(Not) Paying for Diversity

Repugnant Market Concerns Associated with Transactional Approaches to Diversity Recruitment

Bibliographic Data

ID21284635
AuthorsSummer R Jackson (0000-0003-1485-0287, Harvard Business School, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume68
Issue3
Pages824-866
Publication date2023-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAdministrative Science Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0001-8392 • E-ISSN: 1930-3815
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/00018392231183649
OpenAlexW4384131840
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited78

In a 20-month ethnographic study, I examine how a technology firm, ShopCo (a pseudonym), considered 13 different recruitment platforms to attract racial minority engineering candidates. I find that when choosing whether to adopt recruitment platforms focused on racial minority candidates (targeted recruitment platforms) but not when choosing whether to adopt recruitment platforms on which the modal candidate was White (traditional recruitment platforms), ShopCo managers expressed distaste for what they perceived to be the objectification, exploitation, and race-based targeting of racial minorities. These managers’ repugnant market concerns influenced which types of platforms ShopCo adopted. To recruit racial minorities, ShopCo eschewed recruitment platforms taking a transactional approach that emphasized speed, quantity, efficiency, opportunity, and compensation, in favor of platforms taking a developmental approach that emphasized individuality, ethics, equity, community, and commitment. I show that ShopCo managers had different relational models for recruiting based on the race of the candidate. By exploring the new mechanism of repugnant market concerns, I aim to increase understanding of employees’ resistance to DEI initiatives, which can create barriers to workplace reforms even when organizations are committed to change

Business · Diversity (politics) · Equity (law) · Political science · Public relations · Race (biology) · Sociology · Transactional leadership · Employer Branding and e-HRM · Gender Diversity and Inequality · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Law · Marketing

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