The benefits of climate for inclusion for gender diverse groups
The Academy of Management Journal
Published online on October 09, 2012
Abstract
I introduce the construct of Climate for Inclusion, which involves eliminating relational sources of bias by ensuring that identity group status is unrelated to one's access to resources, creating expectations and opportunities for heterogeneous individuals to establish personalized cross-cutting ties, and integrating ideas across boundaries in joint problem-solving. I show that within inclusive climates, interpersonal bias is reduced such that gender diversity is associated with lower levels of conflict. In turn, the negative effect that group conflict typically has on unit-level satisfaction disappears. This has important implications, as unit-level satisfaction is negatively associated with turnover in groups.