Leveraging Sexual Orientation Workforce Diversity through Identity Deployment

Abstract

Disclosure decisions for lesbian and gay employees have been researched in organizational contexts. While the dilemmas associated, factors affecting, and situations encouraging or discouraging disclosure have been studied, the relatively unexplored area is how homosexuality can be strategically deployed at workplace to contest the associated stigma and bring positive social and political changes in the organizational climate. While scholars believe that remaining closeted may be the best strategy in a heterosexist and homophobic environment, studies report psychological strain, lack of authenticity, behavioral dilemmas, etc. experienced by closeted individuals, which, at minimum, lead to conflicts in daily situations of identity management and, at the peak, suicidal attempts due to perceived burdensomeness and failed belongingness. To address this dilemma in leveraging sexual orientation diversity in workplaces, this chapter deals with the framework of identity deployment offered by Bernstein (1997) to explore how homosexuality can be deployed in the workplace.

The shifting landscape of LGBT organizational research

“…Other scholars drew attention to the ways that individual organizational change-agents frame issues and capitalize on opportunities within an organization's internal polity, sometimes by even forming internal LGBT employees groups (Ghosh, 2012;Githens & Aragon, 2009;Scully & Segal, 2002). For example, Douglas Creed and Maureen Scully (2000) show how workplace encounters in which LGBT workers purposefully deploy their social identities can become instances of "micromobilization" which function to challenge and reform existing organizational cultures and structures by a process of accretion.…”

From moral ambivalence to differential congruence: Understanding transnational sexuality using cultural schemas

“…In western countries such as the USA, an investment in queerness as a national discourse has led to self-identification and coming out as often being viewed as prerequisites for familial acceptance of gay men and lesbians (Mattison and McWhirter, 1995). In workplaces too, the celebration of National Coming Out Day makes the practice of self-identification and sexual visibility more common and less stigmatized as a result of sexual exuberance (Ghosh, 2012). Hence, although sexual exuberance encourages lesbians and gay men to come out, coming out by itself may not be a signifier of individual sexual exuberance.…”

LGBTQ Activist Organizations as ‘Respectably Queer’ in India: Contesting a Western View

“…However, it became more instrumental in extending 'heteronormative privileges to certain normative gays and lesbians': Contesting 'respectable' versus 'queer' In this paper, I want to contest the findings of Ward (2008) and Williams and Giuffre (2011) because it is important not to conflate identity goals with the form of strategy, whether normalizing (respectable) or differentiating (queer). Drawing from Bernstein's (1997) 'identity for education' and 'identity for critique ' (p. 537), the notions of normalizing tactics (Clair et al, 2005) and normalizing strategy (Ghosh, 2012) refer to garnering legitimacy from the mainstream culture by emphasizing sameness with its patterns, values and expressions. One the other hand, differentiating tactics (Clair et al, 2005) and differentiating strategy (Ghosh, 2012) entail celebrating differences and keeping the patterns, values and expressions of the minority culture distinct from those of the mainstream culture.…”

“…Drawing from Bernstein's () ‘identity for education’ and ‘identity for critique’ (p. 537), the notions of normalizing tactics (Clair et al ., ) and normalizing strategy (Ghosh, ) refer to garnering legitimacy from the mainstream culture by emphasizing sameness with its patterns, values and expressions. One the other hand, differentiating tactics (Clair et al ., ) and differentiating strategy (Ghosh, ) entail celebrating differences and keeping the patterns, values and expressions of the minority culture distinct from those of the mainstream culture. Bernstein () argues that the identity goals that challenge the mainstream culture and its dominant values and beliefs are achievable through educational (normalizing) or critical (differentiating) strategies, or through a combination of both, termed as a mixed model of identity deployment .…”

“…organizations that discourage popular participation in political campaigns, combined the strategy of routine opposition (utilizing the access of insiders in the polity to raise non‐controversial issues) and organized opposition (raising contentious issues by groups that are mobilized outside the polity). In addition, although the identity goal(s) may remain the same, the identity strategy of the same organization may vary from normalizing to differentiating across geographical locations depending on the changing nature of socio‐political environments (Ghosh, ; also see Bernstein and Olsen, ; Cortese, ). In this light, I argue that viewing LGBTQ organizations mutually exclusive as ‘respectable’ or ‘queer’ could be problematic when the actions of LGBTQ organizations need to be described in more complex terms.…”