Missing or seizing the opportunity? The effect of an opportunity hire on job offers to science faculty candidates

• Date: 11 March 2019
• Published date: 11 March 2019
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0201
• Pages: 160-177
• Author: Jill Allen,Jessi L. Smith,Lynda B. Ransdell
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour

Missing or seizing the

opportunity? The effect of an

opportunity hire on job offers

to science faculty candidates

Jill Allen

Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Drake University, Des Moines,

Iowa, USA

Jessi L. Smith

Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Colorado Springs,

Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA, and

Lynda B. Ransdell

College of Health and Human Services, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff,

Arizona, USA

Abstract

Purpose –As universities grapple with broadening participation of women in science, many ADVANCE

funded institutions hone in on transforming search committee practices to better consider dual-career

partners and affirmative action hires (“opportunity hires”). To date, there is a lack of empirical research on the

consequences and processes underlying such a focus. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and

how two ADVANCE-recommended hiring practices, dual-career hiring and affirmative action hiring, help or

hinder women’s participation in academic science.

Design/methodology/approach –In two experiments, the authors tested what happens to a science

candidate’s evaluation and offer when that candidate reveals he or she has a dual-career partner (vs is a

solo-candidate, Experiment 1) or if it is revealed that the candidate under review is the dual-hire partner or is a

target of opportunity hire (vs primary candidate, Experiment 2). A random US national sample of academic

scientists provided anonymous external recommendations to an ostensible faculty search committee.

Findings –Evaluators supported the job offer to a primary candidate requiring a heterosexual partner

accommodation. This good news, however, was offset by the results of Experiment 2, which showed that

support for the partner or affirmative action candidate depended on the evaluator’s gender. Taken together,

the research identifies important personal and contextual features that sometimes do –and sometimes do

not –impact hiring perceptions of women in science.

Originality/value –The authors believe the effects of such an emphasis on opportunity hires within

ADVANCE funded institutions may be considerable and inform changes to policies and practices that help

bring about gender equality.

Keywords Affirmative action, Gender equality, Dual-career accommodation, Women in science

Paper type Research paper

Social justice is just one of many very good reasons to care about diversifying the academic

workforce (Byars-Winston, 2014; Cech, 2014; Chesler et al., 2005). Diversity in academic

science lends itself to more creative and innovative discoveries (Hong and Page, 2004;

Page, 2008; Valantine and Collins, 2015), provides role modeling of multiple ways of

knowing that appeals to underrepresented students and breaks down stereotypes

(Young et al., 2013) and fosters a more inclusive work and social climate for everyone

(Pande and Ford, 2011). Knowing these benefits of a diverse working and learning scientific

community, universities must grapple with the reality that universities are highly gender

and racially homogenous, with white men disproportionally represented as faculty in most

science fields in higher education (National Science Foundation, 2017). Efforts to transform

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 2, 2019

pp. 160-177

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0201

Received 30 September 2017

Revised 14 February 2018

23 June 2018

Accepted 2 July 2018

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

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

160

EDI

38,2

academic science into a more gender diverse and inclusive workplace must include

scrutinizing university policies and programs aimed at rectifying the gender inequity, which

have remained a focus of the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE Institutional

Transformation grants (Mitchneck et al., 2016). In this study, we examine two of the

ADVANCE-recommended hiring practices, dual-career and affirmative action hires, aimed

at broadening the participation of women in academic science.

Literature review

Universities are realizing that to recruit academic women in science, hiring practices must

move from a “two-body problem”to a proactive “two-body opportunity”(American

Association of University Professors, 2010; McCluskey et al., 2016; Schiebinger et al., 2008).

The number of dual-career couples in academia is difficult to determine, as existing evidence

is mostly anecdotal (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2011; Simmons, 2012). The best (albeit

decade old) research by Schiebinger et al. (2008) revealed that over one third of faculty

(36 percent) partner with or marry other faculty, and compared to men, women are

especially likely to have academic partners (40 percent vs 34 percent, respectively).

These data also show that dual-career couple rates are highest in academic science, with

54 percent of men and 83 percent of women scientists having a partner who is also in

academic science. This means that to recruit women in academic science, university hiring

committees must consider dual-career needs. The American Association of University

Professors (2010) summarizes the issue as follows: “In the absence of such [dual-career]

accommodations, academic couples may find themselves faced with long-distance

relationships or the subordination of one career to the partner who succeeds in securing

a position. Evidence, such as the high proportion of women in part-time and contingent

positions, and the relative lack of women in tenure-track positions in research universities,

suggests that the lack of such arrangements may be having an adverse impact on the

careers of academic women”(p. 82).

Under US “Equal Employment Opportunity Commission”law, it is illegal to

discriminate against someone seeking employment because of their marital or perceived

marital status (Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 1964). Nevertheless, fearing bias,

candidates struggle with when to inform a search committee about a dual-career need

(Simmons and Chivukula, 2015). Among women in academic science, does it hurt a

candidate’s job offer when she reveals she has an academic partner? And how does the

partner fare when evaluated as a dual-career accommodation? Theories on internalized

stigma consciousness (Pinel, 1999) coupled with evaluators’use of shifting standards

(Biernat and Manis, 1994) suggest the possibility of a stigma for partner hire applicants

who are assumed to be underqualified for a tenure-track position (e.g. Holmes, 2015).

Although empirical work examining such experiences is limited, existing evidenc e points

to both perceived and internalized stigma due to a partner hire status. For example, in

Schiebinger et al. (2008), one faculty member offered this perspective on dual-career hires:

“One partner is almost always perceived as better than the other. The other partner then

suffers, in terms of what is offered, in reduced long-term support, and also psychologically

as a second-class citizen.”Therefore, it follows that self-identification in a dual-career

academic couple (i.e. as the opportunity hire) may come at a cost.

Opportunity hires are not a “new”idea. Affirmative action programs are a long-standing

recruitment tool for increasing women’s participation in academic science. Federally

contracted organizations in the US (including higher education institutions) are required to

take “affirmative actions”to undo a history of marginalization and underutilizing a given

population of people (U.S. Department of Labor, 1965). Misunderstandings about and

resistance to affirmative action policies abound (Harrison et al., 2006). Affirmative action

hiring is not about quotas; affirmative action hiring is about recognizing that a highly

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Missing or

seizing the

opportunity