Perceptions of affirmative action and the potential unintended consequences thereof in the work environment : a study of the designated and non-designated groups in South Africa

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Affirmative action is arguably one of the more controversial topics in the South African society today.ImplementedinresponsetomanyyearsofapartheidwhichmarginalisedtheBlack population of South Africa specifically, this form of redress is aimed at reversing the wrongs of the past and at levelling the playing field in terms of access to scarce resources.Unfortunately, massive social structural changes such as these are hardly ever implemented without encountering resistanceandunintendedconsequences.Thisiswhytheaimofthisstudywastoexplorethe relationship between knowledge of affirmative action and attitudes towards affirmative action, as well asthe relationship between attitudestowards affirmativeaction andthedifferent forms of (dysfunctional) consequences this could have in the South African work environment for both the Designated-(Blacks, Indians, Coloured and White female employees) and Non-designated groups (White male employees) respectively.A non-experimental (ex-post facto) research design were utilisedforthesepurposes. Theconstructsweredefinedasfollows:knowledgeofaffirmative action as the respondents' actual knowledge of South Africa's Employment Equity Act, (1998) andattitudestowardsaffirmativeactionas therespondents'stance(intermsofnegativityor sensitivity) towards 5 affirmative action-related debates.These include attitude towards merit, -quotas, -reversediscrimination,- drop instandards,and – tokenism (Charlton & Van Niekerk, 1994;Human,Bluen,&Davies,1999;Lynch,1989;Qunta,1995).FortheNon-designated group (White males), Adams' equity theory (1965) was used to explain how perceived inequity in the work environment could lead to certain forms of dysfunctional work behaviour, namely exit, voice, loyalty, stealing and silence (Hirschman, 1970; Pinder, 1998).For the Designated groups, relationaldemographytheory(Riordian,2000;Williams &O'Reilly,1998)wasusedtoarguehow possible 'out-group status of affirmative action candidates could lead to lower levels of job satisfaction,groupcohesionandorganisationalcommitment,aswellastohigherlevelsof conflict and role ambiguity.An availability sample of one-hundred-and-eighty respondents was drawn from the databases of several leading recruitment agencies in the Western Cape.Several scaleswereutilised,ofwhichallwereaddedintoonecompositequestionnaire.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University