the organizational reproduction of inequality · 2019-12-03 · of these practices, and the...

r Academy of Management Annals2020, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1–36.https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0033

THE ORGANIZATIONAL REPRODUCTION OF INEQUALITY

JOHN M. AMIS1

University of Edinburgh

JOHANNA MAIRHertie School of Governance and

Stanford University

KAMAL A. MUNIRUniversity of Cambridge

With societal inequalities continuing to increase and organizations providing the vastmajority of people with their income, we wanted to assess the ways in which organi-zational practices are implicated in the burgeoning of social and economic inequality.Following an integrative review of the literature drawn from across the social sciences,we found that the multiple ways in which five major organizational practices—hiring,role allocation, promotion, compensation, and structuring—are enacted emerged asbeing central to the reproduction of inequality. We also uncovered how the persistenceof these practices, and the inequality they induce, can be largely attributed to a con-stellation of three highly institutionalized myths, efficiency, meritocracy, and positiveglobalization. Our analysis further reveals how, as scholars, we bear a correspondingresponsibility to reconsider how we engage in research on and teaching about organi-zations. The implications of this for our future work are discussed.

“For the great enemy of truth is very often not thelie—deliberate, contrived and dishonest—but themyth—persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.” (JohnF. Kennedy, 1962)

Over the last three decades, economic inequalityhas emerged as one of society’s most pressing chal-lenges (e.g., Atkinson, 2015; Dorling, 2011; Oxfam,2019; Piketty, 2014; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010). Muchresearch has attributed inequality to the rise of freemarket capitalism. Indeed, the ideological shift of the1980s and the emergence of a new paradigm in whichfree markets held a central position (Burgin, 2012) ac-companied by an increasing control of policy agendasby the private sector (Barley, 2007; Bonica, McCarty,Poole, & Rosenthal, 2013; Stiglitz, 2013) have beencausally linked to what Atkinson (2015: 3) has termedthe “inequality turn.” However, in the macro-levelnarratives that have been spawned by these views,organizations, and the people who work within them,

remain largely invisible; when organizations are con-sidered, they are mostly viewed as rational entitiescomprising neutral structures and practices. This isparticularly problematic when considering inequalitybecauseorganizationsnotonlyplayacentral role inallofour lives but also demarcate employment and otheropportunities that in turn define social and economicstatus for thevastmajorityofpeople(Atkinson,Piketty,&Saez, 2011).

Our purpose in this article is to reassess the re-lationshipbetweenorganizations and inequality.Werecognize that organizations, far from being neutralentities, constitute bounded, rationalized, and for-malized spaces in which economic opportunitiesintersect with structures of exclusion and disad-vantage. Consequently, understanding how peoplegain employment, are promoted and compensated,and what enables and hinders upward mobilitywithin organizations is critical to understanding theproduction and reproduction of inequality.With thisbackdrop, we approach this article with three ques-tions in mind. First, what are the organizationalpractices that reinforce inequality? Second, how dothese practices reproduce inequality? Third,why arethese dynamics of reproduction so persistent and

The authors gratefully acknowledge the astute guidanceof Associate Editor Matthew Cronin.

John M. Amis, Johanna Mair, and Kamal A. Munir con-tributed equally to this work.

1 Corresponding author.

1

Copyright of the Academy of Management, all rights reserved. Contents may not be copied, emailed, posted to a listserv, or otherwise transmitted without the copyright holder’s expresswritten permission. Users may print, download, or email articles for individual use only.

https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2017.0033

prevalent across different organizations and do-mains of activity?

As we reviewed the literature guided by thesethree questions, it became apparent that althoughthere is significant work across the social sciencesthat has revealed the presence of various social in-equalities in organizations, this work has typicallybeen siled according to the type of inequality, prac-tice, or organization. Thus, although we have a goodunderstanding of who suffers from bias and disad-vantage in organizations, we have much less appre-ciation of the mechanisms that allow inequality topersist. To address this, we used an institutional lensto develop an integrative and potentially reorientingreview of the literature. This allowed us to probe thebeliefs and assumptions that underpin organiza-tional life, thereby addressing the aforementionedthree questions. First, we were able to develop aholistic understanding ofwhat practices become thecarriers for reproduction of inequalities in organiza-tions. We accomplished this by integrating insightsdrawn from 232 articles and 76 books published inmanagement, organization studies, sociology, socialpsychology, economics, epidemiology, gender studies,cultural studies, race studies, and geography alongwitha further 14 reports from government policy units andthink tanks.Weshowhowunderstandingof theways inwhich people are employed, promoted, allocated roles,compensated, and conditioned by organization struc-tures is critical if we are to grasp the role organizationsplay in producing and reproducing inequality.

