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UF researcher proves underrepresented groups experience more workplace bias

May 9, 2023

2 min

By Halle Burton 


George Cunningham, a UF professor and researcher, conducted a study on workplace bias, finding managers are more likely to display an implicit bias towards minorities and underrepresented groups.


Cunningham is chair of the UF Department of Sport Management, and his study was published in Frontiers in Psychology in November 2022.


Working with his co-author, Cunningham analyzed self-identified managers and people in 22 other occupational designations to compare their implicit and explicit biases towards race, gender, disability and sexual orientation.


“Once we saw that race, gender, disability and sexual orientation-based forms of mistreatment are all prevalent in the U.S. workforce, we determined this warranted examination of managers’ biases in these areas,” Cunningham said.


The researchers found that managers held a moderate preference for majority groups.


Additionally, the study shows these managers also expressed more bias than jobs working to better societal standards and environmental issues like educators and social scientists.


Cunningham’s original question asked if managers convey biases that vary from other occupational codes and if this impacts the claims employees make. Not only did his study answer this with a resounding yes, but it further divides the focus of the bias on sectors of implicit and explicit attitudes.


Cunningham said their study also showed a disconnect between managers’ explicit and implicit biases, especially with disabilities.


Their responses indicated they explicitly didn’t believe they held biases against disabilities, but their implicit bias regarding disabled groups was the highest of all.


“The more we’re aware of it, the more likely we are to take steps to help lessen the impact,” he said. “The bigger issue, though, is to change the way our society operates.”

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UF water researchers develop prediction system for harmful algae

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In a paper published recently in the Journal of Environmental Management, Kaplan, UF assistant professor Elise Morrison, Ph.D., and NCSU’s Maria Menchu Maldonado, Ph.D., chronicled their work with harmful algal blooms in the Caloosahatchee River and Estuary, the environmentally sensitive link between Lake Okeechobee and Florida’s southwestern coast. Maldonado performed the work under the guidance of NCSU collaborator Natalie Nelson. In a collaboration between multiple colleges, organizations, departments and universities, the paper’s other authors are Eric Milbrandt of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Edward Phlips of UF and Natalie G. Nelson of NCSU. The project’s facilitators include Darlene Velez, research coordinator with the UF Water Institute, and Lisa Krimsky, Ph.D., a water resources regional specialized agent with IFAS. Using water samples and computer algorithms, the team developed prediction models based on two water sources feeding the river: Lake Okeechobee and the river’s watershed – the water run-off from the surrounding land. The models determine levels of chlorophyll-a, which is a pigment in algae that is indicative of algal bloom conditions. “For watershed-dominated conditions, the model was able to predict 49% of the variation in next-day chlorophyll-a, which isn’t bad, but for lake-dominated conditions, the model was much better, explaining 78% of the variation in next-day chlorophyll-a in the water,” Kaplan noted. Unlike traditional forecasting models for algal blooms, which are often complex and require much computing power, these models are designed to be practical for daily decision-making, particularly for the Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD), which has made improving the health of the Caloosahatchee Estuary a state priority. 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The initial project – called Coupling Lake, Estuarine, and Watershed Models for the Caloosahatchee River and Estuary (CLEW) – designed data- and model-driven guidance for Lake Okeechobee water releases. “The overall motivation is that Lake Okeechobee is a challenging natural resource to manage, particularly deciding when and how much water to discharge from the lake to either estuary,” Kaplan said. “There are many competing needs surrounding management of the lake, which has only so much volume. We don't want to cause flooding or other ecological harm.” The follow-up project is UF’s collaboration with USF to develop tools for end users, meaning agencies and managers to make better decisions. The team wants to deliver a system where water managers press the button to get the one-day risk forecast. 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The once-shallow river was deepened and widened into a regulated waterway that was connected to Lake Okeechobee and the Kissimmee Chain of Lakes for navigation, water supply and flood control purposes. “Water quality is a challenge in Lake Okeechobee, including sometimes pretty bad harmful algal blooms,” Kaplan said. “And then, of course, the downstream recipients of whatever water is discharged are very sensitive to the amount of water they're getting and what's in it. They’d prefer it to be only the right amount at only the right times with the best quality."

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3 min

Charities spend big to defend their board’s corporate agendas, new study reveals

Charities with corporate leaders on their boards spend an average of $130,000 a year lobbying on behalf of their connected companies. That’s according to a first-of-its-kind study that shows how companies benefit from their charitable work — and how charities may be all-too-happy to support their powerful board members in return for lucrative connections. The researchers behind the study say the findings could help policymakers and charity stakeholders keep tabs on a previously hidden form of political influence, but that such arrangements are perfectly legal for now. “Charities stand to gain something by behaving in this way. It doesn’t always have to be corporations pushing charities to behave in a way they don’t want to,” said Sehoon Kim, Ph.D., a professor of finance at the University of Florida and senior author of the new study. “It’s a natural quid pro quo arrangement that arises from the incentives corporations and charities have.” The American Medical Association shows one example of these incentives in action. In the 2010s, they actively lobbied against efforts by federal agencies to curb opioid prescriptions. This benefited companies like Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin widely blamed for exacerbating the opioid epidemic in the U.S. It turned out that Richard Sackler, the former president of the company, sat on the board of AMA Foundation, a relationship viewed by many as controversial at the time. But Sackler had arranged for millions in donations to the foundation, and other charities are likely looking to corporate board members to help engineer large donations for their charitable work by connecting charities to other companies and leaders with deep pockets. Lobbying on behalf of their new friends, then, may simply be the most efficient way to ensure those donations keep flowing. Kim collaborated with UF Professor Joel Houston, Ph.D., and Changhyun Ahn, Ph.D., of the Chinese University of Hong Kong to conduct the analysis, which is forthcoming in the journal Management Science. They painstakingly hand collected data covering more than 400 charities and over 1,000 corporations that identified board connections, donations and lobbying activities that fell both within and outside of the charities’ typical political activity. The researchers focused on larger charities that already engage in some lobbying on their own behalf. These lobbying charities are three times larger than smaller nonprofits that never lobby. After a new corporate board member joined, these charities changed their behavior. They were far more likely to lobby outside of their own interests and to even work to support or defeat legislation that affected their new board member’s company, even when that legislation had nothing to do with their charitable mission. It worked out to about a 14% increase in the charity’s lobbying expenditures. “These were the smoking guns that there’s something going on that’s not supposed to be happening,” Kim said. Because lobbying is such an efficient use of resources, and because charities may lend their friendly brand to these lobbying efforts, this help from charities could significantly benefit these connected corporations. “These are previously unrecognized channels at play in terms of corporate political influence that policymakers need to be mindful of when assessing how influential corporations are likely to be,” Kim said.

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