Methodological problems associated with research on unfair discrimination against racial minorities

    Authors

    D. L. Stone; M. Hosoda; K. M. Lukaszewski;T. N. Phillips

    Comments

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    Abstract

    Despite the passage of civil rights legislation, racial and ethnic minorities continue to experience unfair discrimination in the workplace. Therefore, considerable research in human resource management and social psychology has examined the factors thought to affect unfair discrimination in organizations [Cox, T. (1993). Cultural diversity in organizations: Theory, research, and practice. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler]. Although research has focused on unfair discrimination, researchers have argued that the construct and external validity of the results have been adversely affected by methodological problems leg., Stone, E.F., Stone, D.L., & Dipboye, R.L. (1992). Stigmas in organizations: Race, handicaps, and physical unattractiveness. In Kelly, K. (Ed.). Issues, theory, and research in industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 385-457). Amsterdam: Elsevier]. Given this critique, the present paper (a) examines the degree to which recent research suffered from a number of methodological problems (e.g., obtrusive measures, non-representative samples, and demand characteristics), (b) identifies strategies for overcoming these problems, and (c) offers recommendations for advancing our understanding of unfair discrimination in organizational contexts. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

    Journal Title

    Human Resource Management Review

    Volume

    18

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2008

    Document Type

    Article

    First Page

    243

    Last Page

    258

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000207652900005

    ISSN

    1053-4822

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