Navigating marginalized identities in diverse organizations

Abstract

People with marginalized identities must often manage the diversity dynamics that are activated by their presence in organizations. Due to underrepresentation and stigmatization, they cope with a range of identity threats while navigating diverse settings. A host of studies over the past twenty-five years have examined the wide range of verbal and nonverbal tactics that people use to suppress and express their devalued versus valued social identities at work. Recent research has begun to specify the conditions under which different identity management tactics positively or negatively impact individual well-being, interpersonal relationships across difference, and important evaluations and outcomes (e.g., admissions, hiring). Less attention has been devoted to how members of marginalized groups directly and indirectly shape others' perceptions of them through emotional expressions and status signals. This review illuminates how people proactively affirm others’ identities in order to bolster or protect their own, using a wide range of identity management tactics. As featured in this article, global studies of marginalized identity management tactics include nuanced portrayals of intersectionality, as people cope with threats to multiple identity group memberships.