Ethnicity and behaviour in organizations: A review of British research

Abstract

Research into the role of ethnicity in behaviour in US organizations has been the subject of several reviews. However no such review of British research has thus far been undertaken. Fifty-four years' worth of selected occupational psychology, organizational behaviour and human resource management journals were therefore reviewed to identify the number and focus of articles relating to ethnicity in British organizations. On the basis of the review findings four key questions were addressed: (i) How much work has been done? (ii) Why has relatively little work been done? (iii) What have we learned about ethnicity and the British workplace? and, (iv) What do we still need to learn? The research shows that only a limited amount of research has been conducted and most of this focuses on a small number of topics. Six recommendations for future research are made: (i) studying ethnicity in a more careful and detailed way; (ii) developing theory; (iii) examining what happens to minority ethnic employees after selection; (iv) more research on minority ethnic professionals; (v) more qualitative research; and, (vi) a greater focus on specific ethnic groups. Recommendations to draw lessons from the way other disciplines have conceptualized and researched ethnicity are also discussed.

Increases in salience of ethnic identity at work: The roles of ethnic assignation and ethnic identification

“…Details of the participants' education and job roles can be found in the appendix. We chose to focus on one ethnic group as we were mindful of the differences in the ways different ethnic groups might experience their places of work, due to the different social histories of different minority ethnic groups and differences in the way minority ethnic groups are viewed and stereotyped within Britain (Kenny and Briner, 2007 The interviews lasted between 35 minutes and two hours with a mean length of 67 minutes. Interviews were recorded and fully transcribed.…”

“…Researchers have therefore called for more studies that recognise the role of ethnic or racial identity in how ethnicity plays out and is actually experienced within the workplace (Cox and Nkomo, 1990;Kenny and Briner, 2007;Neimann and Dovidio, 1998;Roberson and Block, 2001). …”

“…American context to address a further shortcoming of previous research (Kenny and Briner, 2007;Proudford and Nkomo, 2006). The specific research question we address in this paper is as follows: How and when do increases in ethnic identity salience occur or one group of minority ethnic employees and what are some of the subsequent work-related thoughts and feelings that result.…”

Further developments in the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology

“…It is nevertheless pleasing to be able to publish some other kinds of papers too. This year JOOP has published reviews and theory development articles on job design (Clegg & Spencer, 2007), job mobility (Ng, Sorensen, Eby, & Feldman, 2007), ethnicity and organizations (Kenny & Briner, 2007), diversity training (Pendry, Driscoll, & Field, 2007), and work‐family facilitation (Grzywacz, Carlson, Kacmar, & Wayne, 2007). In contrast to 2006, qualitative empirical papers have been thin on the ground in JOOP's output this year.…”

Stereotype Threat and Minority Ethnic Employees: What Should Our Research Priorities Be?

“…The focal article asks whether stereotype threat is a useful construct for organizational psychology research and practice. As has been suggested elsewhere (Kenny & Briner, ), more theoretical contributions to work on ethnicity in organizations are required. We believe that the concept of stereotype threat holds great promise for increasing our understanding of how minority ethic employees experience their working lives.…”