Second,wewere able to showhow these practicesworked to create a system of institutionalized in-equality. In particular, our integrative approachrevealed that these practices do notwork in isolationbut tend to have a cumulative effect. For example,hiringpractices are important as theydeterminewhogets access to which positions; these people are thensubject to various promotion practices that enableand constrain upward mobility; associated role al-locations, both before and after potential promotions,often have the effect of definingpeoplewith identitiesthat are shaped by social categories; these are alsolinked to compensatory practices that essentiallyprohibit the equality of outcomes as pay is the majordeterminant of economic resources for most people;and finally, organizational structures can impose arigidity of norms and routines that can reinforce thissystem by advantaging some groups over others.

Although this emergent understanding is re-velatory for our appreciation of what organizationalpractices reproduce inequality and how they do it, itdoes not provide sufficient insight into our third

objective, to understand why these practices of dis-advantage have become so prevalent and persistentover time. In this respect, our analysis of the litera-ture revealed three institutional myths (March,2010; Meyer & Rowan, 1977)—widely but not nec-essarily consciously held ideals that are collectivelyrationalized and largely unchallenged—that worktogether to bind the practices into a taken-for-granted framework of established ways of operat-ing. These myths—efficiency, meritocracy, andpositive globalization—are pervasive in their in-fluence and allow the enactment of practices in away that reproduces inequality in organizations.

The first myth we uncovered, then, was an un-wavering belief in the notion that organizations areessentially driven by a concern for greater efficiency.This belief stems from the deeply entrenched andwidely propagated assumption that markets are effi-cient, and, therefore, to survive, organizations mustalso be efficient. Although this belief has been con-sistently challenged (e.g., Barley, 2007;Stiglitz, 2013),it remains widely used as justification for the imple-mentation of practices in ways that increase levels ofinequality. For example, the conviction that com-pensation at all organizational levels are determinedby a neutral and efficient labormarket is often used tojustify the vast differences between the pay packagesof top managers and ordinary workers. In particular,the belief that there exists a global market for highperforming chief executive officers is used to justifytheir lucrative compensation packages when in factthe market is not efficient with the number of thoseactually moving very small (Hargreaves, 2019).

Second, much of what goes on in organizations isenabled by the institutionalization of a belief thatorganizations are essentially meritocratic in theirworking. The concept ofmeritocracy implies a socialsystem in which individual advancement and theallocation of rewards in organizations and societymore broadly are based on an individual’s capabil-ities and performance rather than on family con-nections, seniority, race, gender, or class (Bellow,2003). Despite the institutionalization ofmerit-basedpractices, our review clearly shows that, regardlessof claims to the contrary, entry, advancement, andreward in organizations, including the attainmentof highly prized leadership positions, often remainsystematically nonmeritocratic. For example, a pro-fessional service firmmayemphasize thehighgradesattained at an elite university as a reason for hiringone individual over another. However, the culturaland social capital that led to gaining acceptancein that university, provided access to advantageous

2 JanuaryAcademy of Management Annals

internship opportunities and allowed the candi-date to identify with interviewers through sharedinterests (e.g., Castro & Holvino, 2016; Friedman &Laurison, 2019; Rivera, 2015) are almost neverconsidered by decision-makers. Thus, too often,realized hiring practices do not fit with the un-derlying assumptions of meritocracy and the be-lief in a fair, open, and rational process. However,the deeply entrenchedmyth of meritocracy allowsthe outcomes of nonmeritocratic practices to gounchallenged.

The third myth to emerge from our review is thebelief that globalization of organizational activity isan inherently positive andprogressivedevelopment.This view casts globalization as a social and eco-nomic tide that lifts all boats. However, our reviewshows thatmultinational corporations, in particular,as primary agents of globalization (Eden & Lenway,2001) are not always deliverers of prosperity andgrowth. Rather than equalizing opportunities, intheir quest for greater profits, they may engendernew inequalities or strengthen existing ones. In theirrecruitment practices, for instance, they may re-produce inequality by promoting and rewardingpeople according to their accrual of cosmopolitanand firm-specific cultural capital that is designatedas a requirement by headquarters almost invariablylocated in the Global North2 (e.g., Castro & Holvino,2016; Levy & Reiche, 2018). Similarly, by taking ad-vantage of high unemployment rates and lax regu-lation, multinational firms may be able to exploitlabor without repercussions, often with devastatingeffects (Alamgir & Banerjee, 2018).

