Employee Responses To Diversity Initiatives: A Tripartite View and Latent Profile Analysis

Diversity initiatives have become ubiquitous in organizations and employees’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to those are critical to understand the effectiveness of diversity initiatives. However, prior researchers have largely considered the isolated effects of specific positive or negative responses (e.g., support or resistance) from a variable-centered perspective. This narrow focus overlooks the potential (a) coexistence of more complex configurations of cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses within individuals, and (b) the existence of subpopulations of employees who may respond both positively and negatively displaying ambivalence. To address these shortcomings, we build on the tripartite response model and adopt a person-centered approach to examine responses to diversity practices. Using latent profile analysis, our results across two studies incorporating cognitive, affective, and behavioral components as profile indicators reveal (Study 1, n = 605) and replicate (Study 2, n = 514) four distinct profiles (i.e., excited champions, unagitated compliers, torn critics, and lost opponents). Furthermore, we identify relevant person-, situation-, and content-related predictors of profile membership and show how employees across profiles differ on reported relevant work-related outcomes. Taken together, our work advances research on employee responses to diversity initiatives. We discuss the implications of our work for research and practice.