DDBA 8524 Week 7 Promotion Equity Analysis Example

Applied Identically, Landing Unequally: An Equity Analysis of a Promotion Rule Requiring Two Years on an International Posting, in a Firm Where One Unit's Managers Have Completed Postings and the Other's Almost Never Have

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Walden University

DDBA 8524: Seminar in Multicultural Management

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Month Day, Year

Applied Identically, Landing Unequally: An Equity Analysis of a Promotion Rule Requiring Two Years on an International Posting, in a Firm Where One Unit's Managers Have Completed Postings and the Other's Almost Never Have

The Rule and Its Results

A composite industrial gas company with operations in North America and Southeast Asia requires that any manager promoted to director have completed at least two years on an international posting. The rule, adopted in 2018, aims to build a leadership group with global experience. It is applied identically everywhere: no exceptions are granted. In the company's North American unit, 31 of 44 managers eligible for director roles have completed a posting. In its Southeast Asian unit, based in Kuala Lumpur, 3 of 38 have. As a result, since 2020, 14 directors have been promoted from North America and one from Southeast Asia. The question is whether identical application makes the rule fair.

Why Postings Are Unequally Available

The analysis of posting records and interviews with twelve managers shows three reasons. First, most international postings are to the company's headquarters and plants in the United States and Canada; North American managers are posted to Asia or Europe, but Asian managers are posted mostly to North America, where visa sponsorship has been slow and costly, so the company offers fewer such postings. Second, posting decisions are made by headquarters' talent committee, which has no Southeast Asian members. Third, several Southeast Asian managers declined postings because of obligations to care for elderly parents, a responsibility that falls more often on them in a setting where elder care is commonly provided within families.

The Justice Literature

Greenberg (1990) reviewed research on organizational justice and distinguished distributive justice, the fairness of outcomes, from procedural justice, the fairness of the processes that produce them. Colquitt (2001) developed measures of four dimensions: distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational justice. Procedural justice includes consistency of application, and the rule scores well on that criterion: it is applied the same way to everyone. But procedural justice also includes whether procedures are free of bias and whether those affected have a voice, and here the rule scores poorly, since the talent committee that allocates postings has no members from the unit that receives few, and Southeast Asian managers were not consulted when the rule was adopted. Distributive justice concerns whether outcomes match contributions, and 14 promotions to one from units of similar size suggest the rule distributes opportunity unequally for reasons unrelated to performance.

Is the Rule Fair?

Identical application is not enough to make the rule fair. A rule that is applied consistently but depends on a resource, here postings, that is distributed unequally will reproduce that inequality. The rule's aim, global experience, is legitimate. But it measures that experience in a way only one unit can readily satisfy. Tsui et al. (2007) observed that practices designed in one national setting often carry assumptions that disadvantage people elsewhere without anyone intending it, and the posting rule is an example.

What Would Make It Fairer

Three changes would keep the aim and reduce the inequity. Count equivalent experience, such as leading cross-border projects from home or extended assignments within the region, toward the requirement. Add Southeast Asian members to the talent committee and allocate a share of postings to each unit. And offer posting structures, such as shorter rotations, that managers with family care obligations can accept.

Objections and Replies

Two objections deserve answers. First, headquarters may argue that equivalent experience is not equivalent: living abroad, managing people of another culture face to face and building relationships at headquarters teach things that cross-border projects run from home do not. That is partly right, and the proposal does not drop postings; it counts other experience while postings are allocated more evenly. Second, quotas by unit may place less qualified candidates in postings. The answer is that eligibility criteria stay the same, and the Southeast Asian unit's eligible managers have performance ratings similar to North America's, so the pool is not weaker.

How to Tell Whether the Changes Work

The firm should track, by unit, the share of eligible managers who complete postings or equivalent experience, the number promoted to director, and how fairly managers in each unit judge the promotion process in the annual survey. Colquitt's measures offer questions suited to that survey. If promotions from Southeast Asia rise over four years while performance of new directors holds steady, the rule's aim and its fairness will have been reconciled.

Limits

The analysis relies on company records and twelve interviews. It cannot rule out other differences between units that might affect promotion, though performance ratings for eligible managers are similar.

References

Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: A construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 386-400. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.386

Greenberg, J. (1990). Organizational justice: Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Journal of Management, 16(2), 399-432. https://doi.org/10.1177/014920639001600208

Tsui, A. S., Nifadkar, S. S., & Ou, A. Y. (2007). Cross-national, cross-cultural organizational behavior research: Advances, gaps, and recommendations. Journal of Management, 33(3), 426-478. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307300818