The evidence that emerged from our review showsthat not all of the practices nor all of the myths arepresent in all organizations at all times. However,a practice aligned with one or more supporting in-stitutionalized myths constitutes a powerful mech-anism that reproduces inequality. Furthermore, theevidence shows that, as practices and myths accu-mulate, these mechanisms of inequality become in-creasingly influential and entrenched.

We use the emergent insights derived from theuncovering of practices and myths to proffer a com-plementary “Future knowledge generation and com-munication” agenda. We contend that much existingresearch on organizations and the communication

of it through academic and practitioner publications,teaching, and executive education is often helping toperpetuate this inequality. We consider the ways inwhich dissemination of particular understandings ofhow organizations should operate have producedways of seeing—and not seeing—that have helped toreify inequality. In so doing, we reflect on how alter-native approaches canbedeveloped thatwill not onlyoffer further insight into the ways in which organi-zations perpetuate inequality but also what may bedone to reduce the disparity between those advan-taged and disadvantaged.

ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES AND THEREPRODUCTION OF INEQUALITY

Work to date focusing on the relationship betweenorganizations and inequality has revealed organiza-tions as sites where somatic norms3 determine ad-vantageanddisadvantage (Puwar, 2001).Alignedwiththis, several reviews have documented the prevalenceof a broad range of forms of social inequality and shownhow they are manifest across a diverse set of orga-nizations (e.g., Bidwell, Briscoe, Fernandez-Mateo, &Sterling, 2013; Bowles & McGinn, 2008; Kossek &Lautsch, 2018). However, we lack a comprehensive,integrative review that examines how the mundanepractices we associate with effective organizing re-produce inequality.

Using an institutional lens, our objective in thissection is to uncover how inequality in organizationsis reproduced through situated, everyday practiceswhich, although otherwise considered to be un-remarkable, become imbuedwithmeaning informedby broader cultural beliefs. As a consequence, ourreview reveals howdiscrepancies arise betweenhowpractices are, and how they are broadly imagined tobe, enacted. Processes of habitualization and legiti-mization lead to such practices becoming routinizedand taken for granted, often in anunreflectiveway, toreify inequality (Amis, Munir, & Mair, 2017). AsDolfsma and Verburg (2008: 1036) explained, “theobjectivity of institutional arrangements ‘hardens’ asindividuals internalize these objective social re-alities, take them for granted and recreate them intheir ongoing interactions.” Thus, by integrating alarge body of literature across different types of

2 In line with the World Bank’s terminology, we use theterm Global North to refer to the location of the pre-dominantly higher-income nations and Global South todenote the lower- and middle-income countries locatedmainly in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.

3 Puwar (2001) defines the somatic norm as beingwhite,middle class, and male. Although most work has focusedon these identity characteristics, we must also considerother potential bases of disadvantage including sexuality,disability, and age.

2020 3Amis, Mair, and Munir

inequality, we identify organizational practices andspecify how they help to create and reproduce in-equality.4 The ways in which legitimizing myths areimbuedwithinandacross thepracticesareuncoveredthroughout. We also provide detailed examples fromthe reviewed literature to provide insights into thelived experiences of those who are (dis)advantagedby the systems in which they operate.

Hiring Practices

The importance of hiring practices in perpetuat-ing inequality through organizations has beenthe focus of scholarly attention across disciplines.They are important because of their influence notonly on who does or does not get a job but also onsubsequent career trajectories and pay prospects(Boudreau, Boswell, & Judge, 2001; Gatewood,Feild, & Barrick, 2008). Hiring practices serve asgatekeeping mechanisms that facilitate career op-portunities for somewhile blocking entry for others(Rivera, 2012). As a consequence, although appar-ently meritocratic, members of privileged groupsgain entry to more lucrative career paths, whereasothers get shepherded into lower paid occupa-tions with significantly fewer opportunities for ad-vancement (Friedman & Laurison, 2019). As wereviewed the literature in this area, three mecha-nisms that enable the reproduction of inequalitythrough hiring emerged: the widespread use ofcultural similarity as an evaluative shortcut, theunreflective use of tools and instruments in re-cruitment processes, and the reliance on informalnetworks in screening and selecting candidates.

