Employee Reactions to Positive Action Policies in the United Kingdom: Does the Organization’s Justification Matter?

Abstract

Affirmative action remains a contentious topic in both research and practice. While advocates suggest that such action is necessary to overcome demographic imbalances in the labor market, some research shows that these policies can prompt intergroup conflict that negates their value. While positive discrimination (i.e., recruiting or promoting solely based on a protected characteristic) remains illegal in the United Kingdom, organizations have increasingly begun adopting positive action measures (i.e., measures aimed at alleviating disadvantage or under-representation based on protected characteristics). However, there is little research looking at how these policies specifically affect employee attitudes or how different organizational justifications moderate these effects. This lack of research is even more notable in the UK context. In two experimental studies of UK professionals (N = 350) we find that perceived organizational justice explained the relationship between positive action and affective commitment / turnover intention. However, organizational justification had no effect on this relationship.