% (age 55 64) to 93.2% (age 22 24) of men’s earnings (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2011). As of May 9, 2013, at Fortune 500 companies, only 20 (4.0%) women were CEOs (Women CEOs, 2013). Also, as of 2012, only 16.6% of board of directors seats at Fortune 500 companies were held by women (Catalyst Research, 2013b). Women’s second-class status in the workplace relative to men has deep historical roots. Until World War II, most U.S. White women who worked outside the home were those of lowest socioeconomic status (Betz, 1993) and a woman’s social class was determined in relation to either her father’s or husband’s class status (Hughes, 2004). Much earlier, women of color filled service and low-skill jobs and Jim Crow laws institutionalized female African-Americans’ devalued status, as the only jobs they were deemed qualified for were domestic, sharecropper, cook, and seamstress. Historically, Latinas have worked outside the home; experiences shaped by centuries of imperialism and colonialism throughout Latin America. Even organizations that masquerade as being gender neutral perpetuate gender inequity for women. In a study of men and women who work in prisons, Britton (1997) found that the same set of organizational policies as applied in both male- and female-concentrated contexts created the same degrees of advantage for male workers and disadvantage for female workers. In business settings, women routinely are urged to enroll in assertiveness and management training programs where they are taught stereotypically masculine behaviors. Such blame-the-victim strategies fail to change organizational infrastructures which support the status quo, however. Because organizations attempt to suppress sexuality in organizations, effort is exerted to keep men and women separate by excluding women through job segregation (Burrell, 1984). Today, affirmative action rollbacks in California and Washington, backlash of feminism, and perceptions that sufficient workplace policies and government support is in place to help working women and mothers means that some in the United States seek a return to what they consider “traditional goals” and signals a “pause in progress toward gender equality” (Eagly & Carli, 2003, p. 67). Indeed, women of the third millennium continue to face challenges in achieving their full potential at work; barriers in the form of networking shortages, glass ceiling obstacles, work/family negotiation, stress, sexism, and racism. Intervening factors such as industry and sector also factor into

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women’s ability to advance to top hierarchies. Some researchers have found, for instance, that manufacturing organizations were less likely to hire and promote women; perhaps because they view top women managers as incongruent with competitive advantage the way some nonmanufacturing operations do (Goodman, Fields, & Blum, 2003). The glass ceiling metaphor is a popular symbol of inequity in the workplace for women, defined as: “… artificial barriers based on attitudinal or organizational bias that prevent qualified individuals from advancing upward in their organization into management-level positions” (U.S. Department of Labor, 1991, p. 1). A Federal Glass Ceiling Commission was established under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and reported that women were advancing toward highest pay and other rewards above the glass ceiling at exceptionally slow rates due to stereotypes in organizations (U.S. Department of Labor, 1995). Women perceived to be lacking in managerial preparedness exacerbate glass ceiling effects (Woo, 2000). Similarly, Ryan and Haslam (2005) wrote of glass cliffs; when women who do make it to leadership positions but are set up for failure. Psychological processes mediate attainment of top-management positions by women because they either are perceived as incapable of dealing with high stress levels and so are not given a chance, or workplace dynamics make the positions too stressful for women, or seek to “protect men from it” (Ryan, Haslam, Hersby, Kulich, Wilson-Kovacs, 2009, p. 159). A labyrinth metaphor also is used to illustrate the complexity of women’s journey in organizations (Eagly & Carli, 2003). Having significant numbers of women at entry- and mid-levels is an inadequate strategy for shattering the organizational glass ceiling since top management must be committed to women as leaders (Goodman et al., 2003). Women have responded to workplace pressures in a number of ways. Some women attend to power dressing and competitive behaviors in order to “pass” in organizations that privilege the masculine (Hughes, 2004, p. 201). The imposter syndrome describes women who feel like frauds unworthy of assimilating into a patriarchal system (Bell & Young, 1986) or clutch to technical tasks with which they feel comfortable rather than attempting to advance to management (Wright, Grunig, Springston, & Toth, 1991). Women may create their own flexibility by taking an “off ramp” to leave their career to have and raise children and then take an “on ramp” to return to work (Hewlett, 2007). However, career interruptions of a year or more for women tend to negatively affect salary and career growth opportunities. Women spend an average 11.5 years out of the labor force, compared to 1.3 years for men (Davis, Grant, & Rowland, 1992). In some career fields, women have embarked upon a pattern of “out-spiraling

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career moves” (Bell & Nkomo, 2001, p. 161) which includes women of color who launch their own consultancies after failing to break the glass ceiling. Despite decades of popular media advice that women secure a mentor, The New York Times reported that women instead should secure a “sponsor” to foster a more symbiotic relationship wherein the prote´ge´ pays for advice and opportunities (Hewlett, 2013, p. BU7). A covert effect of power misused in women-minority workplaces involves certain women adopting patriarchal values systems of organizational hierarchies and misdirecting them at other women who seek to advance. Called the queen bee syndrome, some women who make it to upper-middle or lower-top management create inhospitable workplaces for other women by refusing to mentor or support those on lower hierarchies and even consciously seek to sabotage them by withholding information, marginalizing, micromanaging, and intimidating (Pompper, 2012). Such women worry that their hard-won gains could disappear unless they compete like men and protect the status quo (Corsun & Costen, 2001).

6.3. GENDER, PARENTING, AND THE SECOND SHIFT Why men still out earn women and reap faster promotions in the United States has prompted hundreds of correlational studies by sociologists, economists, and others who seek to discover why gender inequity persists in the workplace. The most comprehensive study conducted in the United States was the U.S. Government Accountability Office 1983 2000 survey with findings suggesting that parenthood and marriage were associated with higher wages for men but not for women (Eagly & Carli, 2003, p. 64). Women are socialized to an image of domestic life of biological reproduction, even if they work outside the home (Bianchi, 2011). During 2003 2006, 43% of married mothers and 88% of married fathers were employed full time (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013b). Baby Boom and Baby Bust women have invested more heavily in their careers as compared to past generations of women and have greater career aspirations (Shu & Marini, 1998), higher levels of educational attainment (Meyer, Ramirez, Rubinson, & Boli-Bennett, 1977), and higher rates of labor force participation during their childbearing years (Spain & Bianchi, 1996). With this sweeping social change, women have experienced tension in reconciling paid employment and working the “second shift” as primary

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family caregivers and homemakers (Hochschild, 1989). Some women choose flexible part-time or “family-friendly” jobs even though these generally offer lower earnings and lesser prospects for career advancement (Crittenden, 2001). Some organizations have built-in systems that exacerbate challenges for women who work the second shift, such as uneven access to flexible work schedules more likely is offered to higher income workers who are men (Williams, 2010) while low-wage workers, especially women, deal with fluctuating schedules and uncertain hours that can negatively impact parenting responsibilities (Crocker & Clawson, 2012). Also, women are overlooked for advancement due to being stereotyped as less committed to paid work (Hewlett, 2007) with limited interest in career advancement (Wood, 2005), or on the “mommy track” (Stone, 2007). Serious side effects of women’s quest to balance work and family is that they underinvest in social capital; too little time to network, expand their weak ties, and socialize with colleagues (Eagly & Carli, 2003), and ultimately experience diminished job satisfaction and self-esteem (Carr, 2002). Housework is not inherently gendered and a review of household labor studies published between 2000 and 2009 offered findings which suggested strong links with gender equity issues (Lachance-Grzela & Bouchard, 2010). On the one hand, the average U.S. married father spends more time doing paid work and less doing unpaid family work than the average married mother and men do more housework before marriage than after (Lachance-Grzela & Bouchard, 2010). On the other hand, men and women who entered adulthood in the late 1960s and beyond are engaging in more egalitarian division of household labor with each cohort of men more likely than their predecessors to adjust their work schedule in response to family responsibilities and each successive cohort of women less likely to exit the labor market (Carr, 2002). As compared to other major industrialized nations of the world, the United States was a relative latecomer to offering protection for paid leave from work for family responsibilities. The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) provides some workers with a legal right to unpaid, job-protected leave for 12 weeks and may be used by men or women for childbirth or new child in the family, and sick child, parent, or spouse. This statute protects employees from retaliatory treatment or termination by employers should they use leave protected by the FMLA. Yet, Sabattini and Crosby (2009) discovered stigmas associated with actually asking employers to take advantage of family friendly policies so that perhaps not as many people are benefitting from them as they could be.

