Jasmin Wright

47210451

Organisational Behaviour Assessment 2

QUESTION ONE
(737 words)

Stereotyping

Stereotyping is commonly characterised as shared beliefs about characteristics of

members of a particular social category, affirms Fetherston (2016). Stereotyping is

prominent in all aspects of life and occurs for many reasons. This is significantly due

to categorical thinking, used to better understand the world around us, the natural

drive to make judgements and anticipate others behaviour as a frequent thought

pattern, and the enhancement of social identities and self-concept through

categorising and differentiation of groups.

Stereotyping of Parental Leave

Parental leave is an inevitable part of life as a member of the workforce, especially

for females. The amount of time decided to take off is subjective, although it will have

a ripple effect on one’s reputation at the business and how their supervisors,

colleagues and management boards see them. Hideg et al (2018) reveals the longer

new mothers are away from their paid working jobs, the less likely they are to be

promoted, move into management positions, or receive an increase in pay once

returning after their leave. This is particularly due to the occurrence of stereotyping in

the workplace.
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Due to their length of leave, colleagues and supervisors use categorical thinking and

natural drive to perceive that the worker is less committed to their job the more time

they take off when having a child. It is also a concept of gender inequality by which a

mother is more focused on starting a family than career driven. This is not an

accurate assumption for most situation as parental leave has is extremely individual

and majorly has more to do with improving mother/father and child wellbeing and

relationships rather than damaging the reputation of their efforts at work. From this

we uncover that parental leave stereotyping involves problems that can lead to more

serious implications for a worker.

Issues of stereotyping

Overgeneralisation

Stereotyping can be seen as an issue because leaves room for overgeneralisation.

The stereotypes that are given to certain individuals are not always true. When

assigning someone to a particular group, they are given a stereotype in which certain

characteristics they share with other group members. Although everyone is different

and not every member of that group shares the same characteristics, which leads to

prejudice and discrimination. This can further bring about certain consequences such

as the association from that group leading to a damaged reputation.

Suppose that a woman decides to take parental leave as she has her first child.

Members of the business-like colleagues and bosses will categorise her into a group

that gives her undesired values which may include that she isn’t committed to her job

or she can’t work to the best of her abilities. This gendered concept will lead to

additional prejudices such as not giving the parent equal opportunities in terms of
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promotions, management roles or bonuses because she has been given unattractive

characteristics due to stereotyping. This demonstrates that her reputation is

negatively affected as she is generalised into a specific group of values, when more

likely than not, her views of commitment and effort to the business has not changed

just because she is taking a maternity break.

Identity Loss

Stereotyping can further be an issue because it gives room for a lack or loss of

identity. Prince (2020) explains that identity is a social construct produced from

interactions and experiences with others. Identity is formed throughout a person’s life

and essentially never stops developing. Being associated with a negative stereotype

will create insecurities and self-esteem issues for a person. When someone is

stereotyped into a specific group, their individual development becomes stunted as

they reflect on the way society wants them to be perceived vs how they perceive

themselves and can lose sense of self.

Take a woman for example who decides to take one year of maternity leave from her

teaching position she loves and is devoted to. She is placed into the category by her

co-workers and supervisors that she has lost commitment for her work and doesn’t

care about the children she teaches anymore. This will damage her self-identity as

she will start to question whether this is true, if now she can’t teach the children and

simultaneously raise a child herself, affecting her self-esteem and performance

levels when she does return to work. This effectively demonstrates how the woman’s

views on herself and her dedication to her work has changed due to the stereotyping

she received from her maternity leave.

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QUESTION TWO
(677 words)

Organisational Justice

Organisational Justice is concerned with the extent of which employees perceive

workplace procedures, interactions, and outcomes to be fair. Distributive justice is

perceived fairness in outcomes received, related to our contributions and the

contributions of others. Whereas procedural justice is perceived fairness of the

procedures used to decide the distribution of resources in a business. Shaffer et al

(2013) states that from an equity perspective, fairness and justice are important

organisational attributes, benefiting an organisation.

Equity

Osmonbekov et al (2016) reflects that equity is the desire of members of a business

to have a fair distribution of benefits. Equity theory involves inputs to which

employees produce, like effort and performance, and outcomes to which employees

receive, like pay and promotions. Inequity contributes to a lack of organisational

justice in a business, creating dissatisfaction for employees by comparing their own

outcomes with others.

