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How Does Intersectionality Impact Work Attitudes? The Effect of Layered Group Memberships in a Field Sample

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A Correction to this article was published on 17 December 2020

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of identifying with multiple minority statuses on workplace experiences. Specifically, we sought to determine how holding multiple minority statuses affects job attitudes, depending on how many and which minority statuses one holds. Using an archival dataset of nearly 6,000,000 employees from multiple organizations, we examined a subset of diverse respondents’ perceptions of supervisor effectiveness, organizational effectiveness, satisfaction with pay, satisfaction with growth opportunities, and perceptions of diversity climate. Results suggest that multiple minority statuses generally do not have a straightforward additive effect (i.e., having a greater number of minority statuses does not necessarily relate to a decrease in job attitudes). Instead, the results suggest a multiplicative approach in that minority statuses intersect to impact job attitudes, and some intersecting group memberships exert stronger effects than others. Findings from this study contribute to our understanding of the effects of different combinations of minority statuses on job attitudes, as well as a stronger understanding of the impact of intersectionality in the workplace in general.

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The original online version of this article was revised: the "l" in "layered" of the article title needs to be capitalized and there were some corrections in the text body that needs also to be corrected.

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Salter, N.P., Sawyer, K. & Gebhardt, S.T. How Does Intersectionality Impact Work Attitudes? The Effect of Layered Group Memberships in a Field Sample. J Bus Psychol 36, 1035–1052 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-020-09718-z

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