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6.4. THE BREADWINNER ROLE, HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY, AND MASCULINITY IN CRISIS Exploring the origins and degrees of power and privilege experienced and exercised by men in organizations, particularly those who are Caucasian/ White, is relevant to explaining how structuring of workplace policies and environments impact all employees. Regardless of social class, men have more access to power and privilege than women such that even workingclass men can take advantage of accrued male superiority and privilege. Influence of the male breadwinner norm is strong in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden (Sainsbury, 1996). However, at the outset of the 21st century, the male breadwinner model operated in only one third of U.S. households (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004, 2008a). Many households require two salaries for family support (Carr, 2002) and men experience cognitive dissonance in losing their hold on the traditional breadwinner role and gaining a role as involved fathers and partners. Rural men may have adapted their masculine identity and male gender role to accommodate fatherhood responsibilities (Sherman, 2009), but other men have mixed reactions to a gender shift in breadwinning (Johnston & Swanson, 2007). Such shocks to systems by which men have defined their social identity for generations signals that masculinity is “in crisis.” About one third of U.S. households feature a female breadwinner (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics 2004, 2008a) and women are becoming increasingly comfortable with this role as they experience greater self-esteem with control over their income, property, sexuality, education, and career ambitions (Coltrane, 2010). The concept of hegemonic masculinity provides additional backdrop to understanding how gender and power play out in the workplace. Hegemonic masculinity describes a set of beliefs and assumptions widely regarded as the ideal for men; relating to ways men achieve high selfesteem, as well as “a particular variety of masculinity to which women and homosexual or effeminate men” are subordinated (MacKinnon, 2003, p. 9). While some men backlash against women’s growing numbers in the workplace (Faludi, 1991), others remain doubtful about any sense of superiority over women (Stern, 2003). Caucasian/White men have become “marked men” (p. 2) since their position at the “center” has been so openly challenged by women and people of color (Robinson, 2000, p. 2). In fact, this dynamic has forced some men to confront their group identity, even if only to collectively acknowledge any diminishing power and privilege.

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Masculinity and femininity, as boundaried concepts, are breaking down (Stern, 2003). Masculinity studies has garnered significantly wider attention in recent years and some have proclaimed that masculinity is nearing its end as a gendered identity dimension that belongs exclusively to heterosexual males (Beynon, 2002) since both female and male versions of both masculinity and femininity play out in gendered social identities (Cornwall & Lindisfarne, 1994). Kimmel (1994) explained that even though men, historically, have “occupied virtually all positions of power … this power did not translate to a feeling of being powerful at the individual level … This helps to explain why many men seem to be looking for power rather than revelling in their experience of it” (p. xii). Moreover, men suffer untreated anxiety and depression throughout the life course; feeling that they cannot possibly measure up to dominant manhood ideals (Stern, 2003), feel confined by masculine stereotypes, and feel misunderstood by women (Farrell, 1986). In fact, a social movement positions men as the oppressed sex (MacInnes, 1998). Among researchers who study the male breadwinner role, hegemonic masculinity, and masculinity in crisis, all tend to agree on one point: men’s attempts to live up to a hegemonic masculinity ideal has had “disastrous consequences for women” (Kimmel, 1994, p. xii).

6.5. GENDERED OCCUPATIONS AND FEMINIZATION OF CAREER FIELDS A particularly fruitful arena for examining shifting gendered social identities at work is career fields that have evolved into women-concentrated occupations while men find themselves among a minority. Occupational fields such as accounting, child care work, clerical work, dentistry, elementary school teaching, human resources, library science, nursing, pharmacy, public relations, and social work involve duties thought to require feminine traits of nurturing, caring, and empathy and still are considered more appropriate for women (Cross & Bagilhole, 2002). Hence, men working in “feminized” fields (Cline et al., 1986, p. I-2) experience multiple side effects not entirely disparate from those that women have endured in other occupational fields by virtue of standing out from a male-dominant group. News is mixed for women, men, and gendered social identities at work. First the good news. Both women and men working in nontraditional job contexts (masculine and feminine-typed jobs, respectively) tend to earn relatively higher salaries than their counterpart gender group (Goldberg,

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Finkelstein, Perry, & Konrad, 2004). This may suggest that standing out demographically pays well; perhaps because employers are concerned about perceptions of fair treatment so they overcompensate. Now for the bad news. Men as minorities in women-concentrated occupations experience severe biases; marginalization, stereotyping, tokenism, role entrapment, and routinely are perceived as unmanly or effeminate (Wingfield, 2010). Additional effects for men may include low self-esteem, feelings of being bruised by feminism, perceived attacks on masculinity (Adams, 2005), and a homosexual stigma (Heickes, 1991). Pompper and Jung (2013) found that men encounter the negative effects of being a gender minority at entry- and mid-levels in U.S. public relations to the degree that they are uncertain whether there will be room for them at the top since they predict women eventually will dominate those hierarchies, too. Findings of a U.K. study of men working in woman-concentrated occupations of primary-school teaching, human-resource management and librarianship suggested that men were motivated to pursue these fields thinking they would be free of competition from men for an easy route to the top (Lupton, 2006). To bolster their masculine identities, some men have developed coping mechanisms and techniques for overcoming gender bias in womenconcentrated fields, while others simply seek to gain workplace advantage over the women. In the case of male clerical workers, some men play up a competitive killer instinct consistent with hegemonic masculinity norms (Henson & Rogers, 2001) and male nurses seek opportunities for horizontal job segregation apart from women by creating male-dominated subspecialties (Snyder & Green, 2009). Low degrees of job satisfaction emerge among women in organizations when a male minority taps into traditional male gender privilege to acquire special treatment (Wharton & Baron, 1991). Hegemonic masculinity remains embedded in organizations, as “men ride glass escalators upward” while women are trapped to “sticky floors beneath glass ceilings” (Cohen, 2001, p. 278). Acker (1990) posited that masculinity “always seems to symbolize self-respect for men at the bottom and power for men at the top, while confirming for both their gender’s superiority” (p. 145).

6.6. INTERSECTIONALITIES OF GENDER WITH AGE, ETHNICITY, AND SOCIAL CLASS Feminists join masculinity theorists in unpacking myths about homophily and emphasizing the relevance of fluidity, social construction, historical

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roots, individual, collective group experiences (Gardiner, 2002), and social identity intersectionalities. Crenshaw (1995) opined that researchers have waged battles over which social identity dimension is most important gender, ethnicity/race, or social class and resolved that analyses which focus on interactions among social power dimensions are necessary. Ways that gender intersects with all social identity dimensions are important, but none have received more attention in the scholarly literature than age, ethnicity/“race,” or social class. Women often experience more discontinuities in their occupational trajectories compared to men which leads to gendered patterns of social capital accumulation which impacts old age realities. Social identity shaped by age and gender intersectionalities becomes visible when comparing income of younger and older women; with the latter group faring much worse (McRobbie, 2009). Also, men tend to be more self-assured than women from mid-adulthood to late adulthood; a pattern that flattens in old age due to men’s anxieties about impending retirement and sense of personal worth linked to a breadwinning identity (Miner-Rubino, Winter, & Stewart, 2009). Both women and men have reported anxiety associated with aging at increasingly earlier ages (Gullette, 1997). Perhaps because some Caucasian/White researchers seem blind to the fact that African-American/Black and Caucasian/White women are situated differently within the gender-power system (Bell & Nkomo, 2001), significantly fewer studies focus specifically on workplace experiences of women of color even though it is widely acknowledged that an ethnically diverse senior-level management is an anomaly in the United States (Pompper, 2004). Indeed, women of color at midlife reflected on social movements begun five decades ago, and lamented that a Caucasianmalecentric model prevails (Pompper, 2011). Acker (1990) argued that class relations are always gendered and that control of work procedures, wage scales, and relations in the workplace all reproduce class structure. Class divisions have wide-ranging impacts and reveal significant gaps between haves and have nots with regard to basics such as reproductive labor. For example, families of means can afford to pay for support in the form of wet nurses, nannies, surrogate mothers, domestic help, as well as private schooling for their children (Coltrane, 2010) while working-class people tend to rely more on grandmothers or other relatives for high-quality child care (Williams, 2000). Even though feminist researchers are criticized for focusing primarily on the conditions of middle-class women (Spelman, 1990), researchers of other scholarly traditions have noted how social class cuts across gender to produce unique social identity intersectionalities that play out in the workplace, such as among working-class Italian American

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women, middle-class Asian American women, and more (Bell & Nkomo, 1992).

6.7. SHATTERING SCHEMAS WITH ANDROGYNY AND TRANSGENDERISM Being a gender involves doing a gender and neither activity is simple nor necessarily synonymous (Kessler & McKenna, 1978). Perhaps this point is most salient when considering people who shatter traditional gender norms, do not fit neatly into gender stereotypes, appear to be “a real gender bender” (Dalton, 1995, p. 65) and consequently violate most people’s expectancies about gendered identity as biologically determined. Recalling that most organizations generally prefer to foster a work environment that is gender blind, we know that femininity and masculinity constructs may prove challenging among organizational players and disrupt business-asusual routines in three general conditions: (1) when employees are unable to visually discern an androgynous or metrosexual coworker’s gender, (2) when male transvestites perform femininity by wearing women’s clothing, and (3) when transgender employees alter their sex-at-birth body. Most of these activities are stigmatized the world over since many people subscribe to “if we can tell the difference our own identity is certain” (Garber, 1992, p. 130). The complexity of every individual may manifest in “incoherent,” “discontinuous,” and nonconforming gendered beings which may seem incongruous with “norms” and serve to destabilize categories of gender and sexuality (Butler, 1990, p. 17) which also further complicates gender theory building. First, androgyny problematizes the concept of gender since it presupposes feminine and masculine qualities in everyone and introduces a flexibility and fluidity that some find disconcerting since women and men “routinely practice gender” as either feminine or masculine; products of role enactments which are historically constructed (Martin, 2003, p. 359). For instance, the androgynous man who is perhaps passive and narcissistic (Stern, 2003) and the metrosexual man who is image-conscious and spends considerable resources on appearance and lifestyle (Simpson, 2002) subverts the stereotypical macho hero. In comparison, the androgynous woman seems to attract less attention at work perhaps because social codes permit more variability in women’s dress (Tirohl, 2007).

