Patrick F. McKay
Associate Professor Human Resource Management
Featured Faculty Member
Professor McKay’s recent research has focused on examining the impact of diversity climate on individual and organizational performance. McKay found that supportive diversity climates – where work environments adhere to fair human resource practices and socially integrate all employees (regardless of race-ethnicity, sex, etc.) – are associated with enhanced employee and business-unit performance.
In his recent study of a large retail organization’s 730 stores entitled “Mean Racial-Ethnic Differences in Employee Sales Performance: The Moderating Role of Diversity Climate” (with co-authors Derek R. Avery and Mark A. Morris in Personnel Psychology, Summer 2008 Issue), Professor McKay discovered that Black-White and Hispanic-White differences in average sales performance were reduced when diversity climates were thought of as “pro-diversity” in nature. In “pro-diversity” climates, sales increased by $20/hour among Black sales personnel and $26/hour among Hispanic sales personnel, resulting in projected annual sales gains of $20,800 and $27,040 for each Black and Hispanic sales employee.
In his upcoming article in Personnel Psychology, “A Tale of Two Climates: Diversity Climate from Subordinates’ and Managers’ Perspectives and their Role in Store Unit Sales Performance,” Professor McKay (with Derek R. Avery and Mark A. Morris) demonstrates that retail store sales growth is largest (10.35%) when both store subordinates and their managers perceive that their stores foster supportive diversity climates. Financial estimates reveal that stores with these pro-diversity climates were associated with annual gains of $44.6 million in sales.
Bio:
Patrick F. McKay, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Management in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.
Professor McKay received his Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology in 1999 from the University of Akron. He is a member of the Academy of Management, Society for Industrial-Organizational Psychology, American Psychological Association, and the Personnel/Human Resources Research Group.
His primary research interests are the interactive effects of race-ethnicity and organizations’ diversity climates on recruitment outcomes, employee job performance, work attitudes, and retention, as well as organizational-level performance. Related interests include racial-ethnic differences in performance on personnel selection devices and the influence of location characteristics on job choice and turnover decisions.
Professor McKay’s research has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Journal of Management Inquiry, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Business and Psychology, and Public Personnel Management. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Management, and as an ad hoc reviewer for a number of outlets including the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Academy of Management Review, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Group & Organization Management, and Human Relations. He has won several awards for his research work including the 2007 Dorothy Harlow Distinguished Paper Award from the Gender and Diversity in Organizations division of the Academy of Management conference for the paper, The interaction of subordinates’ and managers’ diversity climates on store unit sales performance (with Derek R. Avery and Mark A. Morris), the 2007 Assurant Health Research Fellowship and 2006 Junior Faculty Scholarly Achievement Award, both from the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Also, Professor McKay won two Gold Star Teaching Awards from the Sheldon B. Lubar School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
Prior to embarking on an academic career, Professor McKay worked as a human resource consultant responsible for test development and validation, test administration, performance appraisal system development, training program implementation, job applicant rating, and litigation support. As a human resource consultant, he developed employment tests for nationally known organizations such as Lucent Technologies, Michelin, Sony Magnetic Products, and General Electric.
Contact: pmckay@smlr.rutgers.edu
