Implicit racial bias in South Africa : how far have manager-employee relations come in ‘the rainbow nation?’

This article examines manager-employee relations in democratic South Africa, using an unobtrusive, implicit measure of managers’ racial bias. We test the link between manager automatically activated evaluations of race labels with positive/negative words (implicit racial bias), and employees’ judgement of their manager’s effectiveness, their satisfaction with their manager, and their willingness to engage in extra-role workplace behavior. Results indicated that Indian and white managers were similar in their negative automatic evaluation of African blacks, and that employees of white managers reported higher manager satisfaction, higher manager effectiveness, and a greater likelihood of engaging in extra effort, compared to employees of African black managers. From these results we infer that racial bias has gone ‘underground’ and continues to play a pivotal role in manager-employee relations in ‘the Rainbow Nation’.https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rajm202020-05-01hj2018Human Resource Managemen

The future is relational : management development for today and tomorrow

PURPOSE : The authors of this study aim to test a possible turn toward relational, as opposed to agentic, management development program (MDP) content. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH : The authors performed a content analysis of the literature and qualitative interviews of management coaches/consultants from South Africa and the USA. FINDINGS : In both studies, the authors found more relational than agentic content comprising MDP content. Interviews revealed a predominance of relational strategies and that agentic and relational skills are often interwoven in development efforts. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS : This work may guide management coaches and consultants to offer clients management development (MD) with a greater focus on relational skills. ORIGINALITY/VALUE : Future studies should build on our findings to explore whether leadership may now require more relational as opposed to agentic skills.https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/0262-1711hj2023Human Resource Managemen

When research setting is important: the influence of subordinate self-esteem on reactions to abusive supervision

In this paper, we argue that the conflicting theoretical views regarding the role that self-esteem plays in the decision to become aggressive can be explained by the particular research methodology used. Specifically, we examine how individuals respond to a perceived abusive supervisor in two settings: (1) using scenarios and (2) in a field study. Results indicate that individuals with high selfesteem are more likely to become aggressive in response to an abusive supervisor in settings where they are asked what they would do (using scenarios). However, in field research settings, where they are asked what they did do, individuals with low self-esteem were more likely to become aggressive in response to an abusive supervisor

Domestic employment : making visible an invisible relationship

Globally, millions of women and men are employed to care for children, adults with physical or mental disabilities, and/or households. The outcomes of paid domestic work go far beyond the private households within which it occurs; yet, this work is most often economically and socially invisible. In this article, we detail the distinct nature of this work by bringing attention to four aspects of domestic employment: physical space, power, purpose, and emotional experiences. We also identify emerging macro-level issues that may help advance our knowledge of workers’ and employers’ experiences. In doing so, we raise questions that may enable scholars, employers, and policy makers alike to better understand and elevate the well-being of millions of workers globally.https://journals.sagepub.com/home/jmihj2020Human Resource Managemen

The business case for women leaders: Meta-analysis, research critique, and path forward

Since the 1990s, a growing body of research has sought to quantify the relationship between women’s representation in leadership positions and organizational financial performance. Commonly known as the “business case” for women’s leadership, the idea is that having more women leaders is good for business. Through meta-analysis ( k = 78, n = 117,639 organizations) of the direct effects of women’s representation in leadership (as CEOs, on top management teams, and on boards of directors) on financial performance, and tests that proxy theoretical arguments for moderated relationships, we call attention to equivocal findings. Our results suggest women’s leadership may affect firm performance in general and sales performance in particular. And women’s leadership—overall and, specifically, the presence of a female CEO—is more likely to positively relate to firms’ financial performance in more gender egalitarian cultures. Yet taking our findings as a whole, we argue that commonly used methods of testing the business case for women leaders may limit our ability as scholars to understand the value that women bring to leadership positions. We do not advocate that the business case be abandoned altogether but, rather, improved and refined. We name exemplary research studies to show how different perspectives on gender, alternative conceptualizations of value, and the specification of underlying mechanisms linking leadership to performance can generate changes in both the dominant ontology and the epistemology underlying this body of research.</jats:p

