The impact of demographic factors on the way lesbian and gay employees manage their sexual orientation at work

Abstract

Original Citation: Köllen, Thomas (2015) The impact of demographic factors on the way lesbian and gay employees manage their sexual orientation at work: An intersectional perspective. Management Research Review, 38 (9). pp. 992-1015992- . ISSN 2040 This version is available at: http://epub.wu.ac.at/4654/ Available in ePub WU : September 2015 ePub WU , the institutional repository of the WU Vienna University of Economics and Business, is provided by the University Library and the IT-Services. The aim is to enable open access to the scholarly output of the WU. This document is the version accepted for publication and -in case of peer review -incorporates referee comments. Findings -Results indicate that being in a relationship is related to increased openness about one's homosexuality at work. Furthermore, it appears that the older and the more religious lesbian and gay employees are, the more open (and therefore less hidden) about their sexuality they are. Having a migratory background is related to being more guarded about one's sexual orientation, whereas personal mobility within the country is not related to the way one manages one's sexual orientation at work. Lesbians tend to be a little more open and less guarded about their homosexuality compared to gay men. Research limitations/implications -The focus of this research (and the related limitations)offers several starting and connecting points for more intersectional research on workforce diversity and diversity management.Practical implications -The study's findings indicate the need for an intersectional approach to organizational diversity management strategies. Exemplified by the dimension "sexual orientation" it can be shown that the impact each dimension has for an employee's everyday workplace experiences and behavior in terms of a certain manifestation of one dimension of diversity, can only be understood in terms of its interplay with other dimensions of diversity.Theoretical implications -The intersectional perspective on employees' stigma-related minority stress allows a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the experiences of individuals in workplace settings. This theoretical framework proposed in this article can therefore be a connecting point for theoretically framing future studies on workforce diversity and diversity management.Originality/value -It is shown that manifestations of demographic factors that tend to broaden the individual's coping resources for stigma-relevant stressors, lead to more openness about one's homosexuality in the workplace.

Sexual identity management of working lesbian women

“…According to King et al (2017), the use of revealing strategies (implicitly and explicitly out) is more likely to occur when interacting with other LGB people and with people who indicate acceptance of LGB people. Köllen (2015) studied demographic factors for the application of identity management strategies at work. As in the study by Frohn et al (2017), the relationship status of the employee was found to be an important factor, because employees who are in a permanent relationship tend to be "Explicitly Out."…”

Understanding LGBT individuals' employment environment in Taiwan: a relational framework perspective

“…In this study, the authors adopt the older but narrower term describing sexual orientation – LGBT – for employees, as it is the most frequently considered collective group in workplace diversity research (Köllen, 2013, 2015), despite an acknowledgment of the complexity of first hand experiences (McCall, 2005) and the extended modern identification continua (Killerman, 2013; Paisley and Tayar, 2016). LGBT employees are still an “invisible” but fairly large minority group (Gonsiorek and Weinrich, 1991; Ragins, 2004).…”

Employer tenure in gays, lesbians and their straight counterparts

“…They may apply a number of strategies how to manage their identity in the workplace (Chung, 2001; Ozeren and Aslan, 2016). The decision to come out at work is related to worker's demographic characteristics, personality traits as well as contextual factors such as organizational climate or policies (Chaudoir and Fisher, 2010; Fric, 2019; Jones and King, 2013; Köllen, 2015; Meinhold and Frohn, 2016; Wax et al , 2018). The literature often links disclosure of homosexual orientation with positive psychological outcomes such as increased job satisfaction or lower levels of anxiety and depression (Drydakis, 2015; Griffith and Hebl, 2002; Legate et al , 2012; Mohr et al , 2019).…”