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At the Margins: A Distinctiveness Approach to the Social Identity and Social Networks of Underrepresented Groups
Abstract
Using distinctiveness theory, research shows that the relative rarity of a group in a social context tended to promote members' use of that group as a basis for shared identity and social interaction. Relative majority group members, racial minorities and women in a master of business administration cohort were more likely to make identity and friendship choices within-group. The marginalization of racial minorities individuals' own preferences for same-race friends. By contrast, the marginalization of women resulted more for exclusionary pressures than from their preferences for woman friends.
... Stereotype threat, which arises from concerns about being judged according to negative stereotypes about social identity, occurs when individuals identify with social groups that are underrepresented in high-status positions (Spencer, Logel, and Davies 2016;Mehra, Kilduff, and Brass 1998). Stereotype threat concerns may be heightened for accounting students who identify with historically underrepresented social groups in accounting (Casad and Bryant 2016). ...
... Stereotype threat can arise when someone's social identity includes a social group with low social status within a given context (Major and Eccleston 2004;Leyens, D esert, Croizet, and Darcis 2000). Stereotype threat may also arise when individuals feel that representatives of their social group are outnumbered in a setting or when an individual perceives that a stereotype might be applied (Spencer et al. 2016;Mehra et al. 1998). ...
Recent trends in the United States show a downturn in new entrants to the accounting profession, with demand for new graduates exceeding the supply. Attracting and retaining entrants to the accounting profession is necessary to address this shortage. We investigate how perceptions of belonging and stereotype threat, defined as the concern about being negatively stereotyped about social identity, influence accounting students’ commitment to the profession. Results show that belonging perceptions are lower for students who experience stereotype threat. Further, the negative relationship between stereotype threat and professional commitment is mediated by perceptions of belonging. Our findings inform educators seeking to increase students’ commitment to the accounting profession about the important influence of stereotype threat. Our results also inform those interested in the belonging perceptions of students who may experience heightened stereotype threat concerns, such as those identifying with historically underrepresented social groups.
Data Availability: Data are available from the authors upon request.
This study’s objective was to investigate the influence of social networks in promoting ecotourism in the post-COVID-19 era. The authors of this study employed a social network perspective to examine the connection between social networking and ecotourism using a meso-level perspective. According to the qualitative research done, it became clear that organizational social links could play an important role in fostering homophilic and heterophilic relationships. These network pressures were very dynamic and depended on numerous sets of elements, according to the study’s findings. These characteristics included the frequency of social links, the sequence of interactions with social ties, and the prevalent social norms at the time of social tie contact. This research will contribute to a greater understanding of the role of social networking in the context of promoting and developing ecotourism. The study improved the overall understanding of social relationships and motivational elements in the social networking environment. Future research could examine the global ecotourism levels of a varied group of people with multiple restrictions. This research study had practical consequences for tourism and hospitality industry managers. The research found that for the development and growth of ecotourism regular homophilic social relationships are more beneficial than heterophilic ties.
Rising international migration, paired with increasing public support for far-right political parties, poses a growing challenge to the countries tasked with successfully integrating immigrants into their society. Further complicating this matter is the fact that the acculturation process which immigrants undergo to fully integrate into their host society can be long, difficult, and taxing to their mental health, physical health, and sense of belonging. A better understanding of how the unique burdens faced by immigrants might be alleviated or more easily processed is therefore vital for the success of both immigrants and their host countries. Drawing on initial findings suggesting that classic psychedelics can help individuals process incidents of discrimination, make healthier decisions, and experience deeper feelings of connectedness to others, this literature review presents a roadmap for determining what classic psychedelics may offer immigrants, a large and rapidly growing international minority group.
This Element synthesizes the current state of research on organizational social networks from its early foundations to contemporary debates. It highlights the characteristics that make the social network perspective distinctive in the organizational research landscape, including its emphasis on structure and outcomes. It covers the main theoretical developments and summarizes the research design questions that organizational researchers face when collecting and analyzing network data. Then, it discusses current debates ranging from agency and structure to network volatility and personality. Finally, the Element envisages future research directions on the role of brokerage for individuals and communities, network cognition, and the importance of past ties. Overall, the Element provides an innovative angle for understanding organizational social networks, engaging in empirical network research, and nurturing further theoretical development on the role of social interactions and connectedness in modern organizations.