Women's managerial aspirations : an organizational development perspective

Some authors have explained the dearth of women leaders as an “opt-out revolution”—that women today are making a choice not to aspire to leadership positions. The authors of this article present a model that tests managers’ biased evaluations of women as less career motivated as an explanation for why women have lower managerial aspirations than men. Specifically, they hypothesize that day-to-day managerial decisions involving allocating challenging work, training and development, and career encouragement mean women accrue less organizational development, and this is one explanation for their lower managerial aspirations. The authors’ model is based on social role theory and is examined in a sample of 112 supervisor– subordinate dyads at a U.S. Fortune 500 firm.http://jom.sagepub.com/hb201

Gender differences in pay levels : an examination of the compensation of university presidents

Our paper studies how gender and organizational status affect a university president’s compensation. Similar to previous findings, we hypothesize that women will receive less pay than men. However, we go beyond a dyadic view of individual differences to examine gender’s impact on compensation, and we explicate the importance of institutional forces in understanding the gender pay gap. In doing so, we rely on organizational status and hypothesize that the gender pay gap will be less pronounced as a university’s status rises. Although we find that the gender pay gap persists within the university president context, we also find that as a university’s status rises, the pay gap declines. Moreover, our findings show that the gender pay gap disappears at higher-status universities. Hence, accounting for where the glass ceiling is broken is an important consideration in understanding the gender pay gap. In sum, by integrating a broader institutional perspective to explain gender differences in pay levels, our paper demonstrates the importance of contextualizing gender to better understand its effects on compensation.https://pubsonline.informs.org/journal/orschj2019Human Resource Managemen

Abusive supervision and employee deviance : a multifoci justice perspective

In order to address the influence of unethical leader behaviors in the form of abusive supervision on subordinates’ retaliatory responses, we meta-analytically examined the impact of abusive supervision on subordinate deviance, inclusive of the role of justice and power distance. Specifically, we investigated the mediating role of supervisory- and organizationally focused justice and the moderating role of power distance as one model explaining why and when abusive supervision is related to subordinate deviance toward supervisors and organizations. With 79 independent sample studies (N = 22,021), we found that abusive supervision was more strongly related to supervisory-focused justice, compared to organizationally focused justice perceptions, and both types of justice perceptions were related to target-similar deviance (deviance toward the supervisor and organization, respectively). Finally, our results showed that the negative implications of abusive supervision were stronger in lower power distance cultures compared to higher power distance cultures.http://link.springer.com/journal/105512020-09-20hj2020Human Resource Managemen

Why and when is implicit racial bias linked to abusive supervision? The impact of manager racial microaggressions and individualized consideration

We explore whether abusive supervision may occur more in mixed-race supervisor-subordinate dyads. Specifically, our model tests whether, in mixed-race dyads, a manager’s implicit racial bias may be associated with racial microaggressions, and, subsequently, subordinates’ perceptions of the degree to which that manager is an abusive supervisor. Social identity theory supports the why of these predictions. We also test when it may be possible for some managers to overcome their racial biases—by engaging in behaviors reflective of viewing their subordinates as individuals, rather than members of another race, via individuation theory. In this vein, we investigate a way in which race-based mistreatment and abusive supervision may be mitigated. We tested our predictions in 137 manager-employee dyads in two chemical manufacturing firms in South Africa. We found a positive relationship between manager implicit racial bias and abusive supervision, and that this relationship is lessened by individualized consideration–a moderator of the mediated effect of manager racial microaggressions on bias and abuse. Thus, our hypotheses were supported. We conclude with implications for victimized employees, and possible strategies to combat race-based aggression for organizations.The National Research Foundation of South Africa.https://link.springer.com/journal/121442023-06-10hj2022Human Resource Managemen

Aggressive reactions to abusive supervision: The role of interactional injustice and narcissism

In this study, we explore personality and situational conditions in which negative leadership—specifically, abusive supervision—is associated with aggressive behavior in subordinates. That is, we examine the role that interactional justice and narcissism play in an employee’s decision to respond aggressively to an abusive supervisor. We demonstrate that interactional justice mediates the relationship between perceptions of abusive supervision and subsequent employee aggression. In addition, we demonstrate that narcissism interacts with interactional justice perceptions to predict workplace aggression. We find that individuals with high levels of narcissism are the employees who are most likely to respond aggressively when they interpret their leader’s behavior as abusive