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Second, transgender individuals “blur the boundary of gender expression they were assigned at birth” (Feinberg, 1996, p. x). Transgender is an umbrella term that includes male-to-female transsexuals, female-to-male transsexuals, transvestites, intersex individuals, and people who seek hormonal and sex-assignment surgery (Chau & Herring, 2002). In the United States, transgender employees face bias, fewer workplace benefits, and higher taxes (Movement Advancement Project, 2013) and there still is no federal law to protect them from workplace discrimination. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, enforced by the federal EEOC, is interpreted broadly by some courts to protect transgender workers, but there are no guarantees. EEOC rulings are only binding for federal employers, so private employers’ firing of transgender people on the basis of their gender identity still is legal. U.S. transgender people (especially people of color), experience much higher unemployment and poverty rates and employers may deny transgender employees leave (Movement Advancement Project, 2013). In the United Kingdom, transsexuals are protected from discrimination under the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 and the Gender Recognition Act 2004 yet Tirohl (2007) found that men occupy a less favorable position with regard to dress as compared to women. Using a queer theory lens, Schilt and Westbrook (2009) studied how cisgender men and women (“gender normal”) perceive transgender people and resolved that “doing gender” processes are an extension of heteronormativity. At work, management support mitigates employee resistance to transgender colleagues, but cisgender men harass transwomen while transmen experience less scorn perhaps because transwomen simultaneously abandon masculinity and consciously choose femininity (Schilt & Westbrook, 2009). Research findings suggested that (78%) of those who gender transitioned reported feeling more comfortable at work with improved job performance, in spite of high abuse levels (Grant et al., 2011). Varied is preference for the terms cross-dresser or transvestite when describing people who wear clothes which signify a sexuality which differs from birth sex (Doane, 1982). Transvestites, not unlike macho gay men, disrupt normative masculinity standards (Gutterman, 1994).

6.8. DISCUSSION Perhaps the importance of gender is widely exaggerated (Coltrane, 1994) and as Lorber (1986) suggested, we should press forward to accomplish a

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long-term feminism goal of eliminating gender as an organizing principle. As study findings incorporated throughout this chapter have illustrated, the social identity dimension of gender remains a powerful ideological device that shapes, legitimates, and reproduces opportunities and limitations. Gender classifications and roles spill forth into work and home life in ways that disadvantage women and privilege men. The abundance of research findings make these outcomes difficult to ignore. Indeed, so deeply entrenched are beliefs that men are naturally authoritative and masterful and that women are naturally passive and subordinate that gender groups accept and reproduce the same outcomes generation after generation. Yet, some social critics suggest that change is afoot. It must be reemphasized that because traditional, deeply rooted gender norms remain constant, any change in social position for women does not necessarily mean that their material conditions or their sense of well-being has improved given stressors of working two shifts. Moreover, “change in one term of a relationship signals change in the other” (Carrigan, Connell, & Lee, 1987, p. 63) such that impacts on men widely have been regarded as unfavorable, too in terms of decreased employment and lowered self-esteem linked to perceptions of emasculation. With regard to androgynous and transgendered social identities, one research team urged for wide social acceptance and embracing of multiple gender identities and expressions rather than blaming these people for failing to conform to traditional gender standards and norms and “bringing the discrimination and violence on themselves” (Grant et al., 2011, p. 8). This advice resonates with Brod and Kaufman’s (1994) earlier recommendation that men resist maintaining “patriarchal arrogance” and begin acknowledging “the enormous weight of homophobia and heterosexism … sexism” in order to hasten larger social changes so that equity among gender groups may become a reality.

KEY TERMS Gender Scott (1986) defined gender as “… a constitutive element of social relationships based on perceived differences between the sexes, and gender is a primary way of signifying relationships of power” (p. 1067). Lorber (2009) suggested that we routinely and unconsciously think about people in terms of a gender status. Because we are socialized to do think along these lines, it is said that gender is socially constructed. Coltrane (1994) and

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others, however, have argued that some still tend to think of gender difference and masculinity and femininity as phenomena that emerge from some “innate given” (p. 45). Gender role This is a normative set of behaviors socially prescribed for either a woman or a man in social situations, interpersonal relationships, and work settings. Gender roles vary according to cultural, historical, and economic context. Generally, women’s gender role may be perceived to be production of children and men’s gender role may be to produce earnings to support the family. Gender roles also are closely linked to cultural norms of masculinity and femininity. Federal Glass Ceiling Commission (FGCC) This bipartisan group in the United States issued a 1995 report after analyzing barriers that keep women and minorities from advancing to uppermost management levels in organizations. Then-Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole initiated the investigation and husband, Senator Bob Dole, sponsored legislation establishing the FGCC under Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1991. Glass structure metaphors Wall Street Journal reporters in 1986 coined the glass ceiling metaphor while reporting on career challenges faced by a small number of women at the top in major U.S. corporations (Foley, Kidder, & Powell, 2002). Over several decades, many other glass metaphors have been added to characterize specific facets of the phenomenon such as glass walls and glass cliff. Moreover, other structural metaphors have joined the lexicon to describe precise job situations such as lavender ceiling for nonheterosexuals, stained glass ceiling for women who are not permitted to enter the priesthood (Fisher, 2000), and the U.S. Navy’s underwater glass ceiling panel organized in 2000 to decide whether women should serve on submarines. A glass escalator metaphor describes accelerated career paths for men who work in womenconcentrated fields. Second shift This term refers to lifestyles wherein a person works her or his regular job for wages and then comes home to unpaid work tending house and/or raising families (Hochschild, 1989). Sex A biologically defining characteristic among humans and other living things. Sexism Psychologists characterize sexism as “prejudice and discrimination against women as members of a social category” (Unger & Saundra, 1993, p. 141).

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Transgender Transgender people alter their sex-at-birth body. It is a general term used to include male-to-female transsexuals, female-to-male transsexuals, transvestites, intersex individuals, and people who seek hormonal and sex-assignment surgery (Chau & Herring, 2002). Collectively, identities of transgender people are inconsistent with gender “norms” and stereotypes. Transvestite Word used to describe people who practice cross-dressing; wearing clothes traditionally associated with the opposite gender.

To resist or to conform to gender and age norms as a ´ e? ´ proteg The social identity dimension of gender has received significant attention ´ e´ relationships, primarily to discover among researchers of mentor proteg what men may do so successfully in order to enable women to advance in organizations beyond entry- and mid-levels toward top management. Gender reflects a key component of group membership in organizations and scrutiny of in-group out-group processes reveals how degrees of power are acquired (or not). Indeed, these dynamics have been the topic of a number of studies in the organization and gender studies literatures (e.g., Ragins, 2002). Mentoring is a ‘‘developmental, caring, sharing, helping relationship where one person invests time, know-how and effort in increasing and improving another person’s growth knowledge and skills’’ (Shea, 1995, p. 3). Formal study findings suggest that people who are mentored advance more quickly in organizations and then are more loyal to those organizations, earn higher salaries, and express more favorable work attitudes than individuals who are not mentored (Wallace, 2001). ´ e’s ´ sense of competence and self-image through Enhancing a proteg acceptance, confirmation, counseling, friendship, and role modeling are considered psychosocial functions of the mentoring relationship (Kram, 1985). Pompper and Adams (2006) found that mentoring facilitates career enhancement in five important ways (supplement to college training, validation and empowerment, deportment, networking, reciprocity) and gender composition of vertical dyads can be quite telling since mentoring for men means career advancement, and mentoring for women means anxiety reduction and coping support. These gender differences were ´ es ´ of various quite pronounced as we interviewed mentors and proteg ages; 40 white-collar professionals working in communication-related industries in Tallahassee, the state capital of Florida in the United States.

Creating Space for Gender Difference at All Organizational Levels

Learning the ropes in organizations can be quite challenging for young people and having a mentor who is older and in possession of significant experience in a particular field and organization, can decrease the learning curve for newcomers. Closer examinations of those conversations reveal important intersections of age among gendered social identities and ways mentors have encouraged young professionals to conform to social identity norms at work. Jennifer (pseudonym) explained that one of the best pieces of advice she’d received from a mentor very early in her public relations career was to engage an image consultant. She explained: ‘‘My first thought was ‘You sexist, chauvinist pig! How dare you think I need to go to beauty school’? … It’s not like living this dream where you go from frumpy to beautiful, but it was close.’’ Jennifer described how conforming her body to fit standards for professional women who appear on television and in photographs seemed superficial at first: ‘‘I didn’t hardly ever wear makeup. I’m not a real suit person. I always bought the cheapest suits … I had kind of long, frumpy hair. I couldn’t see any value in spending a whole lot of money.’’ Fifteen years later, Jennifer recalled the experience fondly: It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I grew up somewhat in the ’60s hippies time where it was all about who I am inside. It doesn’t matter what I look like. Wrong. I never really understood the importance of image and that’s what my mentor taught me which is really funny because he’s a man. I could be frumpy on the weekends, but when I was a spokesperson and a representative of his office I was going to be the professional. It changed my life and gave me a lot more confidence in terms of who I was. It amazed me that people reacted to me differently. Before I was still the young girl and then I became more of the professional person. That’s what a mentor does. They take the things, you know, it’s like what your best friend will tell you that nobody else will … I hold him dear to my heart because he sent me to charm school.

