Risk and Responsibility: The Burdens of Witnessing Workplace Racial Mistreatment

The impact of racialized workplace interactions, such as witnessing racial mistreatment, on voice processes among racially diverse workers remains ripe for investigation. In this paper, we form new theory about the psychological burdens that witnessing racial mistreatment of others places on employees. Three multimethod studies show that among employees from many racial backgrounds (i.e. White, Black, Latine, East Asian), witnessing racial mistreatment towards others discourages voice by signaling a lack of psychological safety in the organizational environment. Yet, witnessing racial mistreatment also bestows feelings of responsibility to speak up to improve the organization. These results provide evidence that witnessing workplace racial mistreatment places a dual burden on employees: harming perceptions that speaking up is safe, while saddling witnesses with a responsibility to do just that. Feelings of risk were greatest among witnesses who identified with the targeted racial group, including minoritized workers from other racial groups, placing the greatest psychological burden on their shoulders. By showing the disparate and reverberating burden of racial mistreatment at work, we contribute to emerging theory on the pressures that racial interactions place on employees in modern, diverse organizations.