Contextualization and Context Effects: An Integrative Review of Studies on the Outcomes of Diversity Management Practices

Schlueter, Anna; Gold, Stefan Article — Published Version Contextualization and Context Effects: An Integrative Review of Studies on the Outcomes of Diversity Management Practices Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management Provided in Cooperation with: John Wiley & Sons Suggested Citation: Schlueter, Anna; Gold, Stefan (2025) : Contextualization and Context Effects: An Integrative Review of Studies on the Outcomes of Diversity Management Practices, Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, ISSN 1535-3966, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Chichester, UK, Vol. 32, Iss. 5, pp. 6461-6474, https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.70037 This Version is available at: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/329778 Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen: Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden. 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If the documents have been made available under an Open Content Licence (especially Creative Commons Licences), you may exercise further usage rights as specified in the indicated licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2025; 32:6461–6474 https://doi.org/10.1002/csr.70037 6461 Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management REVIEW ARTICLE OPEN ACCESS Contextualization and Context Effects: An Integrative Review of Studies on the Outcomes of Diversity Management Practices AnnaSchlueter1 | StefanGold2 1Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany | 2Campus Straubing for Biotechnology and Sustainability, Technical University of Munich, Munich,Germany Correspondence: Anna Schlueter ([email protected]) Received: 21 April 2025 | Revised: 29 May 2025 | Accepted: 11 June 2025 Keywords: context effects| contextualization| diversity management practices| integrative review ABSTRACT Research on the outcomes of diversity management practices has produced inconsistent and even contradictory results. It has been argued that these discrepancies are due to contextual differences between studies. Building on this argument, this integrative review provides an indepth analysis of context, aiming to gain a deeper understanding of the outcomes of diversity management practices. We used Johns' categorical framework to synthesize the literature and systematically review contextualization and context effects in empirical studies. We offer suggestions for future contextualization, point to underand unexplored contextual factors, outline ways to advance theorizing, and argue for more complex conceptualizations of contextual factors. 1 | Introduction The sustainable development goals (SDGs) present a turning point for businesses as their role to drive transformation toward sustainability is highlighted for the first time (Scheyvens etal.2016). They led to a shift in practice as organizations began taking action and implementing voluntary initiatives to contribute to the SDGs (Rashed and Shah2020). SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities) call on organizations to promote inclusive practices to counter discrimination based on demographic factors such as gender, race, age, disability, religion, or sexual orientation (United Nations,n.d.). Socially responsible human resource management (SRHRM) plays a key role in organizations' efforts to address these issues (CamposGarcía et al. 2024) and in creating organizational legitimacy (KaratasOzkan etal.2022). Organizations are paying increasing attention to workforce diversity, adopting diversity initiatives and allocating budgets to diversity management practices (DMPs). Academia has followed developments in DM since the concept was first introduced in the 1980s (Kelly and Dobbin1998). Researchers have predominantly been preoccupied with the question of how diversity influences organizational outcomes (van Dijk etal.2012). Studies have examined the relationships between diversity and variables related to social integration, performance, and wellbeing (Guillaume etal.2017). However, workplace diversity has been described as a doubleedged sword due to inconsistent or even conflicting findings on its outcomes (Guillaume etal.2017), which make generalizations difficult (van Dijk etal.2012). We propose a shift in focus from studying the outcomes of diversity to studying the inconsistencies between previous studies. According to one line of thinking, to fully grasp diversity and its effects, more attention should be paid to the context in which organizations operate (Joshi and Roh2007; Nkomo etal.2019; Post etal.2021), as contextual differences between studies can lead to conflicting results (Rousseau and Fried2001). In this integrative literature review (Dwertmann and van Knippenberg 2020), we delve This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2025 The Author(s). Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management published by ERP Environment and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. 