“Diversity Spillovers and the Second-Hand Smoke Effect:

 Understanding Racism Within and Outside the

Workplace.” 

by Dr. Belle Rose Ragins

Professor of Management and Editor of the Academy of Management Review

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

This presentation offers insights into the toxic effects of racism at work and presents new research that deepens our understanding of its insidious and pervasive effects. Like “second hand smoke” our research reveals that the harmful repercussions of racism extend well beyond the target to impact third-party bystanders in the workplace. We’ve also uncovered the potent and pervasive spillover effects of community diversity climate to the workplace. These findings create a call for organizations to eradicate racism from the workplace and partner with their communities to eliminate intolerance and create more inclusive diversity climates.  

About Dr Ragins

Dr. Belle Rose Ragins is a Professor of Management at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her research focuses on mentoring, diversity and positive relationships at work. Her work appears in the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology and Psychological Bulletin. She is co-author of Mentoring and Diversity: An International Perspective and co-editor of The Handbook of Mentoring at Work and of Exploring Positive Relationships at Work. Dr. Ragins has received a number of national awards for her research, including the Sage Life-Time Achievement Award for Scholarly Contributions to Management, the Academy of Management Mentoring Legacy Award, the ASTD Research Award, the Center for Creative Leadership Ulmer Research Award, theSaroj Parasuraman Best Publication Award, and nine Best Paper Awards from the National Academy of Management. Professor Ragins has over twenty years of experience serving on leading editorial boards, including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology.  She served as Associate Editor for the Academy of Management Review and is now the Editor-In-Chief of the journal. She is an invited member of the Society for Organizational Behavior; a Fulbright Senior Specialist Scholar; and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the American Psychological Society (APS), the Society for the Psychology of Women (SPW), the American Psychological Association (APA) and the Academy of Management (AOM). Her life joys include hiking and exploring the American wilderness with her husband Erik and their adopted dogs Bo and Gabe.