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Dear Colleagues,

We invite you to contribute your research to our Special Issue on Anti-Black Racism in Organizations in the Journal of Business and Psychology. Please see the Call for Papers below. Feel free to reach out to guest editor, Enrica Ruggs, (enruggs@memphis.edu) if you have any questions.

 

Racism has been persistent problem in the United States throughout its history. Although some gains have been made in the more recent past, there is still considerable racial inequality that permeates society as well as the organizations within it. This special issue focuses on anti-Black racism in the U.S.

Anti-Black racism extends to all facets of life, including the workplace. Black individuals have historically experienced and continue to experience workplace discrimination (Avery, Volpone, & Holmes, 2018). Race-based discrimination occurs throughout the employment process, including in selection (Pager, 2003), negotiations (Hernandez, Avery, Volpone, & Kaiser, 2019), leadership (Rosette, Leonardelli, & Phillips, 2008), and retention (Couch & Farley, 2010). Additionally, many organizations have adopted color-blind policies, that ignore the deep-rooted consequences of systemic racism that arise outside of the context of compliance and lead to negative consequences in many organizational contexts (Plaut, Thomas, Hurd, & Romano, 2018). Systemic anti-Black racism extends to the academy, with just six percent of faculty members in the U.S. being Black (Pew Research Center, 2019). Racism is also present in our science, as the people who are studied in organizational science in the U.S. are predominately White, and many of the publications in psychological science that highlight race have been written by White authors and edited by White editors (Roberts, Bareket-Shavit, Dollins, Goldie, & Mortenson, 2020).

Our goal in this issue is to 1) highlight the history and current state of anti-Black racism in general organizational settings as well as in the specific field of organizational psychology (and related fields-e.g., management) and 2) to showcase empirical and conceptual work that provides evidence of the manifestation and effects of anti-Black racism, responses to anti-Black racism, and solutions to it.

We aim to achieve this through a combination of invited and submitted pieces. Our goal is to highlight a diversity of research and scholars across multiple disciplines. As such, we seek submissions that develop provocative examinations of current theories or models, integrate findings and theories across multiple disciplines and perspectives, and highlight underrepresented or under-researched ideas and perspectives that shed light on anti-Black racism in organizations.

 

We encourage submission of papers on topics such as: 

1. Review pieces that discuss the state of anti-Black racism in empirical and theoretical organizational research, including what we know and what remains unanswered

1. Potential topics include but are not limited to:
1. Working to make diversity trainings more effective and ubiquitous
2. Focus on ways to positively transform law enforcement to reduce racism and racial bias in policing
3. Ensuring performance management practices and compensation systems are free of bias
4. Enhancing diversity in organizations through recruitment and hiring practices
5. Fostering organizational cultures and wellness programs that are inclusive
6. Making sure organizational science research is more inclusive of Black people (both their unique experiences and their role as scholars)
7. Considering the way academics teach issues of race (e.g., adverse impact, intelligence testing) and conduct research around race and racism (e.g., methodological perspectives)

    4. Commentaries on any aspect of anti-Black racism in organizations**

    5. Empirical work that addresses anti-Black racism in organizations. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

1. empirical pieces on police brutality and racism within law enforcement as an organization
2. the effects of racism in law enforcement and criminal justice systems on employment
3. Strategies to effectively combat racism in organizations, such as individual-level interventions (e.g., the role of allies and self), organization-level interventions (e.g., HR policies and practices), societal-level interventions
4. Observations and effects of racism throughout different facets of the employment cycle in organizations (broadly defined)
5. Statistical assessment of inclusion of Black employees in sample (e.g., through meta-analysis) or Black scholars (e.g., through analysis of journal authors)

**We require a submission of short (up to 5-page) proposals by September 21, 2020 for review pieces and commentaries. The special feature editorial board will provide feedback to proposal authors, which may or may not encourage submission of a full paper. This feedback may help authors shape their ideas in advance of the final paper deadline of January 31, 2021. Submissions for other categories do not require a short proposal, but you may choose to do so.  The invitation of a full paper (following proposal submission) does not guarantee publication.

Note that all submissions must be feature length (approximately 5,000-8,000 words; see JBP website for additional guidance).

 

Submission Details

Prospective authors should submit a proposal to the journal's manuscript submission portal using the "Special Issue: Anti-Black Racism in Organizations" article type by September 21, 2020.

Decisions on proposals and invitations to submit full manuscripts will be sent to potential authors by October 5, 2020.

Full manuscripts must be prepared according to the manuscript submission guidelines on the Journal of Business and Psychology homepage.

Full manuscript submissions will be due by January 31, 2021.

Submissions will undergo an initial editorial review by the guest editors; those meeting criteria for further consideration will be peer reviewed by masked review. 

References

Avery, D. R., Volpone, S. D., & Holmes, I. V. O. (2018). Racial discrimination in organizations. In A. J. Colella & E. B. King (Eds.), Oxford handbook of workplace discrimination (pp. 1–26). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Couch, K. A., & Fairlie, R. (2010). Last hired, first fired? Black-white unemployment and the business cycle. Demography, 47(1), 227-247.

Hernandez, M., Avery, D. R., Volpone, S. D., & Kaiser, C. R. (2019). Bargaining while Black: The role of race in salary negotiations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(4), 581-592.

Pager, D. (2003). The mark of a criminal record. American Journal of Sociology, 108(5), 937-975. 

Pew Research Center (2019). College faculty have become more racially and ethnically diverse, but remain far less so than students. Retrieved from: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/31/us-college-faculty-student-diversity/

Plaut, V. C., Thomas, K. M., Hurd, K., & Romano, C. A. (2018). Do color blindness and multiculturalism remedy or foster discrimination and racism?. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27(3), 200-206. 

Roberts, S. O., Bareket-Shavit, C., Dollins, F. A., Goldie, P. D., & Mortenson, E. (2020). Racial inequality in psychological research: Trends of the past and recommendations for the future. Perspectives on Psychological Science. 

Rosette, A. S., Leonardelli, G. J., & Phillips, K. W. (2008). The White standard: racial bias in leader categorization. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(4), 758-777.

 

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Enrica Ruggs
University of Memphis
Memphis
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