6462 Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2025 into contextualization and context effects (Bamberger2008; Johns2006) by addressing the following research questions: (a) How have studies on the outcomes of DMPs been contextualized? (b) How do contextual factors influence the outcomes of DMPs? Although previous reviews of studies on DMPs have considered contextual factors (Nishii etal.2017), an indepth analysis of contextualization and the effects of contextual factors has not been conducted. Research contextualization allows readers “to better assess the applicability of the theory or findings” (Bamberger2008, p. 840) and contributes to an understanding of discrepancies between findings. Analyzing context effects can enable future studies on the outcomes of DMPs to better predict their findings (Bamberger2008). In this review, we build on Johns'(2006) contextual dimensions to conceptualize context on different levels of analysis and to respond to recent calls to move away from microlevel research on workplace diversity and integrate findings that encompass the microand macrolevels (Joshi etal.2011). In this article, we start by presenting the categorization and contextualization of DMPs that served as the analytical framework for this review. We then describe the methodology, outline the reviewed articles' contextualization efforts, and provide suggestions for future contextualization. We then present an analysis and discussion of context effects. We provide recommendations for future research and conclude the paper with a reflection on the study's limitations. 2 | Analytical Framework 2.1 | Diversity Management Practices DM can be viewed as part of an organization's efforts to practice SRHRM, which involves the application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) principles to HRM. This approach extends beyond viewing HR merely as a strategic asset contributing to the organization's bottom line, and instead emphasizes the organization's moral obligations (Santana and LopezCabrales2019). At the core of SRHRM is the belief that organizations should not only focus their CSR efforts outward, but also prioritize internal stakeholders, including employees (Qamar etal. 2023). DiazCarrion et al. (2020) outline equal opportunities and nondiscrimination as core CSR dimensions of SRHRM. These dimensions are reflected in DMPs which are defined as organizational practices “aimed at improving the workplace experiences and outcomes of groups that face disadvantage in both organizations and the broader society” (Leslie 2019, p. 540). Organizations use various DMPs to achieve this goal. In this review, we adopted Leslie's(2019) categorization of DMPs into (a) resource practices, (b) nondiscrimination practices, and (c) accountability practices. Resource practices, such as mentoring programs and network groups, provide the targeted individual with increased access to resources and aim to promote equity (Leslie2019; Richard etal.2013). They are also referred to as identityconscious practices (Leslie 2019) because they acknowledge differences and emphasize their importance (Leslie et al. 2020). Nondiscrimination practices, such as diversity training (Kalev etal.2006), aim to raise awareness of and reduce biases. These identityblind practices are based on the assumption that differences are not relevant and should be minimized (Leslie et al.2020). Accountability practices, such as assigning responsibility for diversity by appointing diversity staff, aim to measure performance against diversity goals and increase responsibility, accountability, authority, and expertise (Kalev etal.2006; Leslie2019). 2.2 | Diversity Management Practices and Context Reviews of studies on DM and DMPs have recommended that researchers provide rich descriptions of the research settings (Joshi and Roh2009; Nishii etal.2017) to facilitate the interpretation of their findings (Nishii etal.2017; Post etal.2021) and contribute to increasing the effectiveness of DMPs (Joshi and Roh2009). Rousseau and Fried(2001, p. 1) regard such rich descriptions as contextualization, which they define as “linking observations to a set of relevant facts, events, or points of view that make possible research and theory that form part of a larger whole.” Johns(2006) introduced the concepts of omnibus context and discrete context, which can guide researchers in contextualizing their studies by moving from broad descriptions of general information to specifics. The omnibus context concerns who is being studied, where, when, and why a study is conducted. Examples of contextual variables that answer the question of who include demographics such as gender composition (Johns2006). The answer to the question of where may be a country, institution, or market. The question of when may be related to societal events or times of crisis (Oc2018). The question of why is answered by a researcher's or an organization's rationale for conducting a study (Johns2006). The discrete context “is nested within omnibus context” (Johns2006, p. 391) and includes the dimensions of task context, social context, and physical context. Variables related to the task context include autonomy, uncertainty, accountability, and resources (Johns2006). Practical examples of these variables are the workload of organizational members, the complexity of tasks (Bell etal.2018), and the freedom that organizational members have in performing their tasks (Dierdorff etal.2009). Social context variables include social density, social structure, and social influence (Johns2006), which are the “result of having to interact with others” (Bell etal.2018, p. 2748). Such variables can be manifested in organizational culture, team/organization size, leadership style (Bell etal.2018), leaders' attributes (Joshi and Roh2007), norms, and conflict (Dierdorff etal.2009). Physical context variables include temperature, light, built environment, and décor (Johns2006). In practice, they can mean, for instance, hazardous working conditions (Dierdorff etal.2009), physical distance between the workplace and the home or family (Bell etal.2018), and team dispersion (Joshi and Roh2007). Johns' (2006) framework was developed for research in organizational behavior. This field has a long tradition of studying organizations' approaches to managing individual and group differences as well as their outcomes, making the framework a relevant choice for the present study. At the same time, approaches to studying DMPs in organizational behavior reflect the field's underlying assumptions, often emphasizing measurable performance outcomes which may not capture the complexity of DM such as its relation to structural inequalities. We 6463 recognize that Johns'(2006) framework was influenced by these assumptions and that it was not specifically developed for research on DMPs or, more broadly, on SRHRM. 