The Effect of Ascription on the Individual at Institutional (i.e. Organisational) Level Level

Reskin (2003) has conducted a number of studies and explains why and how ascriptive inequality takes place at the institutional level. This is mainly because of an individual's motives, such as personal taste. Reskin states that, "Motives - the purposes prompting our actions - are often seen in the industrialised world as the cause of human behaviour" (p. 2). She argues that, when examining ascriptive inequality, employing 'Conflict Theory' shows that dominant groups utilise their control over resources to support their privileges and thus demonstrate motive-based explanations. Because 'tastes' can elucidate why employers are keen to pay higher wages to particular persons or groups as opposed to others, various actions of discrimination which lead to inequality take place regularly. It is not easy to provide evidence why ascriptive inequality takes place because motive based theories cannot be tested empirically, as people's motives cannot be observed. Motives do not have an isomorphic association to result. "Motive-based theories attribute motives wholesale to all members of an ascriptive group, precluding analyses that take advantage of the explanatory power of variation among allocators" (p. 7). Reskins suggests that if people are serious about elucidation of inequality, their theories and analytic models must contain indicators of causal mechanisms.

People have failed to make advancements on this topic because most of them are mainly focussed on 'why' ascriptively-defined groups vary in their access to societies rewards, rather than on 'how' variation is produced in ascriptive groups' access to opportunities (Reskin, 2003, p.

2). Regarding 'why' ascriptive inequality take place, in some theories the view of inequality can be observed as the result of separate individuals acting to advance their own interests. In these theories any dislike toward members of an unlike group might make intergroup contact psychically costly to prejudiced actors. This is experienced through mechanisms. Mechanism is

"an account of what brings about change in some variable" (Reskin, 2003, p.7). It is the process that converts inputs or independent variables into outputs or dependent variables. The four types of mechanisms responsible for ascriptive inequality are: intrapsychic, interpersonal, societal, and organisational.

Intrapsychic mechanisms involve mental process and thus are not easy to observe. These mechanisms employ psychological theories, for instance social cognition and self-fulfilling, to create ascriptive inequality for the reason that these theories use the stereotypes of minorities to justify that they deserve unequal compensation.

Interpersonal mechanisms are the extent to which allocators base personnel decisions on an allocatees' age, sex, colour, accent, or apparent sexual orientation visibly contributes to ascriptive inequality in work settings. These mechanisms use the interactions between members of dissimilar ascriptive groups to determine the consequence. For the most time, the minority groups receive bad treatment as the majority member is perhaps more rude to the minority member, for instance in the interview situation.

Societal mechanisms comprise normative considerations within establishments' institutional communities, the expectations of their clients, collective bargaining agreements, public transportation routes, and laws and regulations. Social mechanisms are social measures that connect ascriptive group membership to prospects and rewards. Because people link certain stereotypes with members of an ascriptive group, for instance race, the in-group (people like us) and out-group (people unlike us) are formed. Members of a minority group, or out-group, are mainly observable to a majority group, and for the reason that society has already shaped and distorted the majority's perception; it leads them to act in ways that disadvantage minority group members.

Last of all, organisational mechanisms comprise the practices through which employers and their agents in some way associate workers' ascriptive characteristics to work outcomes. In some situations, employers base opportunities and rewards on workers' ascriptive statuses as a matter of policy, favouring some groups and ignoring or harming others. These organisational mechanisms can cause various levels of ascriptive inequality by requiring, permitting or preventing differential treatment through organisational practices, for instance dress codes.

Reskin's (2003, p. 15) study concludes that although the most satisfying explanations address both why and how, as Whorf (1956) put it, "The WHY of understanding may remain for a long

time mysterious but the HOW...of understanding...is discoverable" (p. 239, Capitalization in original).

2.6.2.1 Ascription Effect on Sex at Organisational level

The study conducted by Reskin and McBrier (2000) examines the effects of organisations' employment practices on sex-based ascription in managerial jobs. Given men's initial prevalence in management, those authors argue that inertia, sex labels, and power dynamics predispose organisations to employ sex-based ascription when staffing managerial jobs, but that personnel practices can invite or limit ascription. Their results, which are based on data gathered from a national probability sample of 516 work organisations, show that specific personnel practices affect the sexual division of managerial labour. Based on those authors, ascription exists when a status, position, or opportunity is allocated at least in part on the basis of an ascribed characteristic (Parsons 1964; Mayhew 1968; Kemper 1974). Baron (1991) for instance, argues that employers practice ascription when employees' ascribed characteristics directly influence their jobs or rewards. Therefore, ascription includes differential treatment based on sex, race, ethnicity, and the like. Based on Reskin and McBrier's (2000) study, sex-based ascription does not essentially attract invidious intention; it can take place when custom shapes employers' personnel practices, when sex stereotypes or jobs' sex labels affect allocation decisions, when decision-makers have the discretion to act on their biases, or when they use sex as a proxy for productivity or employment costs. Motivation toward ascription may stem from organisational inertia, shared cultural understandings, intergroup dynamics, or even organisations' attempts at rationality.

Reskin and McBrier (2000) find that net of controls for the composition of the labour supply, open recruitment methods are linked with women holding a greater share of management jobs, while recruitment through informal networks increases men's share. Formalising personnel practices decreases men's share of management jobs, particularly in big establishments, most probably because formalisation checks ascription in job assignments, evaluation, and factors that affect attrition. Therefore, through their personnel practices, establishments license or bound ascription. Their study also reveals that recruitment is the first step in the process that determines the sex composition of an establishment's managers. The methods that establishments use to

recruit managers affect the sex composition of management. Open recruitment posting or advertising managerial jobs, recruiting through employment agencies, or promoting based on seniority, while it does not get rid of ascription, minimises it in the recruitment stage.

Conversely, the more establishments depend on referrals to recruitment managers, the greater the men's share of managerial jobs. Utilising informal networks limits the recruitment pool to people with ties to a decision-maker, and people in social networks are apt to be similar to one another demographically. Utilising networks heavily in recruitment is difficult to fight because many managers think that members of their personal networks are more talented than outsiders.

Reskin and McBrier (2000) find that managerial selection and job assignment related to subjectivity, stereotyping, bias, and in-group favouritism introduce ascription. This means that minimising subjectivity in selection and job assignment increase women's share of managerial jobs. These authors measure formalisation taps procedures that should increase the objectivity of the personnel practices involving in hiring, job assignment and retention, such as written rules and procedures, written hiring and firing procedures, written job descriptions, written performance records, and written evaluations. The consequence of the sex composition of recruitment pools is partly an indication of ascription since the choice of a recruitment pool (whether by design or habit) is a personnel practice that has a high possibility to decrease or support ascription in managerial staffing, at least for establishments with access to recruitment pools whose sex composition differs. The consequence of the decision to recruit managers from outside by establishments whose industries are more male than their internal non-managerial labour force is ascriptive as well. Establishments' characteristics influence the degree of gender equality in organisations particularly when establishments' personnel practices considerably affect the sexual division of managerial labour. By recruiting through 'old-boy networks' and using personnel practices that are susceptible to subjectivity, employers decrease women's access to managerial jobs.

Finally, Reskin and McBrier (2000) disclose that competition in establishments' product or service markets, although not within establishments' control, motivates them either to look for the best accessible candidates without regard for sex, or given women's lower average pay to decrease their labour costs by depending greatly on female managers. In small establishments

particularly those whose managers are mainly male, however, changing personnel practices is unlikely to significantly change the sexual division of managerial labour. In these establishments, external pressure may be needed to oppose the forces that favour ascription.

2.6.3 Career Self-management in Achievement and Ascription Cultures Comparison