Evaluation based on cultural similarity. Hiringdetermines who gains access to organizations. Proba-bly, the most important, and recurring, mechanismthat reproduces inequality through gatekeeping is theuse of cultural similarity as a heuristic to aid the hiringprocess. The insight that hiring decisions are influ-enced by managers’ positive bias toward people whothey regard as similar to themselves goes back toKanter’s (1977) seminal text, Men and Women of theCorporation. A number of subsequent studies haveprovided evidence that those who do not match thecharacteristics of those ensconced in leadership posi-tions will be less likely to be hired (e.g., Castro &Holvino, 2016; Friedman & Laurison, 2019; Williams,Muller, &Kilanski, 2012).Applying shortcuts basedon

cultural similarity isparticularlyprevalent inhiring formanagerial andprofessionalpositions (Baron, 1984).Amajor justification given for this is that employers haveimperfect information about job requirements and thepotential of employees, particularly early in their ca-reers, tomeet these requirements. Therefore, decision-makers are more likely to use similarity to themselvesas an efficientmeans for assessinghow likely it is that anew recruit will perform well. Once established andrationalized, “the practice of hiring and recruitingsimilar individuals often becomes institutionalized,especially when organizational members who mo-nopolize a credential or background trait can define itas a prerequisite for employment or advancement”(Baron, 1984: 55).

Understanding evaluative processes implied inhiring as based on cultural matching rather thansimple skills (DiMaggio, 1992) has emerged as animportant theme in organizational research on in-equality. For example, Rivera (2012) investigated thehiring process at elite law firms, investment banks,and management consulting firms, finding thatcandidates with similar experiences, personal in-terests, and presentation styles to interviewers werepreferred and championed, often at the expense ofhard skills (see also Friedman & Laurison, 2019).Cultural similarities go beyond “like me” sources ofappreciation; they are critical for how we evaluatemerit and include lifestyle markers as bases for sta-tus group reproduction and social closure (Rivera,2012). Shared culture in the form of lifestylemarkers(Veblen, 1898), therefore, become important ex-planatory mechanism for the reproduction of racialand other forms of inequality in internal and externallabor markets (Castro & Holvino, 2016; Rivera &Tilcsik, 2016). Dacin, Munir, and Tracey (2010:1405) illustrate this in an interview with a recruiterfor a leading London-based consulting firm, whohappens to be an Oxbridge5 alumnus himself. Therecruiter told them that cultural similarity was sim-ply a more efficient way of screening candidates:“I’m involved in graduate recruitment and I wouldsay that 30–40 percent of the people that we take onare Oxbridge grads. That’s not because we favorthem, but I do think that I find it easier to interviewthem because I can relate to what they have done atcollege.” Although our review reveals the use ofheuristics based on cultural similarity to be partic-ularly pronounced in hiring practices, this approachis also prevalent in several other organizational

4 Exemplary citations noting the links between in-equality and particular organizational practices are listedin the Appendix.

5 Oxbridge is a collective term referring to Oxford andCambridge universities.


practices, such as role allocation and promotion. Itthereby perpetuates and amplifies inequality in or-ganizations in multiple and interrelated ways.

Recruitment tools and instruments. The fact thatpatterns of inequality get perpetuated in recruitmentprocesses is well documented. Rivera and Tilcsik(2016), for example, demonstrated how inequality isreproduced by hiring practices of large U.S. lawfirms. Having doctored otherwise identical resumeswith randomly assigned signals of gender and socialclass, they showed that higher-class male applicantswere invited for interview on significantly more oc-casions than were higher- and lower-class women,and lower-class men. This study was followed upwith a survey and interviews with lawyers at largefirms, leading Rivera and Tilcsik (2016: 1097) toconclude that “higher-class candidates are seen asbetter fits with the elite culture and clientele of largelaw firms. But. . .higher class women. . .face a com-peting negative stereotype that portrays them as lesscommitted to full-time, intensive careers.” An im-portant insight of this and similar studies is thatrecruiting and screening processes that involvestandardized tools and instruments, and that arejustified on the basis that they efficiently differenti-ate among candidates on the basis of ability, actuallyperpetuate inequality in significant ways.

