Airbnb

According to the article “Airbnb Will Hold Host to Higher Standard, Hire More Minorities” by Eric Newcomer: Airbnb is taking numerous steps to prevent discrimination amongst hosts and guest after being accused by several renters stating they had been discriminated by the host. Consequently, Airbnb has committed to making several changes including: elimination of same day relisting, non-screening option through Instant Book(ing) function, provide online bias training for hosts, and hire a more diverse workforce. These changes will be enforced for property owners/ host to assure that Airbnb will not discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age.
Due to the accusation, Airnbnb
is creating a plural organization in reaction to negative customer feedback; Forming a strategic approach to make changes within their company in hopes that hosts will reduce negative prejudice, bias and stereotyping by altering their policy of non-screening. Some processes from high involvement management will be used when performing selective hiring, hiring from underrepresented populations, and extensive bias training to their host and employees. Airbnb is attempting to manage the organization behavior of host to better serve the clients. They have created an affirmative action plan to increase their diversity in employees from 9.6% to 11% in 2017 and their expenditure for a minority supply will increase from 1% to 10% by 2019. This is a temporary fix in response to the customers. Host in these instances have personal biases against others not like themselves. Their attitude towards the clients have already been formed and this is what essentially in that past allowed them to pick and choose who could rent out their home through the Airbnb services. Airbnb is using normative organizational commitment in the instance host ought to conform to the necessary changes to keep business afloat. These changes will allow Airbnb to have a competitive advantage against companies with similar services including hotels, as the idea is to make people feel as if they were in their own home.
I cannot agree or disagree with the author since he is not stating his opinion; he is making claims to changes Airbnb will pursue to help better their business practices.
Personally, I feel these are changes in the right direction, but not sufficient. The business could be affected both positively and negatively: Negatively due to the host not agreeing to these changes; ultimately it is their home being rented to complete strangers, making the screening processes a need for them. Host not knowing who will be staying in their home may eventually lead to them completely leaving the company. Positively effects are mostly in effect to the consumer, no one should be discriminated against for whatever reason it may be so the ideology of being able to rent a home without having to submit to a background check, so to speak, is beneficial to all, especially those who in the past have been a discriminated against but still would like to use Airbnb services. It is my opinion Airbnb is not fully committed to these changes, they are committed to a temporary quick fix (affirmative action). Also if a host denies someone the ability they can still repost, just not the same day. This to me still shows some signs of discrimination, if you do not want to rent to someone for whatever reason they should not be allowed to repost at all. That same person that attempted to rent may later see that the option is available to others would definitely make someone feel unease and discriminated which is what Airbnb is trying to avoid in the first place. Also the percentage of future minority representation in the company is so minute, higher minority percentage should be hired. Within time I believe Airbnb will realize that it may not be enough there are two markets to satisfy: the consumer and the host, essentially they are both using Airbnb
services.