Organizational responses to the increasingly varied composition of the workplace — including women; racial, ethnic or religious minorities; gays and lesbians — have engendered a complex mix of reactions. While the best of these initiatives address the entire human resources system —recruitment, promotion, compensation, training and support groups — tensions in the society at large can spill over and escalate, even in the most well-intentioned workplace. They can trigger critical economic and social repercussions as well as value-based conflicts among some employees and customers. In 1997, for example, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), in its annual convention in Dallas, implemented a boycott of the Walt Disney Co. The boycott accused Disney of “increasingly promoting immoral ideologies.” Included in these offenses was Disney’s policy of offering insurance benefits to partners of gay and lesbian employees.
Recent developments in social identity theory help explain how social identity conflict manifests itself in and affects the workplace. In the June 2003 issue of Social Psychology Quarterly, Kay Deaux and Daniela Martin argue that individuals who are not content with the status of their identity network may work either to raise the status of that group or seek alternatives with higher status. The authors suggest that individuals seeking alternative networks or social identities may be distressed by organizational efforts such as affirmative action, which place emphasis on bolstering the very... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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