The discriminatory impact of hiring tools is notlost on those applying for jobs. For example, Kang,DeCelles, Tilcsik, and Jun (2016) revealed that ap-plicants engaged in resume whitening to conceal ortone down specific racial cues in the job search andapplication process. In their multimethod designthat included an audit study, laboratory experiment,and interviews, they found that minority applicantswhitened their resume less when applying to firmsthat claimed to value diversity; however, the pres-ence of organizational diversity statements was notassociated with reduced discrimination.

Awidelyusedmethod tohire top talent is to target aselective and small number of elite universities on thebasis that they offer an efficient way to access thoseperceived to be the brightest candidates in an appar-ently meritocratic process. However, although uni-versity access is now open to many more youngpeople around the world, this access does not neces-sarily produce a more level playing field. As Savage(2015: 257) found, althoughaccess to elite institutionspromises “glittering prizes,” it is the upper classesthat retain greatest access to these universities andare hence most heavily recruited (see also Ashley,Duberley, Sommerlad, & Scholarios, 2015; Friedman& Laurison, 2019). Despite a rhetoric of meritocratic

recruitment, Savage (2015) found that establishedpractices reinforce the advantages that are enjoyed bythose from more privileged backgrounds.

Rivera (2015) provides a similar account of therecruitment processes of elite professional servicesfirms in the United States. She describes how suchfirms target graduates from the leading universities,thus creating a homogeneous pool of applicantsfrom those with upper-class backgrounds who canafford expensive college fees. She explains howresumes are screened based on the similarities ofbackground and interests to thosemaking the hiringdecisions—typically partners or members of theprofession rather than human resource staff whomay apply more standardized criteria. It is a similarsituation in employment interviews with final hir-ing decisions based on interactions between thecandidate and decision-maker. Rivera observedthat priority is given to those candidates who dem-onstrate a good fit of educational background, socialactivities, or some other commonality with an in-terviewer that necessarily results in lower-classapplicants being disadvantaged. Laurison andFriedman(2016: 683) also observed how, based on research inthe United Kingdom, firms seek job candidates with“a polished appearance, strong debating skills, anda confident manner, traits [that]. . . can be closelytraced back to advantaged social backgrounds.”Castro and Holvino (2016) found the same criteria inplace in the Big Four accounting firm they studied inMexico. They demonstrate how the global spread ofthe firm’s practices, designed to enhance efficiencyacross the countries in which it operates, actually re-inforces inequality.

The impact of recruiting tools and instruments as adriver of inequality is not limited to elite professionalservice firms. Using data from 1,344 police officerapplications, McFarland, Rya, Sacco, and Kriska(2004) studied the use of selection panel reviews toassess the relationship between race of applicants,panel composition, and interview ratings. Focusingtheir analysis on the panel composition, they foundthat white panels provided significantly more fa-vorable ratings to applicants of all races than panelscomposed of predominantly black raters, who eval-uated black candidates more favorably than whitecandidates only if their fellow panelists were pre-dominantly black.

We can, therefore, see how supposedly neutralrecruitment processes and instruments interact withexisting patterns of disadvantage and bias in waysthat turn them into devices that propel inequality.This can even stretch to the foregrounding of the


location of an applicant’s residence during theprocessing of the application. Wacquant (1996), forexample, examined racial and class inequalities inLa Courneuve, a densely urbanized Parisian suburbin industrial decline, and the almost entirely blacksouthern Chicago suburb of Woodlawn known forits high rate of unemployment and poverty. In hishighly evocative report of class and racial discrim-ination, Wacquant explained how providing anaddress in Quatre Mille, the public housing concentra-tion of La Courneuve, or the South Side of Chicagowould often result in denial of a job opportunity andeven a refusal to accept an application.

Informal networks. An important aspect of thehiring process is the use by organizational recruitersof informal networks of those either inside the orga-nization or closely aligned to it. Again, we see howthis reaffirms structures of inequality inways that areoften enacted without much reflection, even fromthose who practice it. Especially in recruitment for“mundane” jobs, a common practice is to ask “goodworkers” for referrals, who then recommend peoplesimilar to themselves for job openings. By drawingheavily on in-group ties and social closure practices,this efficient process can sustain or exacerbate in-equalities entirely without overt hostility toward al-ready disadvantaged groups. This is exemplified byFernandez and Fernandez-Mateo’s (2006) study ofhow race, networks, and hiring interact to revealmultiple points in the hiring process where networkfactors can exclude minority groups from access todesirable jobs (see also DiTomaso, 2015; Reskin,1988; Rivera, 2012; Savage, 2015). This network ef-fect also crosses national borders with students atglobally leading business schools investing heavilyto becomepart of alumni networks and theprivilegesthey offer (Curl, Lareau, & Wu, 2018; Levy & Reiche,2018).

