Paying to Reduce Disparity: Financially Incentivizing Workforce Diversity and Its Effects on Managers' Promotion Decisions and Employees' Effort

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Sheeley, Bret
• 署名单位: Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh
• 刊物名称: ACCOUNTING REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0001-4826
• DOI: 10.2308/TAR-2023-0601
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 329-349
• 关键词: AFFIRMATIVE-ACTION; performance; COMPENSATION; perceptions; tournaments; SEPARATION; fairness; JUSTICE; self

摘要

Companies are offering managers compensation incentives to increase promotions of underrepresented employees to higher level organizational positions (hereafter, diversity incentives). This study uses an experiment to examine how diversity incentives affect managers' promotion decisions and employees' effort choices before and after those decisions. The results suggest that managers' diversity incentives do not affect employees' pre-promotion effort choices. Additional analyses indicate that both over- and under-represented employees expect managers to promote them based on effort instead of group membership. Consistent with predictions, diversity incentives increase the likelihood that managers promote under-represented employees whose pre-promotion efforts are comparable to their over-represented colleagues' efforts. After the promotion decision, nonpromoted employees whose managers receive diversity incentives choose the lowest effort, regardless of group membership. Collectively, these results inform companies about the potential costs and benefits of using diversity incentives by demonstrating that diversity incentives can increase diversity in promotions but reduce nonpromoted employees' efforts.