Recent research in the area of organizational obedience and wrongdoing has focused on examining the contextual factors that influence race-based selection in organizations (Brief, Buttram, Elliott, Reizenstein, & McCline, 1995; Pugh, Brief, & Vaslow, 1995; Reizenstein & Brief, 1995). Brief and his colleagues have found that subordinates will comply with instructions from their superiors to use race as a selection criterion even though such instructions are unethical and illegal. These researchers have also found that the degree of compliance from subordinates is a function of their racial attitudes. The current study was an attempt to constructively replicate Brief and his colleagues as well as an attempt to expand on their findings. One topic that these researchers have failed to address is the cognitive processes that subordinates engage in when given an illegal or unethical instruction from their superiors. This study attempted to discover more about organizational obedience by examining the cognitive processes of individuals as they were deciding whether or not to comply with instructions to discriminate against a job candidate. In addition, this study attempted to determine how racial attitudes relate to decision behavior. Support was found for the hypothesis that individuals will comply with instructions not to hire job candidates on the basis of race. Support was not found, however, for the hypothesis that there would be an interaction between condition and modern racist attitudes such that the relationship between scores on a measure of modern racism and compliance behaviors would be stronger in the instruction condition than in the no instruction condition. Potential explanations for this finding were presented. Finally, the hypotheses concerning the cognitions of the participants in this study could not be tested. Nevertheless, post-hoc analyses provided some support for the hypotheses that individuals' cognitive processes reflect thoughts concerning their role obligations and expectations as well as the mechanisms of moral disengagement as they are engaging in discriminatory behavior. These results were discussed in terms of their implications for contributing to our understanding of what is occurring in real organizations that are facing issues of racial discrimination on a regular basis / acase@tulane.edu
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TULANE/oai:http://digitallibrary.tulane.edu/:tulane_24680 |
| Date | January 1997 |
| Contributors | Reizenstein, Robin Michele (Author), Burke, Michael J (Thesis advisor) |
| Publisher | Tulane University |
| Source Sets | Tulane University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Access requires a license to the Dissertations and Theses (ProQuest) database., Copyright is in accordance with U.S. Copyright law |
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