Black and White Employees' Fairness Perceptions of Personnel Selection Techniques

Abstract

The Employment Equity Act (1998) states that no unfair discrimination should occur against an employee in any organisational policy or practice. The diversity of the South African population may lead to opinions that certain selection techniques have an adverse impact on members of different population groups. The aim of this study was to investigate to what extent black and white respondents regarded specific selection techniques as being fair. A further goal was to establish whether knowledge of selection techniques influenced perceptions of the fairness of selection techniques. The sample consisted of 328 mature university students (mean age 30,6 years) all of whom had work experience. The perceptions of the Black (uninformed) and White (uninformed) groups were compared and thereafter the perceptions of informed and uninformed black students were compared. Exposure to the subjects Strategic Personnel Management and/or undergraduate Industrial Psychology, thereby providing the student with theoretical knowledge about the nature and value of various selection techniques, constituted the variable ‘being informed’. The results supported the hypothesis that the Black (uninformed) and the White (uninformed) groups have different perceptions regarding the ten selection techniques. However, no support was found for the hypothesis that the fairness perceptions of the Black (informed) and the Black (uninformed) groups would differ. The implications of these findings were discussed in terms of selection practices in South Africa. Key words: Personnel selection techniques, fairness perceptions, cross-cultural comparison.