Research Seminars Series - A.Y. 2023-2024 2nd Term
Presenter: Prof Stefano Tasselli
ABSTRACT – Although DEI has become a central topic in the agenda of organizations, racial and ethnic minorities continue to experience workplace inequality. In this paper, we take a social network lens to address inequality both in network formation and in returns from networking; our focus is on brokerage in organizational social networks, given its relevance for individual performance in organizations. In three empirical studies in the banking industry, we show that minority employees are less likely than majority members to become brokers, and, even when they occupy brokerage positions, they experience time lag for networking returns, such that they take more time than majorities to gain the performance benefits associated with brokerage. Then, we design two natural experiments to conceptualize and test interventions that contrast network inequality. We show that participative agency (i.e., interventions targeted simultaneously at all members of the organization) will be successful to fight inequality in brokerage formation, but it is only by boosting the individual agency of minority members (i.e., interventions activating minority members' structural holes) that minorities will harvest the benefits of brokerage at the same speed as majority members do. Overall, we provide both a diagnostic analysis and practical interventions to face the network challenges concerning workplace racio-ethnic inequality.
TYPE OF RESEARCH – Empirical (natural experiments)
STAGE OF RESEARCH – Ready for first submission
For further information please refer to: seminars.dipsa@unibg.it
This initiative is implemented within the framework and under the coordination of the TRANSET project of the Department of Management, department of excellence for the period 2023-2027, as per L.232/2016