Andrew (pseudonym), on the other hand, expressed regret that being young on the job seemed to negate what he considered to be an asset; his internal competitiveness as a man. He explained: ‘‘I was the young, dumb guy who thought he knew everything. As it turns out, I was quite visionary, but when you’re young you’re not always listened to even when you have a good idea.’’ Andrew explained how a legislative job early in his career sought to ‘‘break and remold’’ him: There was an instance in the early ’90s and a friend of mine had just subscribed to America Online and there was this chat room. I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to get the governor to answer peoples’ questions online’? He could sit there, they could ask him a question and he could answer it right away. So I proposed that idea to the people above me and they thought I was

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absolutely nuts and that I was just a young guy who had just come from the television world and I didn’t know anything about public relations. Now looking back on it, it was maybe five years ahead of its time, you know? If I had it to do all over again I would have argued more passionately for that. I’m still pissed off about it! Especially when I see a governor come into office and tout that he’s the first governor ever to do an Internet chat with somebody and I think, ‘Damn it, I had that idea in 1994 and it got shot down!’

Undoubtedly, men and women have both positive and negative experiences on their ‘‘gender role journey’’ (O’Neil, Egan, Owen, & Murry, 1993) at work. Examining degrees to which people conform to or resist hegemonic norms as part of mentoring processes in organizations offers a unique view on social identity intersectionalities of gender and age and ways that these norms persist or are modified over time.

Self-reflection and discussion questions 1. How can we better acknowledge people whose voices are suppressed as a result of their gender identity or expression? 2. How can men dismantle gender privilege at work and at home? 3. In what ways can androgyny and transgender biases be eliminated at work? 4. In what ways does gender intersect with other social identity dimensions at your workplace? 5. What can organizations do to make people of all gender identities comfortable?

CHAPTER 7 INTEGRATING SEXUAL IDENTITIES AND WORKPLACE REALITIES

ABSTRACT Social identity shaped by sexual orientation is unique because it is invisible (as compared to age and some ethnic identities); a circumstance that may activate homophobia perceptions when an individual’s sexual orientation becomes fodder for speculation. Chapter 7 enjoins a wide variety of related issues in order to sharpen a focus on sex in the workplace; love and sex in the literal sense, as well as social identity shaped by sexual orientation, sex-based discrimination, sex as political action, and important ways that sex intersects with other social identity dimensions including age, gender, ethnicity/race, and socioeconomic status. An important distinction made throughout the chapter is the degree that protections are offered to various groups with regard to sex and work. These protections (or lack of them) are critical for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, the transgendered, and queer or questioning people who consider whether or not to disclose information about their sexual identity at work. While many multinational corporations have adopted policies or guidelines and implemented programs to communicate an inclusive perspective on sexual identity in the workplace and to promote diversity training for all employees, too few workplaces around the globe offer legal protections for workers relative to sexual identity. People are subject to workplace discrimination whether they are gay or lesbian, or simply appear to be so and sexual harassment according to gender remains a fixture of organizations. To explore the organizational research on sexuality, Chapter 7 attends to subthemes of: love, lust, and sex-based harassment in the 119

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workplace; how organizations address sexual orientation and sex-based harassment in the workplace; managing one’s sexual identity in the workplace; and intersectionalities of sexual identity with ethnicity, gender, and social class. Keywords: Discrimination; heterosexism; homophobia; sexual harassment; sexual identity; sexuality

As compared to most other social identity dimensions addressed in this book age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, and physical/ psychological ability it is not unlawful for private U.S. employers to discriminate against potential or current employees on the basis of their sexual orientation. By executive order, some protections exist for federal government employees. Yet, as of this writing, there is no law enforcing what has come to be considered a moral view that bias against someone who is gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or who self-identifies as some other non-heterosexual identity on the basis of their sexual orientation is inconsistent with current civil rights laws, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (Human Rights Campaign, 2013a). Each year since 1994, policymakers have persisted in proposing federal legislation that would make sexual-orientation discrimination in private workplaces illegal. The proposed Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) again was introduced in the 113th U.S. Congress on April 25, 2013. It is estimated that lesbian and gay employees represent the largest set among minority groups (Ragins & Cornwell, 2001). According to the 2000 U.S. census, there were 15 million self-identiying gay/lesbian people (Witeck-Combs/Harris Interactive Report, 2004), and it is estimated that one in every 50 people among the U.S. workforce is gay or lesbian; one in every 10 20 people in large metropolitan cities is gay or lesbian (Michael, Gagnon, Laumann, & Kolata, 1994). Even though there are no federal protections (unless one works for the federal government), some states and local communities do offer legal protection for sexual identity, but van der Meide (2000) estimated that only 20 33% lesbians and gays actually live in areas with these protections. Nearly half of U.S. states and the District of Columbia have laws that prohibit sexual-orientation discrimination in public and private workplaces (Nolo, 2013). Some cities and counties have such ordinances, as well. Additionally, several Fortune 1000 companies have adopted policies or guidelines and implemented programs to communicate an inclusive perspective on sexual identity in the workplace and host diversity training for employees (Powers, 1996).

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Without legal protection, people are subject to discrimination at work on the basis of their sexual orientation, or simply because they appear to be so (National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 1996) since people tend to “read” others for nonverbal cues as to their sexuality (Allen, 2011, p. 116). Croteau (1996) found that 25 66% of gay and lesbian employees reported sexualorientation discrimination at work, a statistic that Badgett (1996) suggested is conservative given that some gay and lesbian employees fear to reveal their sexual orientation at work. One study’s findings suggested that gay men earn 14 16% less than heterosexual men (married or single), while lesbian women earn 20 34% more than heterosexual women (married or single) (Black, Makar, Sanders, & Taylor, 2003). Where gays and lesbians share comparable experiences is on the emotional health front. On-the-job sexual harassment has been likened to bullying at work, given comparable consequences of negative psychological, physiological, and employment outcomes (Lopez, Hodson, & Roscigno, 2009). Moreover, divulging (or not) one’s sexual identity can be an extremely difficult issue for lesbians and gay men due to emotional trauma and fear of losing one’s job. Overwhelmingly, issues that surface most frequently among published studies of nonbiological references to sex or sexuality at work are those involving sexual harassment. Collectively, these issues are undergirded by hegemonic power struggle, which involves control through inducing punishments or by withdrawing rewards (Keltner, Gruenfeld, & Anderson, 2003). Sexuality has a sufficiently broad definition to accommodate both private and public spheres. Some use the acronym LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), some switch the letters a bit with GLBT , and some add a “Q” at the end for queer or questioning to emphasize a diverse community that embraces individual dimensions of sexual difference. More expansively, Kinsey and his research team (1999) posited that sexuality is experienced by humans along a continuum with several points ranging from exclusively heterosexual to exclusively homosexual. Sexuality has earned space on the social radar screen at least since 1960s and 1970s social movements for personal freedom, rights, and choices. In the 1990s, queer theory was introduced among scholars to build upon the work of Foucault (1980) to emphasize ways that gender and sexuality are entwined and mutually sustaining discourses such that people perform their identity, gender, and sexuality, keeping “systems of gender and sexuality alive,” flexible and subject to “constant reworking” (MacKinnon, 2003, p. 5). A belief system which privileges woman-man as “the only normal mode of romantic-sexual expression” (Button, 2007, p. 492), in turn, stigmatizes homosexuality which is considered perverted, immoral, or sinful (Morin, 1977). Quite simply, sexuality “has become more public than it used to be” (Allen, 2011, p. 115). The last

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decade has seen substantial public policy debate about gay and lesbian Americans in terms of extending and strengthening civil rights protections to them (Black et al., 2003). Also, sex issues ranging from abortion and AIDS/HIV to welfare reform have garnered extensive news media attention, in addition to ongoing proliferation of sex via television programs, feature films, Internet commerce, music videos, and more. Social identity shaped by sexual orientation is unique because it generally is invisible (as compared to age or some ethnic identities), a circumstance that may activate homophobia perceptions when an individual’s sexual orientation becomes fodder for speculation in the work environment. Not all sources of social stigma are equally visible (Goffman, 1963), so like social identities shaped by interior qualities, sexual identity largely is imperceptible to others and most LGBTQ community members are not visibly discernible. Since only 20% of lesbians and gay men may fit some commonly held stereotype based on physical appearance (Button, 2001), most among these groups face a complicated choice of whether or not to disclose their sexual identity at work. This choice involves a heartrending, strategic decision about self-presentation, further complicated by fears associated with how to manage the amount of information released and to whom it should be released (Clair et al., 2005). The invisibility variable also affects those who associate with stigmatized individuals or groups. For example, heterosexuals could consider people who socialize with gays to be gay, too (Herek & Capitanio, 1996). On the other hand, revealing a nonheterosexual social identity contributes to social change needed to eliminate stigmas associated with the LGBTQ community (Creed & Scully, 2000). To explore the research on sexuality at work, this chapter includes subthemes of: love, lust, and sex-based harassment in the workplace; how organizations address sexual orientation and sex-based harassment in the workplace; managing one’s sexual identity in the workplace; and intersectionalities of sexual identity with ethnicity, gender, and social class.