3 | Methodology An integrative literature review should provide a detailed explanation of the steps taken and the articles selected for analysis. The sampling process is portrayed in Figure1. The systematic literature search started with a Boolean keyword search in the multipublisher Web of Science and EBSCO Business Source Premier databases, which represent a large share of relevant journals and are the most frequently used databases for reviews of articles published in top journals (Hiebl2023). Building on Leslie(2019), the following search string was used: “diversity management” OR “diversity management practice*” OR “diversity management program*” OR “diversity management activit*” OR “diversity management initiative*” OR “diversity practice*” OR “diversity program*” OR “diversity activit*” OR “diversity initiative*” OR “diversity training*” OR “diversity mentor*” OR “diversity network*” OR “diversity committee*” OR “diversity taskforce*” OR “diversity staff” OR “targeted recruit*” OR “diversity statement*” OR “diversity evaluation*” OR “diversity performance” OR “diversity goal*”. Only peerreviewed articles published in English in academic journals between 2013 and 2023 were included. The aim of including only peerreviewed articles was to guarantee a minimum level of quality. To focus the search, the category “Management” in was used in Web of Science. The search yielded 529 results in Web of Science and 907 results in EBSCO Business Source Premier. After duplicates were removed, 1117 articles remained. Only articles that focused on at least one outcome of at least one DMP and reported empirical findings were included. First, the articles' headlines and abstracts were screened. During this initial screening, the articles were classified into three groups: articles with (a) particular relevance (n = 69), (b) some relevance (n = 282), and (c) little or no relevance (n = 766). The large number of articles that fell into the third category can be attributed to the search string, which did not include keywords related to outcomes of DMPs due to their wide variety. The articles in the first two categories were read in their entirety and reclassified if necessary. All articles in the first category (n = 133) were retained. From the initially identified studies, an additional 47 articles were identified through forward searches (15 articles) and backward searches (32 articles). The forward searches were conducted on Google Scholar. Finally, the journals in which the selected articles were published were subjected to a quality check using the SCImago Journal Rank indicator. All articles published in journals ranking below the second quartile (32 articles) were excluded. The final sample consisted of 148 articles. To categorize the data, the first author performed a thematic analysis using MAXQDA software (Braun and Clarke2006). The first sections of each article (introduction to methodology) were used to answer the first research question. To answer the second research question, among the 148 articles, quantitative studies on contextual factors as moderators and qualitative studies that regarded contextual factors as constructs were identified. This process yielded 54 articles. The analysis took a deductive approach based on the analytical framework. Leslie's(2019) categorization was used to sort the DMPs into resource practices, nondiscrimination practices, and accountability practices. The following sections elaborate how this FIGURE 1 | Sampling process. 6464 Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2025 was not always possible as studies were often looking into a combination of multiple practices from different categories. The dimensions omnibus context and discrete context and their related variables based on Johns (2006) provided the structure for grouping contextual factors. Additionally, the level of analysis of each contextual factor was considered. The analysis and its results were discussed with the second author. Adaptations were made jointly when deemed necessary by both authors. 4 | Results Publications gradually increased between 2013 (9 articles; ≈6%) and 2023 (18 articles; ≈12%). The reviewed articles were published in a total of 72 journals. Most studies (n = 118; ≈80%) used quantitative approaches, while two combined qualitative and quantitative methods. 4.1 | Contextualization In their metaanalytical review, Joshi and Roh (2009) criticized the lack of rich descriptions of research settings in studies on diversity as early as the 2000s. We found that although wellestablished contextual information, such as the period of data collection, was frequently provided, most contextual dimensions were not described or were described only superficially. As can be seen in Table1, the extent to which contextual information was reported varied across dimensions. We elaborate on the dimensions in the following subsections. The detail provided in the subsections is subject to the uneven frequency with which certain dimensions were included in the reviewed articles. 