Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks

Unlocking the Benefits of Diversity All-Inclusive Multiculturalism and Positive Organizational Change

As the demographic composition of organizations in the United States rapidly shifts, such that minority groups are becoming the numerical and economic majority, organizations are grappling with ways to manage diversity in the workplace. The two forms of diversity initiatives most frequently implemented in organizations—colorblindness and multiculturalism—have clear benefits; however, each also contributes to feelings of exclusion by different organizational members. In this article, the authors describe problematic issues raised by these two approaches to diversity and offer an alternative perspective—all-inclusive multiculturalism, or the AIM model. The authors posit that AIM serves as a catalyst for positive and effective organizational change through the development of social capital and positive relationships at work and enables organizational members to grow to their fullest potential.

Connecting the Dots Within Creative Performance and Identity Integration

In two studies drawing from social identity theory and the creative-cognition approach, we found that higher levels of identity integration—perceived compatibility between two social identities—predict higher levels of creative performance in tasks that draw on both identity-relevant knowledge domains. Study 1 showed that Asian Americans with higher identity integration were more creative in developing new dishes using a given set of ingredients, but only when both Asian and American ingredients were available. Study 2 showed that female engineers with higher identity integration were more creative in designing a product, but only when the product was targeted to female users. These findings suggest that the psychological management of multiple social identities may be related to accessibility of multiple knowledge domains, which in turn influences creativity.

Protestant relational ideology and (in)attention to relational cues in work settings.

M. Weber (1947) proposed that exposure to Calvinist Protestantism is associated with limited attention to relational concerns in work settings. Two experiments provide support for this proposition. Study 1 showed that Protestant European Americans raised in traditions of Calvinism were less attentive to affect in spoken words when primed with a work context relative to a nonwork context, and to participants raised as Catholics in either context. Study 2 used an unconscious mimicry paradigm to measure relational focus and showed that within a work setting, male Protestants mimicked a confederates foot shaking less than male non-Protestants and women in either group. Within a nonwork setting, male Protestants mimicked more and did not differ from male non-Protestants. Women showed greater mimicry than men.

Connecting the Dots Within

In two studies drawing from social identity theory and the creative-cognition approach, we found that higher levels of identity integration—perceived compatibility between two social identities—predict higher levels of creative performance in tasks that draw on both identity-relevant knowledge domains. Study 1 showed that Asian Americans with higher identity integration were more creative in developing new dishes using a given set of ingredients, but only when both Asian and American ingredients were available. Study 2 showed that female engineers with higher identity integration were more creative in designing a product, but only when the product was targeted to female users. These findings suggest that the psychological management of multiple social identities may be related to accessibility of multiple knowledge domains, which in turn influences creativity.

Embodied Metaphors and Creative “Acts”

Creativity is a highly sought-after skill. Prescriptive advice for inspiring creativity abounds in the form of metaphors: People are encouraged to “think outside the box,” to consider a problem “on one hand, then on the other hand,” and to “put two and two together” to achieve creative breakthroughs. These metaphors suggest a connection between concrete bodily experiences and creative cognition. Inspired by recent advances in the understanding of body-mind linkages in the research on embodied cognition, we explored whether enacting metaphors for creativity enhances creative problem solving. Our findings from five studies revealed that both physical and psychological embodiment of metaphors for creativity promoted convergent thinking and divergent thinking (i.e., fluency, flexibility, or originality) in problem solving. Going beyond prior research, which focused primarily on the kind of embodiment that primes preexisting knowledge, we provide the first evidence that embodiment can also activate cognitive processes that facilitate the generation of new ideas and connections.

Cultural styles, relationship schemas, and prejudice against out-groups.

Two studies provide evidence that Latins (i.e., Mexicans and Mexican Americans) are guided by a concern with socioemotional aspects of workplace relations to a far greater degree than are Anglo-Americans. The focus on socioemotional considerations results in Latins having a relatively greater preference for workgroups having a strong interpersonal orientation. Preferred relational style had a far greater impact on preferences for workgroups and judgments about their likely success than did the ethnic composition of the workgroups for both Latins and Anglo-Americans. Evidence that the two groups differ markedly in relational schemas comes from examination of suggestions about how group performance could be improved, judgments about whether a focus on socioemotional concerns necessarily entails a reduction in task focus, and recall for socioemotional aspects of workgroup interactions. Implications for the dynamics of intercultural contact are discussed.

The Professional, the Personal, and the Ideal Worker: Pressures and Objectives Shaping the Boundary between Life Domains

AbstractBoth scholarly literature and popular accounts suggest that modern organizational practices have moved toward encouraging employees to “integrate” or blur the boundary between their personal and professional domains, for example, through self-disclosure at work, company-sponsored social activities or providing on-site child care. Concurrently, an ideology underlying U.S. professional norms discourages integration practices such as referencing non-work roles during workplace interactions, expressing emotions in the workplace, and/or displaying non-work-related items in workspaces. In this review, we posit that these two norms firmly coexist because they differentially serve two objectives corresponding to the parallel bodies of research we examine: one addressing boundary management as a tool for handling role responsibilities, and the other considering boundary management as a tool for shaping workplace identity and relationships. Specifically, we posit that segmenting personal and professional do...

Folk Wisdom About the Effects of Relationship Conflict

From the time of Tocqueville (1840) to the present, observers of American culture have remarked that despite being highly individualistic, Americans exhibit a penchant for working in groups (e.g., Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1996). Coupled with a belief that a strong work ethic is a sufficient condition for success (Furnham, 1990), Americans may be particularly optimistic about the ability for a hard working group to accomplish its task objectives (cf. Earley, 1993). As ample research has shown, however, a number of factors can impede a group’s success. One of the most reliable and well-understood contributors to suboptimal group performance is relationship conflict,

Taking advantage of differences: Increasing team innovation through identity integration

In this chapter, we posit that identity integration, an individual difference variable measuring the degree to which multiple and disparate social identities are perceived as compatible, moderates the relationship between team diversity and innovation. Prior research shows that individuals with higher levels of identity integration exhibit higher levels of innovation on tasks that draw from identity-related knowledge systems. In this chapter, we extend this research to examine how innovation can be increased in cross-functional teams. We propose that reinforcing the compatibility between functional identities within a team facilitates access to functionally unique knowledge systems, which in turn increases team innovation.

The role of status differentials in group synchronization

Drawing from findings in sociology and anthropology on time as a symbol of status, this paper examines the role that status differentials affect how group members internally align the pace of their activities over time (group synchronization). We examine the psychological process of group synchronization from the perspective of the individual, the nature of status differentials in work groups, and how one’s status within a group affects a person’s willingness to adjust the timing of his/her activities to match other people’s timing. We then identify three types of status structures within work groups and analyze how each affects the group’s ability to synchronize. We close by considering the implications of our approach for better understanding temporal dynamics in work groups.