CAREER: Broadening Participation in Resilience Education, Research, and Practice by Leveraging Organizational Resources to Address Racial Identity Threats

William Marsh Rice University, Houston TX

Investigators

Abstract

As racial identity threats are inextricably linked to individuals’ sense of self, understanding how leaders and organizations can help to address these experiences will benefit many. When resources (e.g., time, energy, money, esteem) are threatened or lost, individuals experience stress, and when employees’ struggle with managing identity-related threats, team productivity and organizational effectiveness suffer. This project examines the connection between organizational resources and individual resilience. The investigator uncovers the role that organizations play in the employee resilience process and identifies specific organizational resources that are effective at bolstering employee safety and health despite the presence of racial identity threats. Knowledge generated from this award offers insights for organizational science and for workforce diversity and performance. Experiences that threaten one’s resources contribute to negative organizational outcomes. When threats are tied to an identity (e.g., race), they can lead to inequality and further group disparities. Racial identity threats occur in multiple forms, ranging from environmental (e.g., mega-threats: negative, large-scale, diversity-related episodes that receive significant media attention) to interpersonal (e.g., microaggressions: daily verbal or behavioral indignities that denigrate individuals from racial minority groups). The role that organizations play in supporting employee resilience—continued behavioral and psychological goal pursuit despite adversity—to racial identity threats is unknown. Thus, this project identifies the organizational proactive resources (continually available resources present before a threat, e.g., race-based employee resource groups) and protective resources (resources made available after a threat that are meant to diminish strain responses, e.g., paid therapy) that shape key psychological mechanisms that predict employee resilience: identity safety (i.e., feeling like one’s identity will not evoke harm) and emotional exhaustion (i.e., feelings of being emotionally drained). The investigator qualitatively (Study 1: in-depth, structured interviews) and quantitatively (Study 2: longitudinal, weekly surveys) assesses the role of organizational resources in fostering employee resilience among employees who belong to stigmatized racial groups. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.