Mechanisms for hiring discrimination of immigrant applicants in the United States

• Pages: 395-417
• Date: 18 April 2020
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-08-2019-0218
• Published date: 18 April 2020
• Author: Ekundayo Y. Akinlade,Jason R. Lambert,Peng Zhang
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity,equality,inclusion

Mechanisms for hiring

discrimination of immigrant

applicants in the United States

Ekundayo Y. Akinlade

College of Business, Economics and Computing, University of Wisconsin Parkside,

Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA

Jason R. Lambert

College of Business, Texas Woman’s University, Denton, Texas, USA, and

Peng Zhang

Miami Business School, University of Miami, Coral Gables, Florida, USA

Abstract

Purpose –Few studies examine how hiring discrimination can be an antecedent to the labor exploitation of

immigrant workers. The main purpose of this paper is to advance the theoretical understanding of how the

intersectionality of race and immigrantstatus affects differential hiring treatment, and how it affects job offers,

job acceptance and hiring decision outcomes for immigrant job seekers.

Design/methodology/approach –The paper draws from theories on status and intersectionality, and

literature on immigration labor and racial hierarchy, addressing the unequal power relations that underlie race

and immigration status affecting the hiring process, to advance critical understandings of why immigrant job

seekers accept positions where they may be exploited.

Findings –This paper provides a conceptual model to critically synthesize the complexity between race and

immigrant status, and their effect on the experience of immigrant job seekers differently. Exploitation

opportunism is introduced to betterunderstand the mechanisms of hiring discrimination among immigrant job

seekers to include the role of race, immigrant status, economic motivations and unequal power relations on the

hiring process.

Practical implications –The framework for exploitation opportunism will help employers improve the

quality and fairness of their hiring methods, and empower immigrant job seekers to not allow themselves to

accept subpar job offers which can lead to exploitation.

Originality/value –The paper provides an original analysis of immigrant job seekers’experience of the

hiring process that reveals the intragroup differences among immigrants based on race and status, and the

decision-making mechanisms that hiring managers and immigrant job seekers use to evaluate job offers and

job acceptance.

Keywords Intersectionality, Immigrants, Status, Exploitation, Categorization, Hiring discrimination

Paper type Conceptual paper

Introduction

Globalization and labor shortages have led to immigrants becoming an “important source of

labor”in today’s knowledge-based economies, especially in many Western countries (Dietz

et al., 2015;Shirmohammadi et al., 2019;Zikic, 2015). Yet, management scholars have paid

only scant attention to understanding the employment experience of this increasingly

important part of the labor workforce (Dietz et al., 2015;Zikic, 2015). Moreover, results from

around the world on immigrants in the workplace, suggest that their experience is complex.

For instance, in the United States, although popular discourse purports that immigrants

displace domestic-born Americans from jobs (Waldinger and Lichter, 2003;Bloomekatz,

2007), this assertion is an oversimplification of the complex interplay between employer

preferences on the one hand, and workers’attributes, such as immigration status and race, on

the other hand (Bloomekatz, 2007). While anecdotal evidence suggests that employers prefer

hiring immigrants rather than US workers, theories of stereotypes, prejudice and

Immigrant

applicants in

the United

States

395

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

Received 12 August 2019

Revised 9 November 2019

27 January 2020

2 March 2020

Accepted 6 March 2020

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 39 No. 4, 2020

pp. 395-417

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-08-2019-0218

discrimination suggest the opposite. First, depending on their national origin, immigrants

differ remarkably on perceived competence and likability, but are also faced with prejudice

and discrimination like other outgroups (Derous et al., 2012;Lee and Fiske, 2006;Myslinska,

2013). Indeed, studies conducted in Britain (Qureshi et al., 2013), Canada (Somerville and

Walsworth, 2009) and France (Ramboarison-Lalao et al., 2012) found that skilled immigrants

from non-English-speaking backgrounds were underutilized compared to their

English-speaking counterparts (Kostenko et al., 2012;Almeida et al., 2015). Second,

immigrants are embedded in a racialized society, an imprint of the larger social structure

of the host country, and thus are likely targets of prejudice and discriminatory behaviors (Bell

et al., 2010;Cortina, 2008;Fiske et al., 2002;Waldinger and Lichter, 2003). As an illustration,

based on a field experiment in Sweden, Carlsson and Rooth (2008) found that native-born

applicants with Swedish-sounding names had higher call back rates than native-born

applicants with Middle Eastern sounding names. Given these divergent views, how are

immigrants evaluated during the hiring process?

In this paper, we explore this question primarily using the US context and immigration

system to illustrate. Specifically, we present a model to conceptualize a phenomenon that we

contend serves as a predictor of worker exploitation, and offers an alternative rationale for

employers’hiring decisions of immigrants beyond socio-cognitive factors. Very few studies in

the management literature explore exploitation, and in particular its antecedents. To extend

this literature, the focus of our paper is not to examine labor exploitation, but instead to

introduce and conceptualize exploitation opportunism as the decision-making process that

can occur by and between employers and immigrant applicants, and can lead to the

discrimination of immigrant workers. Drawing from status theories and theories of

intersectionality, we integrate research on immigration labor and racial hierarchy to address

the unequal power relations that underlie race and immigration status affecting the hiring

process. Our model shown in Figure 1 includes three stages governed by applicant

categorization, employer motivation and applicant exploitability resistance, depicting why

the discrimination of immigrant applicants occurs in the labor market uniquely compared to

domestic applicants. Using our model, we attempt to explain what guides the decision by

employers to exploit job applicants, and influences applicants to allow themselves to be

Applicant

Immigrant

Status

Applicant’s

Race

Applicant

Immigrant

Hierarchy

Perceived

Applicant

Resource

Capital

Perceived

Applicant

Exploitability

Applicant

Exploitatio n

Resistance

Employers

Expectations

About

Applicant

Applicant

Experiences

With

Employers

Job Offer/

Hiring

Decision

Outcome

Stage 1: Applicant Categorizati on Stage 2: Empl oyer

Motivation

Stage 3: Applicant Exploita tion Resistance

Individual

Differences

Internal e.g.,

affect, self-

enhancement,

values,

prejudice

External e.g.,

Labor market

Utilitarian

Figure 1.

Exploitation

opportunism

framework

EDI

39,4

396