Purpose Negotiation is important for career success. Therefore, this study draws from social expectancy and self-regulation theories to develop a model proposing that social class background (SCB) influences the ease with which achievement striving translates into propensity to negotiate. Specifically, the authors examine how SCB moderates the relationship between achievement striving and negotiation propensity via a key mediator—status-based identity uncertainty—reflective of one's (un)certainty about their societal standing. Design/methodology/approach The authors collected data across three surveys over a four-week period from 460 participants. The authors assessed negotiation propensity by asking participants to rank-order behavioral reactions, representative of different degrees of negotiation engagement, in response to three scenarios. Findings The positive effects of achievement striving on negotiation propensity are attenuated for individuals with lower SCBs, in part, because achievement-oriented individuals with lower SCBs experience a heightened sense of status-based identity uncertainty. Although achievement striving is an asset for initiating negotiations, it appears to disproportionately benefit those with higher SCBs. Originality/value Individuals higher in achievement striving and with lower SCBs may approach the negotiation process differently than those with higher SCBs. This dynamic serves as another mechanism through which cumulative (dis)advantage processes in career success may occur over time.
Employment organizations are one of the primary sites where individuals’ dignity can be affected–for better or for worse. For some, organizations provide an opportunity to attain and maintain dignity through achievement and positive interactions. For others, organizations impede the attainment or threaten the maintenance of dignity. Although a common subtext of the organizational literature on dignity is that dignity threats unequally and disproportionately affect individuals at the lower end of the socioeconomic and organizational hierarchy, extant research on dignity has rarely considered social class explicitly. In this study, we interviewed 22 employees from diverse social classes to learn about the process through which they experienced threats to their dignity. By integrating dignity and social class, our goal is to shed light on the relatively invisible forces of inequality through a better understanding of felt experiences of (in)dignity.
Research in psychology, sociology and higher education have increasingly focused on how experiences with social class impact individuals as they transition into and through college (Stephens et al., 2014; Hinz, 2016). The “social class achievement gap,” for example, details the disparities in access to education and performance at higher education institutions based on class background (Dittmann and Stephens, 2017; Fiske and Markus, 2012). Despite this research and a growing recognition of social class as “one of the most meaningful cultural dimensions in people’s lives” (Liu et al., 2004: 3), a second major transition for individuals from lower social class origins—from the university to the workplace—remains largely unstudied (for exceptions, see Rivera, 2016). The goal of this study is to explore the following research questions: What is the experience of individuals from lower social class origins, as they graduate from college and experience upward mobility into the workplaces? How does this transition influence their sense of identity, expectations, and interactions, including maintenance and disruptive class work? For those in transition, how are class-based inequalities maintained and perpetuated by organizational norms and practices? We employed a grounded theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1998) whereby we sampled low income, first generation college students who graduated from college in mid-2019, with the aim of interviewing each participant at three time points: (1) prior to graduation, (2) within 3-5 months of beginning their first post-college work position, and (3) within 8-10 months following graduation. Data collection is ongoing and preliminary results will be discussed.
The field of behavioral business ethics has come a long way since its inception nearly five decades ago. Pioneered in part in response to a number of high-profile corporate scandals, the early field of business ethics was thought by many to be a fad that would recede along with the salience of the scandals of the day. Yet, this could not have been further from the truth. The need for behavioral business ethics research remains ever-present, as evidenced by the sustained number of scandals and unethical behavior within and by organizations. Moreover, research in this area has burgeoned. In the 1980s, only 54 articles had been published on this topic (Tenbrunsel & Smith-Crowe, 2008); today, a similar search yields over 3,000 “hits.” In light of the area’s growth, we suggest the need to take a look back at the seminal work that sparked social scientific work in the field. In particular, this chapter has two main objectives. First, we provide a review of select foundational work. In so doing, we identify some of the key trends that characterized early knowledge development in the field. Second, we draw on this historical context to consider how past trends relate to current work and speak to future research opportunities.
Using an interactional approach to studying organizations, we explore how social class differences alone and coupled with racial minority status generate identity threats for first-generation college students who are already underprivileged with respect to educational attainment. For these students the markers of social class are omnipresent and, like racial minorities, they experience microaggressions that require them to engage in identity work to counter these threats. We detail manifestations of social class differences on and off campus and identify the kinds of microaggressions these students encounter including those generated by the intersection of race and class that can destabilize students’ identities and lead to what we refer to as “identity collapse.” Our results also reveal four types of identity work including mining core identity strength, passing (via dodging and code switching), and developing peer support networks that allow some first-generation students to be resilient in responding to identity threats. We consider the implications of this class work for first-to-college students and offer suggestions for future research that expands our work to workplace organizations and inquires about the potential lasting effects of social class stigma.
Over the past decade, the topic of social class in organizations has enjoyed unexpected growth. However, management researchers lack an in-depth understanding of what we know (and do not know) about the role of social class in organizations. This lack of understanding is exacerbated by the fragmentation of extant research across disciplinary and paradigmatic lines. Accordingly, in this paper, we review over 400 quantitative, qualitative, and conceptual articles and offer an in-depth look at the current state of literature on social class and work. Specifically, we introduce a framework for organizing extant social class research and draw attention to the institutionalization of social class distinctions in organizations. We also identify opportunities for scholars to engage understudied areas and to connect across paradigms. Overall, we hope to fuel future research and further organizational scholars’ understanding of this complex yet impactful phenomenon.
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