Courtney L. McCluney, Courtney M. Bryant, Danielle D. King and Abdifatah A. Ali
Racially traumatic events – such as police violence and brutality toward Blacks – affect individuals in and outside of work. Black employees may “call in Black” to avoid…
Abstract
Purpose
Racially traumatic events – such as police violence and brutality toward Blacks – affect individuals in and outside of work. Black employees may “call in Black” to avoid interacting with coworkers in organizations that lack resources and perceived identity and psychological safety. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper integrates event system theory (EST), resourcing, and psychological safety frameworks to understand how external, racially traumatic events impact Black employees and organizations. As racially traumatic events are linked to experienced racial identity threat, the authors discuss the importance of both the availability and creation of resources to help employees to maintain effective workplace functioning, despite such difficult circumstances.
Findings
Organizational and social-identity resourcing may cultivate social, material, and cognitive resources for black employees to cope with threats to their racial identity after racially traumatic events occur. The integration of organizational and social-identity resourcing may foster identity and psychologically safe workplaces where black employees may feel valued and reduce feelings of racial identity threats.
Research limitations/implications
Implications for both employees’ social-identity resourcing practice and organizational resource readiness and response options are discussed.
Originality/value
The authors present a novel perspective for managing diversity and inclusion through EST. Further, the authors identify the interaction of individual agency and organizational resources to support Black employees.
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Keywords
Courtney L. McCluney, Danielle D. King, Courtney M. Bryant and Abdifatah A. Ali
The purpose of this essay is to highlight the urgent need for antiracism resource generation in organizations today.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this essay is to highlight the urgent need for antiracism resource generation in organizations today.
Design/methodology/approach
This essay weaves together popular press articles, academic writings and the authors' lived experiences to summarize, clarify and extend the work needed inside of organizations and academia to dismantle systemic racism.
Findings
We define antiracist resources as personal and material assets that counteract systemic racism through informing and equipping antiracist actions, and identify three resources—adopting a long-term view for learning the history of racism, embracing discomfort to acknowledge racist mistakes and systematically assess how organizational structures maintain white supremacy—for organizations to address systemic racism.
Research limitations/implications
While there is a critical need for more antiracism research, there are standards and guidelines that should be followed to conduct that research responsibly with antiracism enacted in research design, methodology decisions and publication practices.
Practical implications
The authors call for organizations to directly counter-racism via antiracism resources and offer examples for how these resources can inform and equip companies to create equitable workplaces.
Originality/value
This essay offers: (a) an updated, timely perspective on effective responses to systemic racism (e.g. police brutality and COVID-19), (b) a detailed discussion of antiracism resources and (c) specific implications for antiracism work in organizational research.
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Courtney L. McCluney, Laura Morgan Roberts and Lynn Perry Wooten