4.1.1 | Discrete Context 4.1.1.1 | Social Context. The social dimension was the most frequently described discrete context dimension. We found descriptions of social structure, which refers to the distribution of diversity dimensions in a group, culture, politics and legislation, and leaders' attributes. Leaders' attributes received the least attention. This is surprising, as the importance of leaders in the implementation of DMPs has been widely acknowledged (Nishii etal.2017). The success of DMPs is linked to leaders' motivation to implement them (Bowen and Ostroff2004), which is, in turn, linked to their personal characteristics (Nishii etal.2017). There was little variety in the reported diversity characteristics of leaders. The reviewed articles most frequently described gender diversity in managerial positions, followed by age, ethnic, and racial diversity. We observed similar patterns in the description of the distribution of diversity dimensions on different levels of analysis. Contextual information on culture was almost entirely related to the acceptance and treatment of minorities and women on the industry and country levels. These aspects were not described on lower levels, such as teams and departments. Countryspecific legislation and political developments related to diversity, such as the Marriage Act in Ireland (McFadden and CrowleyHenry2018), the German gender quota regulations (Windscheid etal.2017), and Canada's gender diversity TABLE 1 | Contextualization of the reviewed studies. Context dimension Contextual factor Level of analysis Individual Team Department Organization Industry Country Discrete Social Social structure 1 1 1 1 1 Culture 1 1 2 Leaders' attributes 1 1 1 1 Politics and legislation 2 Task Autonomy 1 Empowerment 1 Job demands 1 Resources 1 2 1 1 Accountability 1 Physical Workplace 1 Omnibus Whena1 1 Where 1 1 4 4 Who 4 Why 1 1 Note: 1, reported in less than 25% of the articles; 2, reported in 25%–50% of the articles; 3, reported in 50%–75% of the articles; 4, reported in more than 75% of the articles. aInformation on the period of data collection is not included. It was provided in approximately 57% of the articles. 6465 disclosure regulation for organizations (BenAmar etal.2022) were acknowledged in some articles. Legislative pressure can urge organizations to implement DMPs to counter discrimination and contribute to workforce diversity. However, vague regulations have often failed to achieve these goals, as they have led organizations to respond “with largely ceremonial compliance measures that would not disturb management routines” (Dobbin and Kalev 2021, p. 295). This underlines the importance of rich contextualization that moves beyond the mere listing of national regulations and critically reflects on them. 4.1.1.2 | Task Context. The task context was almost exclusively represented by resources, which varied widely depending on the level of analysis. For instance, on the organizational level, studies reported on economic performance and organizational size, whereas on the country level, they provided broad overviews of organizations' DM efforts and the employment situation of minority groups and women. There were no task context descriptions on the team or department level. Taskrelated aspects on the individual level, including autonomy, empowerment, job demands, and accountability, were examined in only a few studies. 4.1.1.3 | Physical Context. The physical context was largely overlooked and was noted by only two studies that examined whether the study participants' workplaces were the organizations' headquarters or field offices. The recent trends toward digitization (Post etal.2021) and multinational organizations (Nkomo etal.2019), which can make differences between workers increasingly salient, may increase the importance of the physical workplace. For instance, employees face different environments when working from home depending on diversityrelated factors, such as their family situations and socioeconomic status. Virtual work and internationalization can contribute to team dispersion and change the mode of collaboration (Antonacopoulou and Georgiadou2021). 4.1.2 | Omnibus Context 4.1.2.1 | When. Few studies went beyond mentioning the period of data collection to detail organizational or societal trends or events connected to the period in question. One example is Fontana(2020), who conducted a case study of the contribution of a DM initiative for the inclusion of transgender individuals in a Bangladeshi organization. In the methodology section, the author provides a chronological outline of the implementation of the DM initiative and relate it to societal and political events, such as legislation, that shaped the implementation process. This detailed description provides the reader with an understanding of transgender discrimination in Bangladesh, in response to which the organizational initiative was undertaken. 4.1.2.2 | Where. As DM has its roots in the USA (Nkomo and Hoobler 2014), we were not surprised to find that North America and Europe represented the majority of studies. The USA was the most frequently represented, followed by CentralWestern European countries, such as Germany, the UK, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. Few studies were conducted in Asian countries, such as China, South Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Fontana's(2020) study was the only one conducted in Bangladesh. None of the review studies was conducted in South America, and only one study was conducted in Africa—specifically, in South Africa (Carstens and De Kock2017). 