7.1. LOVE, LUST, AND SEX-BASED HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE Sexuality in organizations may refer to employees’ sexual orientation, sexual relationships, or sex-based harassment. People of various sexual orientations experience the lure and consequences of love and lust at work. Even though sexuality is considered by some to be an irrational behavior better reserved for private spheres, the permeability of work roles means that sexuality cannot be confined beyond workplace boundaries

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(Hall & Richter, 1988). Intimate or sexual behavior at work may be a positive thing, for employees are more content when their personal needs are fulfilled (Paul & Townsend, 1998). Moreover, coworkers like to see one another happy in romantic relationships and rumors about flirtations produce gossipy entertainment. Findings of an ethnographic study of power dynamics among women and men, heterosexual, homosexual, and bisexual working at a bar and a strip club suggested that sexual banter can promote and maintain coworker loyalty and act as a bonding agent (Lerum, 2004). Implications of male-dominated workplaces and the experienced harassment by women at work have recieved much attention among scholarly literature. The primary motivation for harassment is “a desire to protect one’s social status when it seems threatened” (Berdahl, 2007, p. 641). U.S. courts have ruled that sex-based harassment constitutes sex discrimination since such acts are not necessarily motivated by an individual’s desire for sex (Franke, 1997). Usually, it is men who harass women at work because mostly men have the organizational power (Fitzgerald, Magley, Drasgow, & Waldo, 1999). Activities may range from flirtation and sexual banter, to full-scale sexual harassment wherein a man may threaten to have a woman fired from her job or refuse to give her a promotion if she does not consent to have sex with him. Specifically, those who challenge male dominance tend to become harassed (Maass et al., 2003) and sex-based harassment may be most likely to occur among work settings involving physically demanding work and minority work groups (Lopez et al., 2009). Examples include men displaying pornography, insulting a person’s sexual abilities or orientation, placing soiled condoms in someone’s locker, and making sexually obscene comments or gestures (Berdahl, 2007). Such behaviors are intrinsic to masculine culture (Gutek, 1989) and sex-based harassment processes essentially are motivated to keep members of certain groups “in their place” (Lopez et al., 2009, p. 23). Also, contrapower sexual harassment may occur when the person being targeted by harassment has more formal organizational power than the person causing the harassment (Rospenda, Richman, & Nawyn, 1998).

7.2. HOW ORGANIZATIONS ADDRESS SEXUAL ORIENTATION AND SEX-BASED HARASSMENT IN THE WORKPLACE Among the most direct actions that organizations take with regard to sex at work is the adoption of policies and formal statements of nondiscrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Organizations increasingly include

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the term sexual orientation among nondiscrimination policies (Can˜as & Sondak, 2008) and collectively, 87% of Fortune 500 corporations prohibit sexual-orientation discrimination (Human Rights Campaign, 2013b). It is a critical step forward in affirming sexual-orientation diversity (Ragins & Cornwell, 2001) and a means for providing LGBTQ community members with some assurance that they will not be fired, excluded, ridiculed, or discriminated against if categorized as a sexual minority. Button (2001) found that such policies inspire greater job satisfaction and commitment among lesbian and gay employees and communicate to everyone else that jobrelated inequities and marginalizing behaviors are not acceptable within the organization. Workplace practices and policies condemning discrimination along sexual-orientation lines has translated to low levels of perceived discrimination among gay employees (Ragins & Cornwell, 2001). One downside to formal no-tolerance of sexual-orientation biases in organizations is resistance and backlash from employees who prefer an institutionalized heterosexist workplace culture. In addition to formal policies that support gay-and-lesbian-friendly workplace cultures, LGBTQ community members seek employers that offer domestic partner benefits as they do for spouses of heterosexual employees (Baker, Strub, & Henning, 1995). Other forms of domestic partnership benefits include bereavement leave and sick-care leave (Button, 2001). Many (58%) Fortune 500 corporations offer domestic partner health insurance benefits to their employees (Human Rights Campaign, 2013b) and about 7,000 public, private, and nonprofit organizations do, too (Can˜as & Sondak, 2008). While formal antidiscrimination policies and domestic partner benefits are highly regarded by LGBTQ employees, it was extension of invitations (or not) to domestic partners for organizationsponsored social events like company picnics that had the most significant and strongest relationship to perceived workplace discrimination, as well as to the decision to disclose one’s sexual orientation at work (Ragins & Cornwell, 2001). LGBTQ employees also gauge an organization’s degree of commitment to supporting sexual-identity diversity by whether or not they facilitate employee networks that focus on sexual orientation issues and lifestyles and offer sexual-orientation sensitivity as part of an organization’s diversity workshops or training sessions. Support may take the form of enabling such groups to use rooms at work for meetings, affix the organization’s logo to the group’s stationery and banners, and administrative time for group officers (Button, 2001). Meetings, workshops, and training sessions help educate employees about multiple sexual-orientation lifestyles and to confront negative stereotypes.

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Still, LGBTQ community members experience multiple forms of discrimination at work, such as being refused an interview, denied promotion, and termination (Human Rights Campaign, 2013a). Discrimination against people at work on the basis of their sexual identity is a side-effect of normative heterosexuality that permeates workplaces. Prejudicial attitudes about gay and lesbian job applicants persist (Griffith & Quin˜ones, 2001), with 62% of gay men and 59% of lesbians reporting employment discrimination (Waldo, 1999). Overt discrimination can involve outcomes such as fewer training opportunities, less desirable work assignments, and fewer incremental salary increases. Since contemporary social values have driven prejudice underground (Ragins et al., 2003), covert discrimination may involve outcomes such as lesser support from supervisors, lack of acceptance by colleagues and work groups (Burke, 1991), limited career advancement, difficulty in finding a mentor, and isolation at work (Cox, 1993). Studies of anti-gay and lesbian attitudes have used two terms to characterize anti-non-heterosexual attitudes: heterosexism and homophobia, sometimes used synonymously. Heterosexism encompasses anti-gay attitudes and prejudice (Sears, 1997); Herek (1990) operationalized heterosexism as “an ideological system that denies, denigrates, and stigmatizes any non-heterosexual form of behavior, relationship, or community” (p. 316). Homophobia is when one acts on fears and cultural belief systems that perpetuate negative stereotypes about lesbians and gays (Morin & Garfinkle, 1978). Viewing homosexuality as a conscious “choice” is a reliable predictor of anti-gay sentiments (Herek & Capitanio, 1995). Several other factors undergird heterosexism and are used to predict bias: conservative religious orientation, limited contact with lesbians and gays, and lower-degrees of education (Herek, 1984). Indeed, some religious groups perceive gays and lesbians as sinful, unnatural, or diseased (Jung & Smith, 1993). Nevertheless, negative attitudes toward gay and lesbian communities are undergoing a gradual but significant change. Yang (1997) found that 66% of Americans support laws that protect gay and lesbian workers against job discrimination. With regard to sex-based harassment at work, fear of lawsuits has inspired some organizations to create policies prohibiting even consensual sexual relations between coworkers, but many have no rules about sex at all. The United States has a clear legal definition for sexual harassment as a civil offense, and in other countries, such as France, it is a criminal matter (Lopez et al., 2009). Sexuality is “a diverse and diffuse process: not a ‘thing’ brought into organizations, there to be organized,” (Burrell & Hearn, 1989, p. 13). Bureaucratic ideals suggest that coworkers relate to each other as

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sexless occupiers of jobs (Smelser, 1980) and “the suppression of sexuality is one of the first tasks the bureaucracy sets itself” (Burrell, 1984, p. 98). Hence, while managers might prefer to think of their workplace as inappropriate for sexual expression of any kind, but rather a productive and rational workplace, it is highly likely that no “sexless environments” exist (Gutek, 1989, p. 66). This helps to explain why many organizations once preferred only heterosexual men; a best-case scenario based on a social homophily thesis (Appold et al., 1998) and heteronormativity which suggest that such a work environment (theoretically) would alleviate sexual tension if every employee were the same. On the other hand, trying to control consensual romantic or sexual relationships violates constitutional privacy rights and freedom of association.