Many of the powerful networks within organiza-tions continue to remain exclusively male and areorganized around sports and leisure activities thatsuit men (Williams, 2013). Networks for others, ifthey exist at all, are less powerful and may even belinked to negative consequences for its members.Thus, when informal networks are used in the hiringprocess, those who are recommended tend to sharecommon characteristics. This, therefore, is anotherway in which disadvantage is further entrenched.One potentially positive aspect of network re-cruitment is provided by Rubineau and Fernandez(2015), who suggest that it can redress the balance ofunderrepresented groups by encouraging membersof minority groups to apply for available roles.

However, the dominant evidence is that the use ofinformal networks during the hiring process in-creases inequality.

Promotion

The approaches to deciding who should be pro-moted and when also emerged from our review as asignificant driver of inequality in organizations. Thefluidity and speedwithwhichpeople advancehave adirect impact on their economic well-being and po-sitions in society. As Baron (1984) noted, unequalaccess to opportunities forpromotion is an importantsource of inequalitywithin organizations. This pointhas been examined by, among others, Rivera andTilcsik (2016), who demonstrated how being femaleand lower-class seriously diminished opportunitiesfor promotion in professional service firms. CastroandHolvino (2016) similarly showed the importanceof not only class and gender but also how racial dif-ferences constitute a strong determining factor whenit comes to promotion prospects. In this section, wepresent the approaches that emerged from our re-view that reveal the links betweenpromotion and thereproduction of inequality: the use of informal net-works, access to mentors, and socialization intoways of thinking and acting that reinforce organiza-tional expectations.

Informal networks. As we showed earlier, an in-formalnetwork candetermine access to employmentopportunities; it is a similar situation with respect topromotion, although themechanismacts in a slightlydifferent way as Friedman and Laurison’s (2019)example ofMark,Head of CurrentAffairs at a leadingtelevision company demonstrates. Although tal-ented, Mark admits that the most crucial thing in hisrise has been that his talents were given “an oppor-tunity to shine” by people whom he met as a conse-quence of his privileged upbringing, attendance atOxford University, and access to influential peopleas a result of family connections. This supports Yangand Aldrich’s (2014) argument that ascension toleadership positions is frequently designated not onmerit but on social beliefs and particular practices.Access to positions of authority is legitimizedthrough explanations that emphasize individualqualities such as hard work, intelligence, perfor-mance, and a focus on success; much less emphasisis attached to their access to networks of influenceor peer similarity (Davies-Netzley, 1998). The evi-dence, though, is substantial in showing that, aswithMark, rising through an organization frequentlydepends in large part on having a network of able


contactswilling to assist an individual in getting intoa position “to shine.”

Rivera (2015) (see also Rivera & Tilcsik, 2016) alsopoints to ways in which organizational decision-makers place great importance on social capitalwhen it comes to promotion, with those of a higherclass tending to favor those who exhibit cultural in-terests similar to their own. This has been shown todramatically influence one’s chances of gettingahead in industries as varied as academia, classicalmusic, professional service firms, medicine, lifesciences, and dentistry (e.g., Bull & Scharff, 2017;Friedman & Laurison, 2019; Rivera, 2015; Savage,2015).

Demonstrating that not all network effectsare equal, James (2000) studied managers at a U.S.Fortune 500 financial services firm to investigate ex-planations for the disparity in promotion outcomesbetween white and black managers. He found thatblacksweredisadvantaged incomparison towhites intwo ways: they accrued less social capital and anystrong network ties with other black individualsfailed to proffer similar advantages to those of theirwhite counterparts (see also McGinn & Milkman,2012).

Westphal and Stern (2007), in a study of 760 ex-ternal directors at medium and large Americanfirms, showed how developing networks throughprovision of advice and information to CEOs andpeers led to white, male directors having far moreopportunities to obtain board appointments, an ef-fect that was not observed for ethnic minorities orwomen. They also found that white directors in-creased their chances of being appointed to boardsif they demonstrated control behaviors, whereasminoritieswere disadvantaged for the same actions.However, network effects have been viewed topositively influence women when women are inpositions of power (Beckman & Phillips, 2005;Cohen &Huffman, 2007; Ely, 1995; Huffman, Cohen,& Pearlman, 2010). Stainback, Kleiner, and Skaggs(2016) explained how women in positions of powercan reduce promotion disparities by providing ac-cess to informal social networks and mentorship towomen who are at lower positions within the orga-nization. Having more women in positions of poweralso reduces their “token” status, increases theirability to build networks with other female leaders,and improves their communication effectiveness.

