Rengers Julian M, Heyse Liesbet, Otten Sabine, Wittek Rafael P M
Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
Department of Social Psychology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
Front Psychol. 2019 Feb 27;10:320. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00320. eCollection 2019.
In this exploratory study, we present findings from semi-structured interviews with 11 self-identified lesbian and gay (LG) humanitarian aid workers of Doctors without Borders (MSF). We investigate their perceptions of workplace inclusion in terms of perceived satisfaction of their needs for authenticity and belonging within two organizational settings, namely office and field. Through our combined deductive and inductive approach, based on grounded theory, we find that perceptions of their colleagues' and supervisors' attitudes and behaviors, as well as organizational inclusiveness practices play a role in LGs' perceived authenticity, but not belonging, in the workplace. However, these organization-level characteristics do not account for between-participant differences in perceived authenticity. Therefore, we inductively construct a typology of three groups, which we coined , , and , based on how LG humanitarian aid workers assess and deal with not being able to be their authentic selves when they are in the field, because homosexuality is illegal in many project countries. Conscious first-missioners are separated from the other two groups based on having gone to the field once, whereby they felt in control over the decision on how to manage their sexuality. Alternatively, authentic realists and idealistic activists alike felt they did not really have a choice in how to manage their sexuality, but handled that differently. We find the importance of one's sexuality as well as adherence to the overarching organizational mission relevant individual-level factors herein. Furthermore, we find disclosure of sexual identity to be strongly context-dependent, as participants are 'out of the closet' in the office, but go back into the closet when they enter the field, with different country contexts even leading to different decisions concerning self-disclosure, thus demonstrating the importance of careful sexual identity management. This so-called disclosure dilemma, we find, may not be merely an individual choice, but rather a shared dilemma involving multiple stakeholders, such as the organization and fellow team members. We discuss the findings' contributions to existing literature on LGs' workplace experiences and implications for future research on inclusion of sexual and other invisible minorities in the workplace.
在这项探索性研究中，我们展示了对11名自称是无国界医生组织（MSF）的女同性恋和男同性恋（LG）人道主义援助工作者进行半结构化访谈的结果。我们从在办公室和实地这两种组织环境中对真实性和归属感需求的感知满意度方面，调查他们对工作场所包容性的看法。通过基于扎根理论的演绎和归纳相结合的方法，我们发现，同事和上级的态度与行为的看法，以及组织包容性实践，在LG群体对工作场所的感知真实性方面发挥了作用，但在归属感方面并非如此。然而，这些组织层面的特征并不能解释参与者在感知真实性方面的个体差异。因此，我们基于LG人道主义援助工作者在实地时如何评估和应对无法展现真实自我的情况（因为在许多项目国家同性恋是非法的），归纳构建了一个三类的类型学，我们将其命名为有意识的初任者、真实的现实主义者和理想主义的行动者。有意识的初任者因只去过一次实地而与其他两组不同，在实地时他们觉得能掌控如何处理自己性取向的决定。相比之下，真实的现实主义者和理想主义的行动者都觉得在如何处理自己的性取向方面没有真正的选择，但处理方式不同。我们发现一个人的性取向以及对总体组织使命的坚持在此处是相关的个体层面因素。此外，我们发现性身份的披露强烈依赖于具体情境，因为参与者在办公室是“出柜”的，但进入实地时又会“回到柜子里”，不同的国家背景甚至会导致关于自我披露的不同决定，从而证明了谨慎进行性身份管理的重要性。我们发现，这种所谓的披露困境可能不仅仅是个人选择，而是涉及多个利益相关者（如组织和团队成员）的共同困境。我们讨论了这些发现对现有关于LG群体工作场所经历的文献的贡献，以及对未来关于工作场所中性少数群体和其他不可见少数群体包容性研究的启示。