7.3. MANAGING ONE’S SEXUAL IDENTITY IN THE WORKPLACE For non-heterosexual employees, discovering how to manage sexual identity at work can be an anxiety-induced experience. Organizations offering formal policies, guidelines, networking groups, and other gay-and-lesbianfriendly workplace culture components addressed above suggest much support in helping LGBTQ employees to manage their sexual identity at work (Chrobot-Mason, Button, & DiClementi, 2001). Conversely, organizations that fail to provide such support send a silent-but-loud negative message that members of the LGBTQ community may not be welcome. Membership in a stigmatized group with an invisible social identity dimension means that people must decide whether to “display or not to display; to tell or not to tell; to let on or not to let on; to lie or not to lie; and in each case, to whom, how, when, and where” (Goffman, 1963, p. 42). Stakes may be high for some LGBTQ members, depending on the kind of organization they work in and the degree of affirming organizational context (Button, 2007) that exists there. For example, industry and professional norms bring to bear on one’s sexual identity management if employed in the defense industry, among children, or at an organization connected with fundamentalist religion groups (Friskopp & Silverstein, 1995) since homophobic sentiments may run particularly high there. Consequences impact increased workplace stress associated with minority status (Waldo, 1999), discrimination effects such as termination (Croteau, 1996), lower pay (Badgett, 1995), and loss of credibility and respect (Croteau, 1996). People

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who remain closeted report guilt associated with lying (McNaught, 1993), yet opening up about one’s sexual orientation risks igniting discrimination behaviors by employers and coworkers (Badgett, 1996). Researchers have discovered numerous sexual identity management strategies used by LGBTQ community members. Passing is classified as a cultural performance that involves purposeful masquerading as a member of the dominant group in order to enjoy privileges and to minimize reproaches (Leary, 1999) or unintentional misunderstanding by someone else’s mistaken assumptions. Furthermore, passing involves tactics of fabrication or counterfeiting (deliberately offering false information), concealment (preventing discovery), discretion or avoidance, and integrating by sharing with certain colleagues while managing the consequences (Herek, 1996; Woods, 1993). LGBTQ community members who choose to pass may forever be on guard to avoid outing, such as not displaying photographs of a partner (Thorne, 1993) and eluding personal questions at work (Chrobot-Mason et al., 2001). Leading a double life in public and private spheres expends much emotional energy (Clair et al., 2005). Coworkers can react negatively to certain passing behaviors, such as regarding an employee who reveals little personal information as someone who is aloof, not a team player, or seems suspicious, and must be hiding something. Findings are mixed as to which sexual identity management techniques are most popular among gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Conversely, revealing (coming out) in a lesbian-and-gay-friendly workplace may facilitate eradication of stigma associated with the LGBTQ lifestyles and inspire ongoing social change with regard to the formation of a more affirming climate wherein social identities shaped by multiple sexual orientations are accepted (Creed & Scully, 2000). Revealing also proves cathartic to some non-heterosexual employees who report high jobsatisfaction levels (Griffith & Hebl, 2002), commitment to their organization, feelings of support by top management, and less conflict between private and public spheres (Day & Schoenrade, 1997). Three particular strategies may be used when revealing one’s LGBTQ sexual identity at work: (1) signaling, which involves offering clues or hints; (2) normalizing, which involves making an invisible sexual identity seem ordinary; and (3) differentiating, which involves redefining an invisible sexual identity as an asset (Clair et al., 2005). At the individual level, Woods (1993) found that lesbians and gays working in equitable settings meant they were less likely to exhibit counterfeit or avoidance strategies and in return experienced better relationships with coworkers, higher levels of productivity, and greater contributions to organizational goals. Yet, other researchers

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have found no relationship between disclosure and work satisfaction or occupational stress (Driscoll, Kelley, & Fassinger, 1996). LGBTQ employee-activists deploy their sexual identity in the corporate workplace through everyday conversations as a means to inspire greater awareness of issues central to lesbian and gay lifestyles and to challenge discriminatory policies and practices at work (Creed & Scully, 2000). Moreover, collective action may begin with such simple purposive disclosure of personal feelings in order to enhance awareness, develop allies, and gain influence (Taylor & Whittier, 1992). More radically, members of the queer movement have used the body for political purposes, reclaiming and celebrating a label widely regarded as derogatory, contending that queers are unique in exhibiting a variety of sexualities, and overall, resisting efforts to mainstream them as “normal” (Slagle, 1995, p. 98).

7.4. INTERSECTIONALITIES OF SEXUAL IDENTITY WITH ETHNICITY, GENDER AND SOCIAL CLASS A common thread throughout this book is the multidimensionality of social identity and the significant ways that these dimensions overlap and intersect. One’s sexual identity, likewise, overlaps with age, class, culture, ethnicity, faith/spirituality, gender, physical/psychological ability, and more. With regard to sexual-identity intersections with gender, it is widely held that lesbian, bisexual, and heterosexual women share the burden of a social identity marked by unequal status in the workplace because they are women. First, women are held responsible for managing their sexual identity at work (Gutek, 1989) in terms how they adorn and use their bodies because these are the features that make women’s sexuality visible (Reskin & Roos, 1987). Conversely, sexual behavior of e´lite men who occupy top hierarchies is largely invisible, preserving the assumption that men are analytical and rational; focused on work. Not long ago, if heterosexual employees became romantically involved, it was the woman who was fired, transferred, or asked to resign (Gutek, 1989). Second, among lesbians (and perhaps to some degree among bisexual women), gender oppressions act in conjunction with stigmatized sexual identity to create social identity management challenges in heterosexualized workplaces. Furthermore, Hall (1989) suggested that a heterosexual couple may be obvious in their flirtation and not receive reprimand by a boss unless caught in a compromising

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position while homosexual flirtations are subject to censure even without actual sexual behaviors. Third, bisexual women endure contempt at work for disrupting and confusing what Ault (1996a) called a “dominant sexual binary” (p. 449). These women more often are classified with lesbians even though both groups claim separate spaces (Ault, 1996b). Gay employees who work in mostly male work groups or who have male supervisors were more likely to report heterosexism at work, as compared to employees who experienced gender balanced or female-dominated work environments (Ragins et al., 2003). Reports of heterosexism were most pronounced among lesbian employees in male-dominated workplaces (Ragins et al., 2003). Lesbian and gay employees of color encounter multiple intersecting layers of discrimination. This may explain why some researchers found that gay employees of color were less likely to disclose their sexual identity at work, as compared to gay Caucasian/White counterparts. Similarity in ethnicity between a gay or lesbian employee and supervisor enabled an employee of color to disclose her/his sexual identity at work; an outcome that held regardless of the supervisor’s sexual orientation or the employee’s ethnicity (Ragins et al., 2003). In the same study, researchers found that less heterosexism was reported when work groups were ethnically balanced due to a transference dynamic which supports the idea that diversity along one social identity dimension may inspire work teams to accept diversity along other dimensions (Ragins et al., 2003). On the other hand, finding that Caucasian/White gay men in their study were no more likely to disclose their sexual orientation at work than female or ethnic minority counterparts suggested that enduring emotional turmoil of staying in the closet may hurt more than relinquishing Caucasian/White male privilege in conjunction with coming out (Ragins et al., 2003). Studied far less are phenomena associated with social class and sexualidentity overlap in the workplace. In their study of male-dominated shop-floor culture, Collinson and Collinson (1989) found that men assert their masculinity by using sexual banter, a bonding agent and solidarity mechanism for resisting management control and routinized work activities. Blue-collar workplaces also may feature cheesecake photos, pornography (Wajcman, 1998), and sexual language (Allen, 2011) more regularly than white-collar workplaces although Internet technologies available in many workplaces may challenge that assertion. Sexual culture and economic class structure are intricately connected so that each is “formed on the basis of the other” (Burrell & Hearn, 1989, p. 24).

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7.5. DISCUSSION This chapter enjoins a wide variety of related issues in order to sharpen a focus on sex in the workplace; love and sex in the literal sense; as well as social identity shaped by sexual orientation, sex-based discrimination, and important ways that sex intersects with other social identity dimensions. An important distinction made throughout the chapter is the degree that protections are offered to various groups with regard to sex at work. These protections (or lack of them) are critical for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, the transgendered, and queer or questioning; people who may be sensitive about disclosing details about their sexual identity at work. Individuals enter decision-making mode about disclosure of sexual identity with much trepidation because the stakes are high, economically and emotionally. While U.S. federal employers and some corporations, states, and local jurisdictions offer legal protections to LGBTQ members, they currently have no federal legal protections in private workplaces. Critical/cultural and feminist theory streams offer explanations as to why and how sex-based biases endure in the form of normative heterosexism reinforced via organizational practices and hierarchies. Even though issues of sexual identity in a context of organizational power with links to gender and other social identity dimensions has attracted some attention among social theorists since the 1980s, much more study is required. In particular, experiences of LGBTQ community members in work environments are severely under-represented when compared to attention that gender has received among the sex-based harassment literature. Given the lack of legal protections for sex-based discrimination, in comparison to other social identity dimension protections under law, scholars have noted that homophobia and discriminatory treatment along sexual-orientation lines has become more covert in recent years. Like Berdahl (2007), I argue that attention must shift from investigating “bad individuals” to understanding exactly how institutions’ hierarchies undergirded by a social homophily thesis endure and reinforce a status quo that perpetuates bias along sexual identity lines (p. 653). Research findings have revealed the importance that LGBTQ community members place on feeling welcomed and supported for themselves and for their partners. Ultimately, these positive feelings translate to positive business case outcomes in the form of organizational loyalty and job satisfaction. As part of this dynamic, human resource personnel, career counselors and others must consider both short- and long-term consequences and specific challenges encountered by non-heterosexual employees

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in terms of revealing (or not) their sexual identity at work and the various techniques that might be considered given the context of specific industries and businesses. These circumstances also require the attention of social researchers who are prepared to critique the status quo and to qualitatively assess perceptions and experiences of LGBTQ community members, especially ways that sexual orientation intersects with other social identity dimensions. That increasing numbers of Fortune corporations prohibit sexualorientation discrimination, promote diversity training for all employees and offer domestic partner health-insurance benefits to their employees offers encouraging news. Yet, unknown is whether or how smaller businesses and nonprofit organizations are addressing these concerns. Moreover, it is supremely important that organizations follow through and actually enforce their discrimination-free environment procedures and policies. Those that merely provide lip service to diversity initiatives through slogans and public relations campaigns must continue to move forward in supporting practices that include and accept all manner of social identity difference.

