Organization Science最新文献

Why do some homogeneous groups face backlash for lacking diversity, whereas others escape censure? We show that a homogeneous group’s size changes how it is perceived and whether decision makers pursue greater diversity in its ranks. We theorize that people make different inferences about larger groups than smaller ones—with consequences for diversity management—due to Bayesian reasoning. This can produce sensitivity to a lack of diversity in large groups and limited sensitivity to a lack of diversity in small groups. Because each group member represents the outcome of a hiring decision, larger homogeneous groups signal a diversity problem more strongly than smaller homogeneous groups. Across three preregistered experiments (n = 4,283), we show that decision makers are more likely to diversify larger homogeneous groups than smaller ones and view larger homogeneous groups as (i) more likely to have resulted from an unfair selection process; (ii) less diverse; (iii) more likely to face diversity-related impression management concerns; and (iv) less open to the influence of newly added underrepresented members. Further, (i)–(iii) mediate the relationship between homogeneous group size and decisions to diversify. We extend our findings to S&P 1500 corporate boards, showing that larger homogeneous boards are more likely to add women or racial minorities as directors. Larger homogeneous boards are also rarer than expected, whereas smaller homogeneous boards are surprisingly abundant. This suggests that decision makers neglect homogeneity in smaller groups, while investing extra effort toward diversifying larger homogeneous groups. Our findings highlight how group size shapes diversity-related perceptions and decisions and identify mechanisms that kickstart diversification efforts.

Supplemental Material: The online supplement is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2020.14705.

The ideal worker is represented as constantly available for work. However, an increasing number and variety of workers experience conflict between work and family demands. Research has identified numerous practices to manage this conflict with positive implications for non-work relationships, but the implications of these practices for work relationships remain unclear. How do efforts to manage role conflict affect workplace relationships? To examine this question, we draw on ethnographic data from 72 STEM workers across three organizations. We find that workers who experienced role conflict interpreted interactions in the workplace—often unpredictable in timing, frequency, and length—as a threat to fulfilling both their work and family roles on a daily basis. Thus, they controlled work interactions to make time for both work and non-work roles. However, interactional control limited their sense of workplace belonging and opportunities for resource exchange. In contrast, workers who did not experience daily role conflict encouraged interactions, allowing these encounters to expand across time. As a result, their work extended into evenings and weekends, and they experienced a sense of belonging and more regular resource exchange. We identify how interactional control practices manage role conflict but limit the development of workplace relationships. We also expand the repertoire of how devotion to work can be performed, identifying the occupied worker who expresses devotion through focused and efficient work and interactions rather than availability for work and interactions.

Despite women having made significant progress in the modern workforce, gender gaps are still evident in creative work. In this paper, we propose that, although women and men are equally capable of generating creative ideas, gender differences emerge during the idea-selection stage. Specifically, compared with men, women engage in higher novelty avoidance during idea selection—the degree to which one selects an idea that is less novel than the most novel idea one has generated. In two laboratory studies and a field survey involving creative professionals, we found significant gender differences in novelty avoidance during idea selection and identified women’s concerns about social backlash when pursuing highly novel ideas as one explanatory variable. We also experimentally manipulated gender compositions of the evaluation panel and found that women’s novelty avoidance tendency during idea selection was reduced when they were informed about the presence of women evaluators. Finally, novelty avoidance during idea selection has an inverted U-shaped relationship with idea success; because women tend to engage in higher novelty avoidance than men, novelty avoidance in women (but not men) has a negative impact on the success of their ideas. By examining gender dynamics at specific stages, our work offers theoretical and practical insights regarding gender disparities in creative work.

Funding: M. Jin extends appreciation to the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grants 72202003, 72091314, 72172006] for financial support. The authors also gratefully acknowledge the Singapore Ministry of Education’s Social Science Research Thematic Grant [Grant MOE2017-SSRTG-042].

Supplemental Material: The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2022.16176.

Increasing demands to be seen as authentic at work have created a paradox of self-presentation for employees: the desire to be seen as simultaneously true to self and professionally appropriate in workplace interactions. The present paper introduces one way in which individuals may navigate this tension: strategic authenticity, a self-presentational approach that involves enacting behaviors intended to increase colleagues’ perceptions of one’s authenticity while accounting for individual and contextual factors that influence one’s professional image. I propose that the behavioral signals of social deviations (nonconformity and spontaneity) and self-expressions (transparency and vulnerability) increase colleagues’ perceptions of a worker’s authenticity but pose a threat to their professional image. Next, I highlight how felt authenticity and the degree of perceived violation of social expectations (i.e., benign versus taboo signal content and aligning with communal versus agentic norms) moderate the impact of signals on perceptions of authenticity and professional image, suggesting that strategic authenticity can be achieved via a careful selection of behaviors based on individual and contextual factors. Last, I consider how the enactment of strategic authenticity leads to high-quality connections at work, which over time, may lead to the formation of positive relationships (enhanced by an actor’s felt authenticity). This paper extends prior scholarship on authenticity, professional image construction, and high-quality connections by highlighting how to balance interpersonal goals to appear authentic and at the same time, maintain a desirable professional image in workplace interactions.