Diversity Error Risk: When Perceptions of Risk Deter Versus Enhance Diversity Advocacy
Many people who support diversity nonetheless hesitate to advocate for it. Scholars have shown ample evidence that concerns with risk are a source of this hesitation. However, in our research, we reveal that although employees perceive a variety of risks associated with diversity, not all of these risks are viewed in an exclusively negative light. We specifically introduce diversity error risk—the expectation that making mistakes or saying the wrong thing in DEI-related contexts will be seen as problematic—as a form of risk that has both downsides and upsides. Moreover, when paired with psychological safety, we reveal that diversity error risk can actually enhance—rather than deter—diversity advocacy.
Research by Rachel Arnett, Assistant Professor of Management and Claude Marion Faculty Scholar at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
Reducing Identity Suppression
How Leaders Can Facilitate More Effective Voice
We are investigating how leaders can improve employee voice interactions with two specific projects. In the first, we investigate the antecedents and consequences of what we refer to as voice faking (when employees share ideas or concerns that differ from what they truly think). We find that when managers solicit voice from employees, it can ironically increase the amount of voice faking because employees feel pressure to speak up and participate. Our research aims to further investigate this finding through a multi-method approach and identify specific tactics managers can use to solicit voice in a way that increases genuine voice while decreasing fake voice. In the second project, we investigate how managers learn about employee voice through non-direct channels (e.g., from another employee). We refer to this phenomenon as voice leakage, and we find that managers decrease their trust in the focal employee when they find out about the focal employees’ voice through other coworkers (rather than from the focal employees themselves). We aim to examine this phenomenon further through field and experimental studies.
Research by Michael Parke, Assistant Professor of Management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
Bottom-Up Reliability: People As Infrastructure in Platform Work
The rise of the platform economy has drawn attention to the global spread of platform work, but little is known about how it adapts across diverse contexts—particularly in the Global South—and how that affects organizational reliability. Based on an eight-year qualitative study of ride-hailing workers in Brazil, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, we show that workers, not algorithms, are the true infrastructure of platform reliability. Faced with scarce resources and incomplete technical systems, workers engage in three key practices: asset work (securing tools and relationships for access), closure work (bridging algorithmic gaps), and security work (managing safety through off-app networks). These practices require leadership at the ground level—workers show strategic thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration to sustain operations. Often invisible to platform companies, their leadership ensures the system functions day to day. Ultimately, we conclude with implications for designing global platform organizations that genuinely support portable, sustainable work—led not just by tech, but by people.
Research by Lindsey Cameron, Assistant Professor of Management and Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania
Junior Organization Theory Conference
The Junior Faculty Organization Theory Conference has been around for about 15
years, and is for–and is organized by–junior faculty in the Organizational Theory field (broadly construed). This is
“the premier annual conference” for up and coming OT scholars, and has long been considered the place where
long-term relationships are formed. Many of the faculty’s research center on practices relating to people,
management, and leadership. The location of the conference is rotating. The most recent hosts were Harvard,
London Business School, University of Michigan, McGill, Columbia, and Yale. The conference brings roughly 40 to
50 junior OT scholars together to present and share ideas as well as develop relationships. We are honored to be
hosting it this year and excited to help build the junior OT community.
The conference is being organized by
Lindsey Cameron and Tiantian Yang with input from junior faculty in the entrepreneurship (Danny Kim, Jax
Kirtley), multi-national (Leo Pongeluppe), strategy (Ronnie Lee), and OB Area (Stephanie Creary)