This chapter explains why returnees decided to return to China and how they chose a megacity. Most returnees recruited in this study chose to return to China immediately after they finished their overseas study, and some had worked for a while in the ‘host’ country before they returned to China. However, regardless of when they decided to return, the reasons underpinning this decision shared similarities. Most participants actively chose to return to one of the three megacities because they regarded it as a way to keep their ethnic and national identity as Chinese and to become a member of the developed world at the same time. This observation challenges a conventional research argument that to transnational Chinese students, returning to China without attaining the citizenship of a developed country means failing the dream of becoming a member of the developed world [Fong, Paradise redefined: Transnational Chinese students and the quest for flexible citizenship in the developed world. Stanford University Press (2011)]. In this chapter, I discuss how their overseas studying experiences influenced their identities and how returnees conceived megacity cityzenship as membership in the ‘developed’ world. Moreover, this chapter also explains how participants chose among the three megacities by drawing attention to intercity differences. To returnees, the three cities differed in terms of the environment, climate, economic and industrial structures and social welfare provided by local hukou. Finally, this chapter shows how cities were interpreted as places full of meanings and emotions and highlights the importance of taking into account returnees’ emotions in studying cityzenship.KeywordsMultiscalar membership and identityIntercity differences
This article carries out a literature review of research on social networks regarding women's careers in the context of organizations and management for the period of 1970-2021. Our focus is on the concep-tualization of social networks, understanding gender, and identification of the network effects that are important for women's careers. The study enables us to create a comprehensive foundation of research knowledge conducted over several decades and build a profound base of suggestions for further research. Our analysis shows that the field has widened to include individual, organizational, and social environment viewpoints. The research on women's social networks has evolved from establishing the field, to individu-alistic understanding, to accounting for sociocultural dynamics. The approach to gender has evolved from gender comparison to gender particularity and then contextualizing gender. Our suggestions for future research avenues include incorporating environmental aspects, virtual social networking, diversity, and leadership perspectives to improve women's inclusion in social network research.
Developing rapport during the “moment of truth” when frontline employees (FLEs) interact with customers has long been an important topic for researchers and managers. We suggest incidental similarities—seemingly trivial shared points of comparison between customers and FLEs—can play a vital role during this juncture in service failure and recovery contexts. Across two experimental studies, we investigate several relationships impacted by the presence or absence of an incidental similarity between FLEs and customers for their effect on satisfaction and repatronage intentions. Results suggest incidental similarities can reduce failure attributions toward service providers and improve these important customer‐related outcomes (study 1). Results of study 2 extend our findings, demonstrating that rapport can serve as a mediating mechanism explaining the relationship between incidental similarities and these key service outcomes. Study 2 also reveals that FLE authenticity acts as a boundary condition of this relationship, accentuating the indirect, conditional relationships between incidental similarities, and satisfaction and repatronage intentions. Critically, we demonstrate that an incidental similarity can be even more effective when there is no recovery. By pointing out the role of incidental similarities in service encounters, our research makes significant contributions to aiding understanding of how rapport can be developed during the relatively brief time customers interact with service employees.
Research on African-Americans' relationship with science, while relatively sparse, in general suggests higher levels of alienation than among their White counterparts, whether in the form of less positive attitudes to science, or lower scientific literacy. In this article, we leverage social identity theory to examine the role of racial social identity and ingroup evaluation as putative mechanisms that produce these disparities. We use data from the General Social Survey, pooled over three waves, as the basis for our investigation. The results of the analysis indicate that, when controlling for other covariates, there is no statistically significant difference in the effect of racial self-identification on science knowledge among African-Americans and Whites. However, we provide evidence that the effect of favourable ingroup evaluation on science knowledge differs in these two groups, being more positive for African-Americans compared to Whites.
Male nurses in a psychiatric hospital were compared and contrasted to their female colleagues with respect to their conceptions
of their intra-hospital status and their place in the general stratification system outside the hospital. Within the hospital,
the male nurses differed from the females in their views of the other occupational groups with whom nurses are in contact.
The men's involvement in an occupation usually reserved for women also affected their view of the general stratification system,
especially in terms of a relatively low estimate of their own self-esteem.
In this research alienation, defined as an objective state of isolation from others, is studied among 335 members of five organizations. Four dimensions of isolation are studied: isolation (1) from formal authority, (2) from the network of perceived actual control, (3) from friends, and (4) from highly respected coworkers. As expected, these dimensions of isolation are interrelated, but they do not correlate to the extent anticipated with the subject's professional standing or location in the structure of social relations in the organization.