Inequality in organizations: stereotyping, discrimination, and labor law exclusions

The effect of cultural intelligence of top management on pro-diversity work climate and work attitudes of Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand

Purpose

This research examines the effect of cultural intelligence (CQ) of top management on pro-diversity climates and perceived discrimination of the Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. This research also analyzes the effect of perceived discrimination on job satisfaction and turnover intention of the Myanmar migrant workers.

Design/methodology/approach

The data were collected from 650 Myanmar migrant workers who are employed at two factories in Thailand. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used as the data analysis method.

Findings

The results significantly support the positive effect of perceived management CQ on pro-diversity climates. Pro-diversity climates are also negatively and significantly associated with perceived discrimination. Moreover, the effect of perceived management CQ on perceived discrimination is fully mediated by pro-diversity climate.

Originality/value

This research clarifies that simply ensuring top management possess CQ may not be a sufficient condition for the company to successfully tackle discrimination in the workplace. Rather, it is crucial for the top management to create an organizational climate that is supportive of the racial diversity of foreign migrant employees.

Emancipation through digital entrepreneurship? A critical realist analysis

Digital entrepreneurship is presented in popular discourse as a means to empowerment and greater economic participation for under-resourced and socially marginalised people. However, this emancipatory rhetoric relies on a flat ontology that does not sufficiently consider the enabling conditions needed for successful digital enterprise activity. To empirically illustrate this argument, we examine three paired cases of UK women digital entrepreneurs, operating in similar sectors but occupying contrasting social positionalities. The cases are comparatively analysed through an intersectional feminist lens using a critical realist methodological framework. By examining the relationships between digital entrepreneurship, social positionality, and structural and agential enabling conditions, we interrogate the notion of digital entrepreneurship as an emancipatory phenomenon producing liberated workers.

Worker cooperatives: alternative governance for caring and precarious work

Purpose

Precarious work, characterized by low wages, unpredictable schedules and hours, physical hazards, and stressful psychosocial conditions, is a significant problem in the twenty-first century US economy. It most harshly affects women, racial/ethnic minorities, and immigrants. Caring labor jobs often involve precarious work and home health aide jobs are among the most precarious of these. With an ageing population creating high demand and a decline in the number of available workers, a societal crisis looms. The purpose of this paper is to discuss a business form that could positively impact the home care work environment.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper reviews previous research to call for closer examination of worker cooperatives as a means to reduce precarious work among home health care workers.

Findings

Worker cooperatives provide opportunities for economic empowerment for impoverished and marginalized workers. Cooperative Home Care Associates, a worker cooperative in the home care industry, reports better outcomes to workers than similar conventionally governed businesses.

Research limitations/implications

This paper reviews results of a study comparing three organizational forms in the home health industry. Although there are relatively few worker cooperatives in the USA, future research should investigate this structure both where there is a low-wage labor force, and in general.

Practical implications

Better outcomes for employees in the worker cooperative suggest that this is a viable business form for workers in precarious work environments.

Social implications

The paper highlights the features of an organizational form that could help alleviate social ills caused by precarious work.

Originality/value

This paper considers the structure and function of a business form little studied in the management discipline. Based on their unique features and possibilities, worker cooperatives should be of interest to equality, diversity, and inclusion scholars; and to strategy, organizational behavior, and entrepreneurship scholars.

The moderating effects of single vs multiple-grounds of perceived-discrimination on work-attitudes

Purpose

– Moving from a focus on a single aspect of diversity to multiple-diversity characteristics, the purpose of this paper is to develop and empirically test a model that examines whether self-efficacy (SE) and protean career (PC) measures relate to intention to stay (ITS), as a possible mediation of job satisfaction (JS). The authors then explored whether perceived discrimination – on single and multiple grounds – modify these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

– A survey of 316 US managers, of which 95 reported perceived discrimination: 51 perceived discrimination on a single ground and a further 44 on multiple grounds.

Findings

– SE and PC are associated with increased ITS where there is higher JS. Furthermore, multiple discrimination results in more negative outcomes compared to a single source of perceived discrimination.

Research limitations/implications

– Employees with multiple diversities might be more prone to feelings of discrimination, which in an organizational context that lacks diversity awareness can generate negative implications on performance, esteem, working relationships, and ultimately ITS.

Originality/value

– The research provides valuable insights into the issue of diversity and discrimination relating to more than one single source of diversity.

Career development and individuals with physical disabilities

Purpose

– Few studies have focussed on the situation of employees with physical disabilities from the perspective of human resources management – in particular on the career development expectations of this group. The purpose of this paper is to meet this need by focussing on individuals with physical disabilities in Andalusia (Spain). It analyzes three key aspects: whether the perception of discrimination is related to the perception of inequity due to their disabilities, with this relationship being moderated by gender; whether these perceptions of inequality and discrimination lead to feelings of dissatisfaction with the employing organization; and whether the perception of discrimination mediates the relationship between perceived inequity and job dissatisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach

– Using the theoretical framework of organizational justice, regression analysis is applied to test the hypotheses in a population of 459 employed people with physical disabilities.

Findings

– The results show that perceived discrimination is due to perceived inequity when peers who do not have a disability are used as comparative reference; however, this relationship is not moderated by gender. These perceptions of inequity and discrimination cause individuals to feel dissatisfaction in organizations, and a mediating effect is found for the perception of discrimination in professional development opportunities. The control variables considered, age and education, are not significant in the relationships studied.

Originality/value

– An original and valued model is proposed to explain job dissatisfaction among employees with physical disabilities and the possibility of perceiving a dual disadvantage, in their possibilities for professional development. The model links together three variables that have not previously been linked all together in the literature – perceived inequity, perceived discrimination on the grounds of disability, and dissatisfaction – highlighting that perceived discrimination on the grounds of disability mediates the relationship between perceived inequity and dissatisfaction. This model can also examine whether a dual disadvantage is perceived owing to an individual's being a woman and having a disability, considering gender as a variable that moderates the relationship between perceived inequity and perceived discrimination on the grounds of disability.

Women managers in the United Arab Emirates: successful careers or what?

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to explore the career success of women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The paper examines the interplay of some of the macro-national and meso-organizational factors in explaining the micro-individual experiences of career success.

Design/methodology/approach

– The paper draws on in-depth interviews with 26 women managers in large private organizations in the UAE to explore whether they experienced their careers as successful or not and the measures they used to operationalize their career success.

Findings

– The findings presented in the paper support the use of a multi-level research design to capture the complexity of women's experience of career success. The findings illustrate how local cultural values, societal expectations, and organizational attitudinal and structural factors influence the experiences and the conceptualizations of career success of women in this research context.

Originality/value

– The originality of the paper is threefold. First, the value added of this research lies in exploring whether the women experienced career success or not and the reasons underscoring their experiences, before looking into how they measured that success. Second, the originality of the paper lies in adapting a relational multi-level framework that is commonly used in diversity management studies, to capture the multiple factors that impact the experiences and operationalization of career success of women. Third, the paper contributes to the limited research on the career experience of women in the UAE and the Arab Middle East in general.