Differences in job expectations, satisfactions, and rewards between white and black middle managers in urban health care organizations

The problem that was addressed in this study were differences in job expectations, rewards, perceived criteria for promotion, and relations with supervisors and staff among black and white middle-level managers in health care. Assessments on the influences of perceived expectations on job satisfaction, satisfaction with rewards, and self-perceived job performance were conducted. The sample included 153 middle-level managers from hospitals and health agencies in the United States. The sample consisted of 104 (68.0%) females and 49 (32.0%) males. Ninety-one (59.5%) respondents were white, 51 (33.3%) were African-American, and 11 (7.2%) were of other racial or ethnic origins. The hypotheses of the study were: (1) The variables of expectation of rewards, perceived criteria for promotion, and relations with supervisors and staff, will differentiate between black and white middle managers. (2) The greater perceived expectations the greater the job satisfaction. (3) The greater the perceived expectations the greater the satisfaction with rewards. (4) The greater the perceived expectations the greater the self-perceived job performance. The four hypotheses were confirmed by the data. Black managers tended to view management\u27s behavior relative to perceived expectations as less inclusive of staff, less fair, less concerned, and less competent than did white managers. Job satisfaction, extrinsic, intrinsic, social, and influence reward satisfactions were all related to perceived job-related expectations, with the sole variable of reward expectations being constant in each instance. The similarities among extrinsic, intrinsic, and influence reward satisfactions were their relationship to management allowance of staff involvement. Extrinsic and social rewards were related to management fairness; intrinsic and influence rewards were related to the perception that promotion was based on performance, and social and influence rewards were related to staff productivity. Social reward satisfactions were related to staff problem solving and staff concern. Job satisfaction was related to staff competence and staff problem solving behavior. Intrinsic reward satisfactions were related to staff participation, staff competence, management competence, management control and management orientation. Quality of work as perceived by the respondent was not strongly related to the perceived job-related expectation variables. However, it was related to the perception that promotion was based on performance