KEY TERMS Heterosexism This is the presumption that female-male attractions characterize the only normal sexual identities. Hence, gay, lesbian, bisexual, and other sexual minority groups are discriminated against as immoral, inferior, sinful, or perverted (Morin, 1977). Heterosexism becomes a bias when people are considered heterosexual until revealed to be otherwise (Button, 2007). Homophobia Often considered to be synonymous with heterosexism, homophobia is defined as a reflection of fear and aversion associated with homosexuality (Weinberg, 1972). Sears (1997) defined homophobia as “prejudice, discrimination, harassment or acts of violence against sexual minorities, including lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgendered persons, evidenced in a deep-seated fear or hatred of those who love and sexually desire those of the same sex” (p. 16). Sexual harassment This is a form of sex discrimination that takes place at work. In the United States, it is a civil offense and employers are potentially liable. Accusers may sue the discriminator(s) under Title VII of the

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Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. Sexual harassment at work enforces status hierarchies and constitutes repeated and persistent treatment that provokes pressures, frightens, intimidates, or otherwise causes discomfort in another person (Lopez et al., 2009). Sexual identity An individual’s conception of her/himself in terms of whom s/he is sexually or romantically attracted to. Sexual-orientation discrimination Proposed federal legislation is being considered that would make sexual orientation discrimination in U.S. workplaces illegal. The proposed ENDA was introduced in the 113th U.S. Congress on April 25, 2013. Sexuality Sexuality is the expression of and social reference to “bodily desire or desires, real or imagined, by or for others or for oneself, together with the related bodily states and experiences … others can be of the same or opposite sex, or even occasionally of indeterminate gender” (Hearn & Parkin, 1995, p. 176). Sexuality is part of private and public processes.

Demedicalizing homosexuality: A paradigm shift In 1952, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in the United States designed its first diagnostic nomenclature and classified homosexuality as a ‘‘sociopathic personality disturbance’’ (American Psychiatric Association, 1952). In other words, the APA considered homosexuality a mental disorder (Bayer, 1987) and listed it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-I (American Psychiatric Association, 1952). The second edition (DSM-II) in 1968 listed homosexuality as a ‘‘sexual deviation’’ not unlike pedophilia, transvestitism, sadism, and masochism. Movahedi (1975) opined that homosexuals diagnosed with a mental disorder were considered ‘‘inadequate, immature, maladjusted, emotionally disturbed, neurotic, paranoid, psychopath, genetically abnormal, biochemically unbalanced, and finally suffering from an anomaly in the brain’s electrical circuitry’’ (p. 195). The APA’s Board of Trustees voted in 1973 to remove homosexuality per se from its nomenclature and the membership voted in a 1974 referendum to support the decision. Eventually, the APA also dropped ‘‘ego-dystonic homosexuality’’ as a category for people who suffered as a result of their homosexual behaviors and desires (American Psychiatric Association, 1980). Cain (1991) characterized the redefinition of homosexuality as nonpathological as ‘‘one of the more thoroughly explored

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examples of the normalization of a behavior that was once viewed as deviant’’ (p. 25). Notably, the work of Kinsey and his colleagues (1999) inspired public debate because research findings suggested that homosexual behaviors were natural and much more prevalent than imagined, thereby challenging established views on homosexuality as pathological. Indeed, these actions fostered a paradigm shift in establishment attitudes toward homosexuality. Until the 1970s, the dominant clinical position supported secretiveness about one’s homosexuality. Open sharing of information about it was classified as perverted and deviant (Bergler, 1956). Once homosexuality was normalized by the mid-1970s, openness was considered healthy while secretiveness for homosexuals was considered problematic. This transition is significant because guilt and distress in the 1950s and 1960s constituted evidence that normalcy was possible. Now, however, it is widely held that secrecy about a homosexual lifestyle and deciding whether or not to ‘‘come out’’ can cause anxiety among LGBTQ community members. In the latter decades of the 20th century, goals of advocacy groups focused on helping gays and lesbians avoid risks associated with losing their jobs and homes, as well as outmaneuvering police to escape routine beatings and imprisonment. As Bernstein (2002) opined, ‘‘mere survival ruled the day’’ (p. 542). Yet, some leaders of lesbian and gay groups worked diligently to persuade institutions like mainstream religions and the APA that homosexuality is neither sinful nor a sickness. They argued that while homosexuality is a unique personality trait which sets them apart from the heterosexual majority, homosexuals are upstanding citizens just like everyone else.

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Self-reflection and discussion questions 1. Is it possible to avoid making heterosexist assumptions? How? 2. Does the organization where you work (or those where you’ve worked in the past) have policies regarding sexual harassment? Include respect for people of various sexual orientations as part of diversity training materials and workshops? Support groups and networking opportunities for LGBTQ community members? 3. How do/have you react(ed) when a coworker tells a joke that degrades a man or woman heterosexual, or homosexual? 4. How might you support an LGBTQ coworker who is managing her/his sexual identity at work? 5. In what ways might social media be used in the workplace to address sexual identity issues at work?

CHAPTER 8 FEARING AGE AND AGING FEARS AT WORK

ABSTRACT Influenced by postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives, cultural studies and humanities researchers have critiqued ways that old age plays out in lived realities – including effects of ageism and power loss in both private and public spheres. Generally, older people are perceived negatively and as less powerful than younger people. Age tends to trump most other social identity dimensions in negative ways so that aging is an eventuality that many people the world over dread or fear. In recent years, age has been treated as a social, political and economic issue that draws from anxiety and fear associated with the advancing life course. Some nations outlaw age discrimination in the workplace, but others do not. So, while improved sanitation, diet and health care means that many people live longer, they still face enduring negative stereotypes about aging processes. Chapter 8 sharpens the focus on social identity marked by age and dimensions that overlap with age – in the larger social milieu and in organizational contexts. Several theoretical ties bind this chapter’s exploration of age and aging, including critical/cultural studies, feminism, critical gerontology, and postmodern and poststructuralist perspectives. To explore research on aging and identity, this chapter is divided into subthemes: sociocultural perspectives on and theorizing about aging, age categories and birth cohorts, aging effects for organizations, aging effects for employees, and age with other social identity intersectionalities. Keywords: Ageism; Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA); age relations; successful aging paradigm

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Demographic change in Western economies includes greater age diversity (Dychtwald, Erickson, & Morison, 2004) and in the United States, it is suggested that the number and proportion of older Americans will continue to increase over the next 25 years (Foos & Clark, 2003). Two-thirds of all people who ever lived past the age of 65 are alive today and the number of people over age 65 will nearly double by 2030 (Dychtwald, 1999). With 12.4% of its population aged 65 years and older, the United States ranks 37th among countries with at least 10% of its population age 65 years and older with Greece, Italy, and Japan ranking in the top three with 19% (Federal Interagency Forum on Aging Related Statistics, 2004). Germany introduced legislation prohibiting workplace age discrimination in 2006 and the U.S. Congress enacted the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) in 1967 to “promote employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age; to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment; to help employers and workers find ways of meeting problems arising from the impact of age on employment” (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 2013). Despite ADEA, however, discrimination on the basis of age at work after age 40 remains a serious concern as it is the most commonly reported form of discrimination in the United States (Luo, Xu, Granberg, & Wentworth, 2011). This chapter focuses largely on issues and consequences associated with aging beyond young adulthood. Attending to older ages is a social justice issue and employing older people builds a solid workforce for maximized effectiveness and avoidance of employee discrimination lawsuits. To explore research on social identity shaped by the age dimension, this chapter is divided into these subthemes: sociocultural perspectives on and theorizing about aging, age categories and birth cohorts, aging effects for organizations, aging effects for employees, and age with other social identity intersectionalities.

