Promoting perceived insider status of indigenous employees

Abstract

Purpose While companies in developed countries are increasingly turning to indigenous employees, integration measures have met with mixed results. Low integration can lead to breach of the psychological contract, i.e. perceived mutual obligations between employee and employer. The purpose of this paper is to identify how leadership and organizational integration measures can be implemented to promote the perceived insider status (PIS) of indigenous employees, thereby fostering fulfillment of the psychological contract. Design/methodology/approach A search for relevant literature yielded 128 texts used to identify integration measures at the level of employee–supervisor relationships (leader-member exchanges, inclusive leadership) and at the level of employee–organization relationships (perceived organizational support, pro-diversity practices). Findings Measures related to leadership included recruiting qualified leaders, understanding cultural particularities, integrating diverse contributions and welcoming questions and challenges. Organizational measures included reaching a critical mass of indigenous employees, promoting equity and participation, developing skills, assigning meaningful tasks, maintaining good work relationships, facilitating work-life balance, providing employment security, fostering support from communities and monitoring practices. Originality/value While PIS has been studied in western and culturally diverse contexts, it has received less attention in indigenous contexts. Yet, some indigenous cultural values are incompatible with the basic assumptions of mainstream theories. Furthermore, colonial policies and capitalist development have severely impacted traditional indigenous economic systems. Consequently, indigenous people are facing many barriers to employment in ways that often differ from the experiences of other minority groups.

Proactive Personality and Innovative Work Behavior: Through the Juxtapose of Schumpeter's Theory of Innovation and Broaden-And-Build Theory

“…PIS has been studied as a positive relationship as the outcome variable with PP (Dionne et al, 2002 ), as a mediator with organizational citizenship behavior and found no mediation (Caron et al, 2019 ), as the mediator between living a calling and psychological well-being and resulted in a partial mediation (Kang et al, 2021 ). On the other hand, PIS has been studied as an independent variable on IWB and established a significantly positive relationship (Wang et al, 2017 ).…”

A Model of Native American Worker Job Satisfaction

“…In opposition to Haar and Brougham's (2013) findings there was no significant relationship between collectivism and job satisfaction, nor did collectivism show a moderating relationship between workplace cultural wellbeing and job satisfaction (hypotheses six and seven). Both Haar and Brougham (2013) and Caron et al (2019) explain that Indigenous peoples tend to be more collectivistic than individualistic, however much of this data is derived from Indigenous groups outside of the United States. It might be possible that, given the smaller population of Native Americans within the United States (1%; Norris, Vines, & Hoeffel, 2012), they may feel pressure to conform to the dominant individualistic culture, especially when working at jobs that are not related to any tribal nation.…”

“…There are a number of specificities related to job satisfaction that are proposed to be more important to Indigenous workers than other workers. For example, work-life balance factors, how much the organization values diversity, and cultural awareness toward the Indigenous employee or group have been highlighted as important specifically to those with Indigenous backgrounds (Caron, Asselin, Beaudoin & Muresanu, 2019). Thus, established models of job satisfaction may not accurately represent Indigenous workers' career values .…”

“…Native American peoples share similar collectivistic values, including the prioritization of family and community, consensus-seeking, and humility (James, Wolf, Lovato, & Byers, 1994). Workplace collectivism refers to a system where employees are more concerned with group objectives, harmony, relationships, customs and traditions, rather than individual goals (Caron et al, 2019). Creating a collectivistic workplace has been shown to improve mental health for Maori employees which is related to job satisfaction (Elovainio, Kivimäki, Steen & Kalliomäki-Levanto, 2000).…”

“…Within the United States, the historical and ongoing colonization of Native Americans has resulted in a number of disparities when compared to the dominant group and other minority groups, including poverty, chronic illnesses, and educational attainment. Thus, due to the community and family-oriented nature of many Native American peoples, they often seek out employment that is beneficial to their communities (Caron et al, 2019;Guillory, 2008). Hence, it is posited that meaningful work is a value held as important to Native American workers, and thus, would be likely related to their level of job satisfaction.…”