Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • Publication
    Gender bias in recruiting: Developing a social science perspective
    (Universität Kopenhagen, Coordination for Gender Research, 2021) ; ; ;
    Unconscious bias training has become a popular intervention for eliminating discrimination in the workplace. Particularly recruitment processes are said to become fairer and more objective if gen-der biases are eliminated through training of personnel. However, the concept of gender bias, and particularly the idea that it can be trained away, has also been critiqued as too limited in its focus on individual mental processes, thereby neglecting effects of context, interaction and power. Taking this critique as our starting point, we argue that gender bias needs to be theorised in relation to a specifi c interaction and normative context. Building on cognitive social psychology, critical social psychology and on gender as a social practice we show that gender bias is not only an individual, but a funda-mentally social activity that is embedded within organisational norms and power relations and repro-duced in interaction. By theorising gender bias as a social practice, we expand the concept of gender bias beyond individual cognition. This perspective not only opens up the scope of explanation but is also a vital concept for exploring and combatting bias in recruiting.
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  • Publication
    Job satisfaction of employees with disabilities - The role of perceived structural flexibility
    With this article we contribute to the inclusion of employees with disabilities in the workplace. Based on Stone and Colella's (1996) model of factors affecting the treatment of employees with disabilities in organizations, we concentrate on the investigation of job satisfaction as a focal affective response. Besides examining job satisfaction differences between employees with and without disabilities, we focus on perceived flexibility as an organizational boundary condition, arguing for its influence on the job satisfaction of employees with disabilities. We introduce perceived centralization and formalization, representing different indicators of flexibility, as moderators of the disability-job satisfaction relationship. Regression analysis using data from 110 small and medium-sized companies with 4,141 employees reveals that employees with disabilities are less satisfied than their colleagues without disabilities in highly centralized environments. As predicted, a decentralized organizational context relates to higher job satisfaction levels for all employees, but especially for those having a disability. Contrary to our hypothesis, perceived formalization does not significantly influence the relationship between having a disability and job satisfaction. However, our results clearly indicate the need for companies and especially human resource departments to better adapt to the needs of people with disabilities by creating flexible working environments.
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    Scopus© Citations 49
  • Publication
    Job performance of employees with disabilities: Interpersonal and intrapersonal resources matter
    Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to follow the call of researchers to take intrapersonal resources into account when trying to understand the influence of interpersonal resources by investigating the interplay of social support and self-efficacy in predicting job performance of people with disabilities. Design/methodology/approach - Data were collected in an Israeli call center employing mostly people with disabilities. The independent and moderator variables were assessed by an employee survey. To avoid common source bias, job performance was rated by the supervisors four weeks after conducting the survey. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings - The first main effect hypothesis, stating a positive relationship between social support and job performance was conditionally supported (p=0.06). The relationship between self-efficacy and job performance did not gain support. In line with the extended support buffer hypothesis, the job performance of low self-efficacious employees increased with higher levels of social support. The interference hypothesis, postulating a negative effect of social support under the condition of high levels of self-efficacy, was not supported. Practical implications - The results indicate that employees with disabilities differ in the level of social support they need in order to reach high levels of job performance. Instead of a one-size-fits-all-approach, organizations should take individual levels of self-efficacy into account and offer support accordingly in order to unleash the full working potential. Originality/value - This is the first known empirical investigation examining the role of individual differences in the need of social support among employees with disabilities.
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    Scopus© Citations 24
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    Attitudes of demographic item non-respondents in employee surveys
    (Emerald, 2008-01-04)
    Borg, Ingwer
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    Braun, Michael
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    Purpose - The purpose of this research is to investigate whether the participants in an employee survey who do not answer one or more demographic items differ systematically from those who fill out all demographic items. Design/methodology/approach - Logistic regression, with affective commitment, job satisfaction, and attitude towards leadership as predictors of responding to demographic items is used to analyze the data of an employee survey in a German company. Findings - Survey participants with low commitment, poor job satisfaction, and negative attitudes towards leadership are more likely not to provide demographic information, while highly committed participants tend to answer all demographic items. Non-respondents are also more concerned that their skills become obsolete, and they feel that employees do not have enough say. Research limitations/implications - The paper does not distinguish among demographic item non-respondents on the basis of how many and which items are omitted. Future research should take a closer look at the different sensitivity of the demographic items. Practical implications - Managers should be aware that it is likely that the results of an employee survey for their organizational subunits tend to be biased and show a picture that is too optimistic as compared to company-wide results. Originality/value - The value of the paper lies in demonstrating a systematic and practically important bias in employee survey statistics that has been overlooked so far.
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    Scopus© Citations 9
  • Publication
    Perceived equity in the gendered division of household labor
    (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008-11-21)
    Braun, Michael
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    Lewin-Epstein, Noah
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    Stier, Haya
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    Despite huge imbalances in the division of housework between women and men, previous studies have found perceptions of equity on the part of women to be much more frequent than feelings of injustice. Taking a comparative perspective on the basis of International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2002 data (N = 8,556), we find that, on the individual level, the explanatory frameworks that have been found to influence the actual inequality of household division of labor (time availability, resource dependence, and gender ideology) contribute to the explanation of perceptions of equity, in that they interact with the inequality of the household division of labor. On the country level, the gender-wage ratio and the average level of inequality are important predictors.
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    Scopus© Citations 78
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    Emotion concepts and self-focused attention: Exploring parallel effects of emotional states and emotional knowledge
    (Springer, 2006-07-25)
    Silvia, Paul J.
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    Phillips, Ann G.
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    Maschauer, Emily L.
    Many experiments have found that emotional experience affects self-focused attention. Several approaches to cognition and emotion predict that conscious emotional experience may be unnecessary for this effect. To test this hypothesis, two experiments primed emotion concepts without affecting emotional experience. In Experiment 1, subliminal exposure to sad faces (relative to happy faces and neutral faces) increased self-focused attention but not subjectively experienced affect. In Experiment 2, a scrambled-sentences task that primed happy and sad emotion concepts increased self-focused attention relative to a neutral task. Thus, simply activating knowledge about emotions was sufficient to increase self-focused attention. The discussion considers implications for research on how emotional states affect self-awareness.
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    Scopus© Citations 12