4.1.2.3 | Who. All descriptions related to the who dimension were on the individual level of analysis and included demographics, attitudes, beliefs, perceptions, and personality. Demographics, which can also be referred to as surfacelevel diversity, received considerably more attention than the other categories, which can be considered aspects of deeplevel diversity. Surfacelevel diversity is often readily visible and deeplevel diversity becomes apparent over time and through social interactions (Harrison et al. 2002). Gender was frequently noted, followed by managerial level, age, occupation, and race. In an analysis of diversity theorizing over the past decades, Nkomo et al. (2019) identified a research shift from surfacelevel diversity to deeplevel diversity between the 1980s/1990s and the 2000s/2010s. However, our analysis shows that this development is not reflected in contextualization. As discussed above in relation to the social dimension, contextualization still seems to focus on a few surfacelevel diversity characteristics. 4.1.2.4 | Why. Disclosing the reason for collecting data can promote readers' understanding of participants' responses, which may be influenced by the study's rationale (Johns2006). For instance, if a study is conducted as part of an organization's evaluation and the participants are aware that the results will be shared with management (even if they are anonymized), their responses may differ from the responses they might give if they know that they will not be shared with their employer. Nevertheless, few of the reviewed studies explained the reasons for data collection. The most cited reason was that a study had been initiated by an external party, which was either an organization wanting to gather information on its own practices or a local government wishing to gain insights into the inclusion of minority groups in the labor market. Poor contextualization limits the comparability of findings across studies (Rousseau and Fried2001). Although guidance on how to contextualize research exists (Johns2006; Rousseau and Fried2001), contextualization does not seem to be a wellestablished practice. Table2 provides suggestions on how to contextualize specifically research on DMPs based on the results of this review and Johns's(2006) framework. In the reviewed studies, contextualization concerned mainly the individual, organizational, and country levels, whereas other levels of analysis, such as the team level, received less attention. Research findings highlighting the importance of team characteristics for DM (Joshi and Roh2007; van Knippenberg and van Ginkel2022) suggest that contextualization on this level is particularly interesting. Our proposed approach considers different levels of analysis. Although the relevance of contextual information is unique to each study, researchers on DM can use our analysis as a starting point for greater contextualization of their studies. Context dimensions are often closely intertwined. For instance, where a study is conducted raises questions not only about a city or country but also about its economic and political situation. The economic and political aspects, in turn, may also be interrelated. Thus, contextual factors should be viewed as a whole rather than separately. 6466 Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2025 TABLE 2 | Suggestions for contextualization by context dimension. Context dimension Contextual factor Level of analysis Individual Team Department Organization Industry Country Discrete Social Distribution of diversity dimensions X X X X X Diversity climate and culture X X X Crossgroup interaction X X X X X Hierarchical structure X X X Leaders' attributes X X X X Historical developments X X X Involvement with unions X X X Activism and protests X X X Size X X X X Demographic development X X X X X Diversityrelated legislation X Political situation X Task Performance X X X X X X (Diversity) strategy X Governance X Availability of labor X Employment situation X Turnover X X X Reputation X X X X Autonomy X X X X Empowerment X X X X Demands associated with work (physical, psychological) X X X Workload X X X X Physical Office/field X X X X Remote work X X X X Automation X X X X Distance between workplace and home X Distance between workplace and family X Dispersion X X X (Continues) 6467 4.2 | Context Effects In this subsection, we discuss the context effects related to DMPs and outcomes. An overview of the context effects is provided in Table3. We grouped contextual factors, DMPs, and outcomes and present the most frequently studied combinations in Table4. A lack of clear definitions of DMPs complicated the evaluation. We were often unable to assign DMPs to one of the categories suggested by Leslie(2019), as multiple practices were studied together. Some of the reviewed articles explicitly referred to them as practice bundles (e.g., Leung etal.2023; Richard etal.2013), which consist of “interrelated and internally consistent” practices (MacDuffie1995, p. 204) that complement each other and are aligned with an organization's strategic goals (Bowen and Ostroff2004). Practice bundles, which have been suggested to be more effective than single, isolated practices (Combs etal.2006), were the exception rather than the rule in our reviewed articles. The strategic motivation for studying practices in combination, the exact practices studied, and their targets were often unclear. Unclear definitions of DMPs were frequent in quantitative studies that used secondary data. For instance, our sample included studies that used the results of federal employee surveys, such as the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) by the US Office of Personnel Management. The following survey item from the 2022 survey (FEVS2022, p. 35) concerns DMPs: “My supervisor demonstrates commitment to workforce diversity (e.g., recruitment, promotion opportunities, development).” Such definitions made practices difficult to categorize, as they did not concern a specific practice or a strategic combination of practices that might target a specific minority group or women. 