- Oxford Library of Psychology
- The Oxford Handbook of Workplace Discrimination
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Subtle Discrimination in the Workplace: Individual-Level Factors and Processes
- Group-Based Experiences of Discrimination: Moving Beyond Cognitive Theories
- Organizations, Employment Discrimination, and Inequality
- Employment Discrimination as Unethical Behavior
- Gender Discrimination in the Workplace
- Racial Discrimination in Organizations
- Persons With (dis)Abilities
- Age Discrimination at Work: A Review of the Research and Recommendations for the Future
- Religious Group Discrimination
- Immigrants in the Workplace: Stereotyping and Discrimination
- LGBT Workers
- Family Responsibilities and Career Outcomes: Discriminatory and Nondiscriminatory Explanations
- Modern Discrimination
- Discrimination in Employment Settings
- A Primer on Equal Employment Opportunity Law and Contemporary Enforcement
- Legal Consciousness, Mobilization, and Discrimination Disputes at Work
- International Perspective
- Measuring and Defining Discrimination
- Individual Outcomes of Discrimination in Workplaces
- Impact on Perpetrators
- Impact on Organizations
- A Stigma Lens for Considering What Targets Can Do
- What Can Allies Do?
- Organizational Remedies for Discrimination
- How Much Has America Changed in 50 Years?: An Organizational Psychologist’s Take on Social Justice Progress Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Can Scholarly Works on Discrimination Make a Practical Difference?
- Moving Forward from Inequality and Discrimination: Historical Global Perspectives
- Looking Forward: What Lies Ahead in Employment Discrimination Research?
- In Conclusion: Workplace Discrimination in Context
- Index
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter explores theory and research that shows how employment discrimination and inequality are shaped by organizations and organizational context. More specifically, it considers how group-linked discrimination and other status-linked categorical distinctions give rise to group-level employment inequalities. It argues that categorical distinctions, such as race, gender, and citizenship, influence quality of life and life chances across institutional contexts including work, and that organizational context affects the extent to which such statuses become the basis, in part or whole, for sorting people into jobs or being exposed to opportunities and experiences. Three general forces that shape employment discrimination and group-linked inequality are discussed: inertia, the tendency for organizations—once policies, practices, and procedures are established—to produce stability and resist change over time; intraorganizational pressure, in particular the relative power of internal constituencies; and environmental pressures, both direct and diffuse, on organizations to implement organizational practices and procedures.
Keywords: employment discrimination, organization, group-linked discrimination, employment inequality, race, gender, citizenship, inertia, intraorganizational pressure, environmental pressure
Kevin Stainback Department of Sociology Purdue University West Lafayette, IN, USA
Access to the complete content on Oxford Handbooks Online requires a subscription or purchase. Public users are able to search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter without a subscription.
Please subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you have purchased a print title that contains an access token, please see the token for information about how to register your code.
For questions on access or troubleshooting, please check our FAQs, and if you can''t find the answer there, please contact us.
- Oxford Library of Psychology
- The Oxford Handbook of Workplace Discrimination
- About the Editors
- Contributors
- Introduction
- Subtle Discrimination in the Workplace: Individual-Level Factors and Processes
- Group-Based Experiences of Discrimination: Moving Beyond Cognitive Theories
- Organizations, Employment Discrimination, and Inequality
- Employment Discrimination as Unethical Behavior
- Gender Discrimination in the Workplace
- Racial Discrimination in Organizations
- Persons With (dis)Abilities
- Age Discrimination at Work: A Review of the Research and Recommendations for the Future
- Religious Group Discrimination
- Immigrants in the Workplace: Stereotyping and Discrimination
- LGBT Workers
- Family Responsibilities and Career Outcomes: Discriminatory and Nondiscriminatory Explanations
- Modern Discrimination
- Discrimination in Employment Settings
- A Primer on Equal Employment Opportunity Law and Contemporary Enforcement
- Legal Consciousness, Mobilization, and Discrimination Disputes at Work
- International Perspective
- Measuring and Defining Discrimination
- Individual Outcomes of Discrimination in Workplaces
- Impact on Perpetrators
- Impact on Organizations
- A Stigma Lens for Considering What Targets Can Do
- What Can Allies Do?
- Organizational Remedies for Discrimination
- How Much Has America Changed in 50 Years?: An Organizational Psychologist’s Take on Social Justice Progress Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964
- Can Scholarly Works on Discrimination Make a Practical Difference?
- Moving Forward from Inequality and Discrimination: Historical Global Perspectives
- Looking Forward: What Lies Ahead in Employment Discrimination Research?
- In Conclusion: Workplace Discrimination in Context
- Index