Status-based discrimination (part 1 of 2)

Here are some notes from the article "Getting A Job: Is There A Motherhood Penalty" by Correll and colleagues (2007).

Summary
Employed mothers suffer wage penalty, and the pay gap between mothers and nonmothers is larger than the pay gap between men and women.

Mothers are also perceived as less competent, less committed, less dependable, less authoritative and more irrational.

Explanation for motherhood penalty can be classified into:

• Worker explanations (differences in traits, skills and behaviors between mothers and nonmothers)
• Discrimination explanation (differential preference for or treatment of mothers and nonmothers)

Are high-status actors opportunistic or fair?

Two of the recent research - one, an article by Graffin & Colleagues (2013) and another by Blader and Chen (2012) - seem to offer contradicting propositions on the relationship between status and fairness perceptions.

In the former, the authors examining the 2009 British Member of Parliament(MP) scandal, hypothesized that high-status is associated with a sense of invulnerability and feelings of entitlement, and thereby with more opportunistic behaviors that further self-interests. Though no evidence was found for the proposed "elite opportunism," the article nevertheless outlines the reasons for absence of such a relationship in their study, and contends that such a self-serving behavior is plausible.

Learning to experiment

Though I have been fascinated by the potential of controlled experiments since the first time I learnt about Milgram and Stanford prison experiments, it is only in last few days that I have begun to get initiaited into this methodology. Incidentally most of the research on power and status in the recent past have used lab experiments to establish causal effects. With a scope for greater creativity, experiments somehow seem more exciting than the typical field survey method. Of course a study that best combines experimental design with "reality check" (as in the Motherhood Penalty study) or a quasi-experimental design (as the famous blind auditions for symphony orchestra) seem to be even more interesting.

Conflict-power-status perspectives of group

The recent research apprenticing under Prof. Ruchi Sinha, various brainstorming sessions and purposive readings have made me realize that my prime fascination is with the social influence processes, i.e. power and status, dynamics of social hierarchies, resource inequalities, intragroup struggles, and challenges confronting the agents and targets of downward, lateral and upward influence. Here are a few areas that I am particularly keen to explore in the coming times:

Status in organizational literature: A JOM review

From my limited knowledge, the recent paper by Piazza and Castellucci (2014) is one of the few articles that reviews the phenomenon of status as it appears in the organizational literature. The authors have reviewed the extant literature (from 1993 to 2012) on the status at the macro, meso and micro levels. The review also classifies the literature based on how the scholars see the role the status in organizations - signal, intangible asset or mobile resource.

Variance on power dimensions

Below is a list of dimensions related to power on which I think the group members might vary -

Who is a good inquirer?

As I begin to prepare applying for the Doctoral programmes, I seem quite unsure of what aspects of my profile is pertinent to be underscored. While at this juncture what best impresses upon the admissions committee should be salient, some fundamental doubts seem to prod me in a different direction.

High/low status group members

Some questions that occurred while reading papers by Earley (1999), Aquino and Douglas (2003), and Tyler and Blader (2002).

Is ‘power struggle’ different from ‘status conflict’?

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines struggle as either a competition or a conflict. If we agree that struggle is a broader concept, then the distinction between struggle and conflict, essentially boils down to the nuanced distinction between competition and conflict.

What happens to status when new member joins a group?

(Few questions parked for future delving)

Consider a new member joining an existing group -
In a such a scenario,how is the new member’s status and hence his/her position within existing hierarchy consensually arrived at? Do high-status group members determine the new member’s status, which is unquestioned by low-status group members? Could the new member’s status alter the very basis (or bases) of existing status hierarchy? If so, when is it likely to occur?

Benefits/detriments of conflict

Reference paper:

Jehn, K. A. (1995). A multimethod examination of the benefits and detriments of intragroup conflict. Administrative science quarterly, 256-282.

Is it better to keep a low-profile?

Some thoughts that came across while trying to understand the status characteristics and expectation-states theories -

Work Life Interference

Reference paper:

Keeney, J., Boyd, E. M., Sinha, R., Westring, A. J., & Ryan, A. M. (2013). From “Work-family” to “Work-life”: Broadening Our Conceptualization and Measurement. Journal of Vocational Behavior.

Affective underpinnings of voice effectiveness

Based on the a paper on dual tuning effects of positive and negative emotion on creativity by Jennifer M. George and Jing Zhou, here are some initial thoughts on how to me affect seems to influence employee voice effectiveness.

What influences voice effectiveness?

Based on inputs by my research guide and mentor, I began looking at the question of when is employee voice effective. Here are some of my initial thoughts -

Pertinent realities

A couple of days back I began my morning browsing the headline story on the closely guarded hanging of one of the accused terrorists. A skeptic that I am, I wondered whether the accused was really hanged or was he still kept secretly alive for some reason that a common man such as I may not fathom. As the question soon faded, a more basic one popped up - "Do I really care about the veracity of the matter?". In so questioning I did not realize that I had inadvertently embarked on a journey toward understanding truth.

Workflow centrality and Voice

Reference paper:

Venkataramani, V., & Tangirala, S. (2010). When and why do central employees speak up? An examination of mediating and moderating variables. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(3), 582–591. doi:10.1037/a0018315

Reactions to unfair events

Reference paper:

Tangirala, S., & Alge, B. J. (2006). Reactions to unfair events in computer-mediated groups: A test of uncertainty management theory. Organizational behavior and human decision processes, 100(1), 1–20.

Two + two

Of late, there are a few questions that are taking up too much of my mind share. The commonality of these questions is that they appear elementary and seem to frequent more often than due. Every time they occur they cajole me into unfolding them, and in the process they beget more questions and leave me increasingly embittered by my inadequacies to find any reasonable answers.

Defining entrepreneurship

The term 'entrepreneurship' first appeared in the French Dictionary 'Dictionnaire Universal de Commerce' in 1723. Richard Cantillon is considered to be the first economist to define who an entrepreneur is. In his seminal book 'Essai sur la Nature du Commerce en Général', considered the first complete treatise on economics, he defines entrepreneur as non-fixed income earner who pays known costs of production but earns uncertain incomes, due to the speculative nature of pandering to an unknown demand for his/her production (Wikipedia). Since then, perhaps no other term has been redefined, reinterpreted and conveniently adapted with such plasticity across theory and practice.