4.2.1 | Discrete Context 4.2.1.1 | Social Context. Contextual factors related to the social dimension were often studied in combination with resource practices and organizationrelated attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions (e.g., job pursuit intentions, job satisfaction, and organizational attraction) as outcomes. They were also studied with DMPs fitting combinations of the established categories and performance outcomes (Table 4). The studied contextual factors were categorized into social structure, culture, and politics and legislation. Social structure, which is related to the distribution of diversity dimensions, was found to restrict range, affect base rate, and prompt curvilinear effects (Table 3). The representation of women across hierarchical levels, a contextual factor studied multiple times, moderated the relationship between DMPs and outcomes. For instance, in organizations with a female executive, childcare leave and flexible work arrangements contributed to positive relationships between female managers and their female supervisors (Shin and Kim2022). Ali and Konrad(2017) found that the positive association between DMPs and CSR performance was stronger in organizations with great gender diversity in lower and middle management. The influence of cultural aspects on the relationship between DMPs and organizational performance outcomes was frequently studied. The studied cultural aspects varied widely depending on the level of analysis and restricted range, affected base rate, prompted curvilinear effects, and changed causal direction (Table3). While diversity climate, diversity environment, and diversity perspective were related to the organizational level, broader cultural practices were analyzed on the country level. For instance, following Dwertmann etal.'s(2016) suggestions for advancing research on diversity climate, Ali and French(2019) found that in organizations with a synergy perspective (as opposed to a fairness and discrimination perspective), DMPs were positively associated with return on assets. Baker etal.(2021) found that in organizations with a strong diversity environment, DMPs contributed to profit before tax. While these two studies focused on the organizational level, Peretz etal.(2015) considered variables across levels of analysis. Specifically, they investigated the influence of national cultural practices on the relationships between DMPs and organizational absenteeism and turnover. For instance, in low power distance countries, the adoption of DMPs contributed to fewer absent days per employee than in high power distance countries. Politics and legislation, analyzed in only two instances, restricted range and prompted curvilinear effects (Table3). The two studies' results pointed in different directions. Whereas Context dimension Contextual factor Level of analysis Individual Team Department Organization Industry Country Omnibus When Event X X X X X X Trends X X X X X Duration of project/activity X X X Where Location X X X X X X Who Demographics X Attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions X Personality X Why Reason for collecting information X X X X X X TABLE 2 | (Continued) 6468 Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, 2025 TABLE 3 | Context effects. Context dimension Level of analysis Contextual factor Context effects Restricted range Affected base rate Prompted curvilinear effects Changed causal direction Reversed signs Discrete Social Team Social structure 4 1 1 Culturea4 2 2 Organization Social structure 3 3 1 Culture 3 2 1 1 Country Culture 4 Politics and legislationa 4 2 Task Department Resourcesa4 3 Organization Resources 4 2 1 Industry Resourcesa4 2 Omnibus When Country Eventsa3 3 Where Departmenta4 Organizationa4 4 Industrya4 3 Sectora4 4 Who Individual Attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions 4 2 1 1 1 Demographics 4 3 1 1 1 Note: 1, occurred in less than 25% of the times the contextual factor was examined; 2, occurred in 25%–50% of the times the contextual factor was examined; 3, occurred in 50%–75% of the times the contextual factor was examined; 4, occurred in more than 75% of the times the contextual factor was examined. aExamined fewer than five times. TABLE 4 | DMPs and outcomes repeatedly studied together by context dimension. Context dimension DMP category Outcome Discrete Social Resource practices Organizationrelated attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions (e.g., job pursuit intentions, job satisfaction, and organizational attraction) Resource practices Performance Combination Performance Task Resource practices Performance Omnibus When N/AaN/Aa Where N/AaN/Aa Who Resource practices Organizationrelated attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions (e.g., job pursuit intentions, job satisfaction, and organizational attraction) Combination Organizationrelated attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions (e.g., job pursuit intentions, job satisfaction, and organizational attraction) Nondiscrimination practices Organizationrelated attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions (e.g., job pursuit intentions, job satisfaction, and organizational attraction) aNo pattern emerged due to the small number of studies examining the influence of this dimension.