Are Black Applicant Reactions to Diversity Statements Dependent on Leader Racial/Ethnic Representation?
Restricted (Penn State Only)
- Author:
- Rich, Tayana
- Graduate Program:
- Psychology
- Degree:
- Master of Science
- Document Type:
- Master Thesis
- Date of Defense:
- September 17, 2024
- Committee Members:
- Alicia Ann Grandey, Thesis Advisor/Co-Advisor
Sean Laurent, Committee Member
Kristin Buss, Program Head/Chair
Hanyi Min, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Recruitment
Diversity
Signaling Theory
diversity cues
Diversity statements
Racial representation
Diversity in leadership - Abstract:
- Organizations use diversity cues in recruitment materials to signal their value for diversity to attract job seekers from minoritized groups. Organizations often use pointing signals, such as diversity statements, that tell others about an organizational characteristic; and activating signals, such as leadership diversity, that show others this organizational characteristic in action. However, some research has found that these diversity initiatives backfire – in which minoritized groups are less attracted to organizations that use these signals. This study incorporates signaling theory to understand how Black job seekers may weigh and interpret diversity signals, and whether they interact to negatively influence Black job seeker’s perceptions of organizations. I hypothesize that Black job seekers will perceive organizations with incongruent cues (i.e., has a diversity statement, but low leadership diversity) as dishonest about their diversity value and will perceive less diversity climate, anticipated authenticity, and attraction to the organization. I use experimental vignettes of organizational websites to test my hypothesis. Results did not find that organizations with incongruent diversity cues experienced more negative perceptions than organizations with no diversity cues. However, leadership diversity predicted Black job seekers’ perceptions of organizations above that of diversity statements. Exploratory analyses also found that the effect of leadership diversity on Black job seekers’ perceptions depended on individual and demographic differences such as embodied threat, racial identity centrality, diversity value, and gender. This study offers theoretical and practical contributions by demonstrating the significant weight activating signals and individual differences have in influencing Black job seeker perceptions of organizations.