Reducing Inequity Tension

There are two approaches to reduce perceived inequity tension in a business; from

the employee’s perspective by using inequity to motivate them to create change, or

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from the approach of the business and their management changing their handling of

organisational justice.

Take the situation for example, that two parents who work for the same marketing

firm are going on parental leave, the wife for one year but the husband for two

months. Once on leave, the business decides to act in a prejudiced manner against

the woman, such as contacting the father about a future promotion but not the

mother, or contacting the father about networking events, but not contacting the

mother.

Employee reduction

When the inequity is perceived, the woman will compare her outcomes to that of her

husband and will feel she is treated unfairly, leading to tension, anxiety or other

negative emotions. This inequity situation will motivate the mother towards action,

functioning in a state of readiness. This could be seen as changing her inputs like

lowering her effort, or trying to change her outcomes like increasing performance

levels on return to influence opportunities like pay increases.

She could change other employee’s outputs, like asking her boss to stop being

biased against her husband and asked for a fairer chance. She could also change

her comparative person and reflect on someone else, like an employee on similar

parental leave. Or the woman could change her perspectives to think of the

resources she isn’t receiving in a different way, like saying ‘It’s a good thing I didn’t

get that promotion because I have more time for my child and I.’ The last option the

employee could be motivated towards is leaving her job altogether, as she feels she
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isn’t valued at the business. These motivations will depend on the individual

themselves as a subjective process, also known as equity sensitivity. This details

how an employee uses motivation to reduce inequity tension.

Organisation reduction

Organisations must be aware of these inequity perceptions and identify ways to

address these so employees don’t end up leaving the business. This must be done

by increasing the procedural fairness for their employees, to decrease the inequity

tension.

The business can start by giving their employees a voice so they can express their

thoughts freely to feel more comfortable speaking up if this happens again, like

through a feedback questionnaire, or integrating business community-based peer

support, says Nijigal et al (2021). The business should make decisions more

carefully, avoiding any bias, basing their outcomes on all information provided and

listening to all parties’ sides.

The business could further improve their existing policies to be more modern and

flexible to everyone at the business, such as implementing a corporate program that

enables women to stay in touch with the workplace while on maternity leave,

suggested by Hideg et al (2018). If a situation such as this arises again where an

employee is frustrated and communicates this to the business, the organisation must

make sure to treat their workers respectfully and provide a full explanation for their

reasons. These tactics will make sure a business can avoid and reduce inequity

tension for now and the future.

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References

 Ambrose, & Schminke, M. (2009). The Role of Overall Justice Judgments in

Organizational Justice Research: A Test of Mediation. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 94(2), 491–500. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0013203

 Fetherston. (2016). Teaching diversity in organizations: stereotyping the stock

photo. Communication Teacher, 30(3), 131–135.

https://doi.org/10.1080/17404622.2016.1192662

 Hideg, I., Krstic, A., Trau, R., & Zarina, T. (2018a). Do longer maternity leaves

hurt women’s careers? Harvard Business Review.

 Hideg, I., Krstic, A., Trau, R. N., & Zarina, T. (2018b). The unintended

consequences of maternity leaves: How agency interventions mitigate the

negative effects of longer legislated maternity leaves. Journal of Applied

Psychology, 103(10), 1155-1164.

 Nijagal, Patel, D., Lyles, C., Liao, J., Chehab, L., Williams, S., & Sammann, A.

(2021). Using human centered design to identify opportunities for reducing

inequities in perinatal care. BMC Health Services Research, 21(1), 1–714.

https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-021-06609-8

 Osmonbekov, Gregory, B., Chelariu, C, & Johnston, W. J. (2016). The impact

of social and contractual enforcement on reseller performance: the mediating

role of coordination and inequity during adoption of a new technology. The

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Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, 31(6), 808–818.

https://doi.org/10.1108/JBIM-12-2014-0260

 Prince, K. G. (2020, May 15). The Good, the Bad, and the What of

Stereotypes. Taylors University. https://college.taylors.edu.my/en/life-at-

taylors/news-events/news/the-good-the-bad-and-the-what-of-stereotypes.html