Psychological Diversity Climate and Its Effects: the Role of Organizational Identification

• Main Author: Cole, Brooklyn M.
• Other Authors: Cooper, Danielle
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: University of North Texas 2013
• Subjects: Psychological diversity climate; organizational identification; social identity
• Online Access: https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc407849/

Organizations have begun to focus heavily on diversity. As a result, organizations spend time and resources creating diversity policies and investing extensively in diversity training programs. While an abundance of research exists on demographic diversity, research has just begun to incorporate employees’ perceptions of diversity as an influential factor affecting organizationally relevant employee outcomes. Employees are a crucial reference in understanding whether organizations benefit from engaging in such actions. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of diversity climate on employees’ organizational identification. Furthermore, I investigate how organizational identification mediates the relationship between diversity climate perceptions and outcomes including turnover intentions, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior. I refine our understanding by identifying personal characteristics that influence the diversity climate (PDC) – organizational identification (OID) relationship. This research offers several contributions to management literature and scholars as well as practitioners. First this study empirically examines the relationship between PDC and OID. This connection is important as it identifies the psychological mechanism linking PDC to subsequent outcomes as well as showing how positive climate perception can influence an employee’s sense of belonging. The second contribution is the in-depth identification of personal characteristics and their role in this relationship specifically, demographics, values, and attachment to demographic category. Individuals will differ in their beliefs and thus their attachment based on climate perceptions. Finally, this study links diversity climate to organizationally relevant outcomes through organizational identification.