8.1. SOCIOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES ON AND THEORIZING ABOUT AGING Age and aging are social phenomena constituted by a set of social relations highlighting important cultural dimensions of status and playing out as a master narrative of “less than” (Pompper, 2011, p. 464). Highly complex are ways that inequities become attached to aging bodies and how meanings about age are socially constructed. Even though demographers suggest that aging issues will intensify in the coming decades, age/aging research

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takes a backseat among researchers studying social identity dimensions. Age bias in the workplace has received significantly less attention when compared to issues involving class, ethnicity, or gender among the labor force (Roscigno, Mong, Byron, & Tester, 2007). Perhaps because aging processes are considered natural, they are least likely to be held up to scrutiny; an outcome that tends to justify ageism (Calasanti & Slevin, 2006; Gullette, 2004). Despite aging’s early positive connotation in the United States, increasingly aging has been perceived negatively. For example, United States founding fathers wore powdered wigs and clothes “designed to add years to their appearance” to take advantage of the stereotype that old age connotes maturity, wisdom, and access to power (Kuhn & Sommers, 1981, p. 214). Perhaps declining poverty levels and alleviation of many diseases of old age since the early 1980s supports some positive perceptions about old age (Bernard, 2000). Indeed, Chinese-born and Jewish populations in the United States respect old age; a life phase that is revered in some societies, where older people are considered dependable, wise, warm, and kind (Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, & Xu, 2002). Yet, old age generally is stigmatized in the United States and other nations due to an emphasis on youth and vitality which undermines perceptions about older people’s positive contributions (Clair et al., 2005). South Korea is considered to have the highest rate of suicide deaths among people age 65+; a statistic that “has nearly quadrupled in recent years” (Sang-Hun, 2013, p. A4). Age bias is neither an isolated nor an individual event; it is structural, undergirded by power relations, and occurs around the world. Ageism is “systemic stereotyping of and discrimination against people because they are old” (Butler, 1969, p. 243) and happens when people are socialized to be consumed with youth (Nelson, 2002). Old people are stereotyped as having a diminished capacity to contribute and so are dismissed as irrelevant, useless, incompetent, a burden on young people, mindless, sexless, in mental decline, ugly, and wrinkled babies (Cuddy, Norton, & Fiske, 2005; King, 2006). Media have emphasized statistics from a flawed study which inflated actual numbers of Alzheimer’s disease sufferers among people aged 65+ in the United States (Northrup, 1998), fueling negative social stereotypes about aging in terms of failure and decline (Gullette, 1997). Collectively, ageist views are disempowering, denigrating, and dehumanizing. Eighty-four percent of people in the United States aged 60+ reported experiencing ageism in the form of disrespect, patronizing behavior, and insulting jokes (Palmore, 2004). Also, old age often means employment and workplace challenges, inequitable health care practices, service providers’

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patronizing behaviors, as well as never-ending policy debates about Medicare and Social Security (Brown & Hollister, 2012). Findings of a 10-year MacArthur Foundation aging study eschewed aging’s disease model by framing this life phase in a positive light (Rowe & Kahn, 1998), and consumer and popular culture have promoted ideological messages about successful aging. New gerontology circles have encouraged people to think about aging as something that can and should be reversed or fixed by avoiding disease and disability, maintaining high physical and cognitive functional capacity, and engaging in active lifestyles. Despite such good intentions, the negative standpoint from which the successful aging paradigm emerged (overvaluing youth) is bolstered by staid Victorian rules (Cole, 1992) and masks socioeconomic conditions, genetics (Holstein & Minkler, 2003), and predominantly Caucasian/White, male, middle-class perspectives. Equating poor health with personal failure justifies power structures that disadvantage the elderly and ends up harming people by influencing poorly conceived social policy.

8.2. AGE CATEGORIES AND BIRTH COHORTS Many people think about age in terms of fixed chronologies, categories, cultures, generations, birth cohorts, norms, and career timetables. The act of labeling “helps to establish the structure of this world” (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 105), but also can promote negative consequences since age is a fluid social construction. People are socialized into a particular age culture since “no age class exists in a capsule, insulated from whatever is impinging on the other age classes younger and older” (Giddens, 1991, p. 18). Perhaps the age category which has captured the most attention has come to be known as the middle years between youth and old age. Carr (2002) created the birth cohort/age rubric of Baby Bust (born 1960 1970), Baby Boomer (born 1944 1959), and pre-World War II (born 1931 1943) generations. Johnson (2010) predicted that at the current rate of increase, aging Baby Boomer generations, and other older workers are expected to make up 25% of the workforce by 2020. So, it is the Baby Boomer set being targeted most by antiaging consumer messages which assume adults at the brink of descent into decline; the “so-called midlife crises” (Gullette, 1997, p. 6), when people systematically are socialized to recognize only the negatives of aging and the phase when anxieties about decline hit hardest since people begin to realize that they have less time ahead than time

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behind them. The body, as fashioned within and by culture, is a project constantly in need of attention that only purchase and consumption of products and services marketed to younger and younger populations can remedy. A main advocate of radical theory building about issues and conditions that produce compliance about “docile bodies” is Foucault (1979, p. 135) and is used by Pompper (2011) to examine ways that midlife-aged women fight against the glass ceiling in organizations so that they may change them from the inside out.

8.3. AGING EFFECTS FOR ORGANIZATIONS Workforce aging is considered a public policy issue in most Western countries, including the United States and Canada. Just over half of the 147 million-member workforce in the United States is 40+, and by 2016 the number of workers aged 25 54 is expected to increase by 2.4% while the number of workers aged 55 64 is expected to increase by 36.5% (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008b). Employees aged 55 64 are anticipated to be the largest age demographic in Germany’s workforce by 2020 (Destatis, 2006). Managing age diversity is a salient issue for organizations. An increase in age diversity at workplace may lead to lower levels of age discrimination and some report positive links between increased employee age diversity and organizational performance (Kilduff, Angelmar, & Mehra, 2000), while others have found negative effects (Ely, 2004), or no significant effects at all (Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2002). Age discrimination at work should be avoided for ethical, economic, and legal reasons. Age bias may be directed toward people considered too young or too old to perform work functions in organizations, but age discrimination is more likely to involve older people (McNair & Flynn, 2006), even though older workers do not always formally report it (Vogt Yuan, 2007). In the United States, about 23,000 age discrimination complaints were filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2012, up 20% from 2007 (Kurtz, 2013), and verdicts of up to $11 million in successful lawsuits related to age discrimination have been filed against organizations (James & Wooten, 2006). A study of 2,000 verified cases of age discrimination at workplace between 1988 and 2003 included evidence of ageist stereotypes and a general trend of downward occupational mobility for older workers (Roscigno et al., 2007). High levels of age discrimination at workplace also have been reported in Germany

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(Busch, Dahl, & Dittrich, 2004). Indeed, negative economic consequences await organizations where employees perceive age discrimination (Kunze, Boehm, & Bruch, 2011). Even though workforce aging has not reached crisis proportions in the United States (American Association of Retired Persons [AARP], 1995), organizations are in jeopardy since aging is considered by some to be the “demographic time bomb” (Tempest, Barnatt, & Coupland, 2002, p. 487). Like most other forms of social identity discrimination in organizations, ageism plays out in both overt and covert ways. United States and Canadian organizations’ managers maintain 19th-century attitudes toward older employees as less responsive or resistant to workplace change, slow, unorganized, difficult and expensive to train (Swift, 2006), lacking in job mobility and future contributions (Thornton, 2002), less productive than younger workers (McCann & Giles, 2002), unable to learn and rife for early retirement due to low return on investment or redundancy when compared to younger employees (Brooke & Taylor, 2005), and inflexible and unwilling to work with computers or to work at night (Hirsch, Macpherson, & Hardy, 2000). Organizations that act in discriminatory ways with regard to age justify such actions with claims of business cost savings in the form of pension payouts, payroll reduction, and responses to rising health care costs (Scott, Berger, & Garen, 1995). Managers make biased assessments about older employees in terms of performance evaluations and other workplace rewards, decisions about hiring and mobility, job assignments, leadership, and shaping of workplace diversity and retirement policies (Roscigno, 2007). Organizations may prefer to reserve promotions and on-the-job training for younger workers who are considered less expensive to maintain and a more efficient long-term investment (Adams, 2002).

8.4. AGING EFFECTS FOR EMPLOYEES For employees, the aging process includes individually managing changing personal needs and navigating challenges associated with society’s and organizations’ treatment of them. In the United States, much of the labor force is choosing to continue working past age 65, given better health, higher educational attainment, and employer-sponsored retirement plans (Blau & Goodstein, 2010). Conversely, early retirement from the workforce

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is widespread in some European countries (Gullette, 2004). Some organizations highly value their older workers. Older workers exhibit high levels of job commitment, low absenteeism, and less turnover when compared to younger workers (Mueller, Wallace, & Price, 1992). Indeed, older workers may find greater satisfaction in their work than younger counterparts due to what Lawrence (1988) called a similarity-attraction paradigm; employees of similar ages share comparable life experiences, bond, and develop strong cooperation and communication. Research findings also suggest multiple, far-reaching negative economic implications of growing older at work. Victims of age discrimination, many older workers in the United States experience involuntary early retirement, job displacement, downward mobility upon reemployment (Hirsch et al., 2000), and either unemployment or subemployment when corporations cut costs by reducing numbers of older employees (Crawshaw-Lewis, 1996). During the “Great Recession,” some unemployed people aged 62+ in the United States opted to take early Social Security benefits and stopped looking for a job, discouraged that they were unlikely to find work (Johnson & Butrica, 2012). Being qualified to work only in certain industries and lacking translatable skills for other work environments further complicates job searches for many age 50+ workers, often considered as “the new unemployables” (Heidkamp, Corre, & Van Horn, 2010). The average unemployment period for job seekers aged 55+ was 40.6 weeks as compared to 31.6 weeks for those