Race, Stress, and Well-Being in Organizations: An Integrative Conceptualization

Abstract

Although employee race has been an actively investigated area of scientific inquiry for decades, a thorough and informed understanding of the role of race in the organizational sciences has eluded us for a number of reasons. The relationship of race and stress in organizations is a prime example of this neglect and deficiency in our knowledge base, as little work has been done in this area. We attempt to address this limitation in the literature by proposing an inductively derived, review-centric framework that attempts to articulate the multiple intermediate linkages that explain the process dynamics taking place in the relationship between employee race and health and well-being in organizations. We argue that socialization processes, social networks, information and resource access, and mentoring contribute to distance and differences between racial minorities and nonminorities concerning control, reputation, performance, and political understanding and skill, which in turn, creates barriers to success, and increased stress and strain for racial minorities. The implications of this framework along with directions for future theory and research are discussed in this chapter.

Citation

Ferris, G.R., Daniels, S.R. and Sexton, J.C. (2014), "Race, Stress, and Well-Being in Organizations: An Integrative Conceptualization", The Role of Demographics in Occupational Stress and Well Being (Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being, Vol. 12), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-355520140000012001