Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 14/e

Discrimination

Although diversity presents many opportunities for organizations, diversity management includes working to eliminate unfair discrimination. To discriminate is to note a difference between things, which in itself isn’t necessarily bad. Noticing one employee is more qualified is necessary for making good hiring decisions; noticing another is taking on leadership responsibilities exceptionally well is necessary for making strong promotion decisions. Usually when we talk about discrimination, though, we mean allowing our behavior to be influenced by stereotypes about groups of people. Stereotyping is judging someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which that person belongs. To use a machine metaphor, you might think ...