Mentoring. Related to the impact of networksis the more specific and direct effect of having amentor who is able to explain to individuals how toposition themselves for a promotion and serve as an

advocate with influential decision-makers. Again,the television executive Mark’s experience providesinsight into how this mechanism works: “It’s in-teresting, I mean I could almost give you my wholetrajectory in sponsors, because it’s sort of, it’s quitemedieval in television. You serve apprenticeshipsand you have a patron” (Friedman & Laurison, 2019:2). Of course, it is not just the television industry thatcould be labeled “medieval” in this way. Castro andHolvino’s (2016) study of a Big Four accounting firmin Mexico similarly demonstrated the importance ofhaving an influential mentor—known within thefirmas a “godfather”—if onewas to advance throughthe firm. Godfathers provided advice on ways to act,access to professional development courses, andrecommendations for promotion. Rather than beingselected on the basis of their expertise or experience,Castro and Holvino (2016: 338) noted that “in-terviewees’ comments revealed that the more em-ployeeswere perceived as ‘pretty’ or asmembers of ahigher socio-economic class, the more advantagethey had finding ‘godfathers’ and, therefore, ad-vancement opportunities.” By contrast, Castro andHolvino (2016) described how Emilio, dark skinned,from a blue collar family, lacking English pro-ficiency, and having graduated from a public uni-versity “carried many disadvantages” and thusseemed destined to miss out on the mentoring sup-port necessary for promotion. Similarly, in a study of116 black and 756 white public accounting em-ployees, Viator (2001) showed that the lack of accessto mentors severely hindered blacks in their careeradvancement.

McDonald and Westphal’s (2013) examination ofwhy women and racial minorities that had obtainedinitial board appointments were still not consideredto be part of the corporate elite, which requiresholding multiple board memberships to exerciseinfluence over corporate policy at each of the firmswhere they serve as adirector, is also revealing in thisrespect. Building on social psychological researchon intergroup relations, McDonald and Westphalfound that incumbent corporate directors, over-whelmingly white males, were more likely to pro-vide mentoring to first-time directors who are alsowhite males. This mentoring, focused on detailingthe types of behaviors expected of directors, waswithheld from women and racial minorities, some-thing that was attributed to limiting subsequentsuccess in gaining additional board appointments.

Socialization. It is also apparent in the literaturethat how members are socialized within organiza-tions and especially how members belonging to


different groups are encouraged to act, dress, andthink in particular ways that affect the likelihoodof or viability for promotion. There is also evidencethatmany are socialized to accept that, onmerit, theywill not—and even should not—attain promotionsto higher level positions. Low access to opportunityand power results in lowered aspirations andengagement (Kanter, 1977; see also; Greenhaus,Parasuraman, & Wormtey, 1990). In their book,Women don’t ask: Negotiation and the gender di-vide, Babcock and Laschever (2003) suggest thatwomen’s socialization into passive roles is one of thereasons they do not succeed to higher managementpositions. They argue that women lack confidenceabout their abilities and do not have a similar sense ofentitlement to men; this makes it difficult for them tonegotiate their way to top positions.

Individuals may also choose not to pursue rolesand careers based on internalized feedback of theirinadequacy. This can serve to undo even pro-gressive organizational changes. Ilgen and Youtz(1986) proposed that minority members may in-ternalize an organization’s negative evaluationsof them and engage in “self-limiting behaviors”—for example, refusing a challenging job assignmentor declining an opportunity for additional training—that perpetuate performance differences. The ad-verse is also, of course, true. For example, in a surveyof scientists and engineers in research and develop-ment roles in 24 large corporations, those who wereable to shape their own job—predominantly whitemen—were perceived as innovative, received higherperformance ratings, and were believed to be morepromotable (DiTomaso, Post, SmithFarris, &Cordero,2007).

A further example of organizational socializationis provided by Liu’s (2018) study of Chinese femaleleaders in Australia. What was consistent acrossLiu’s interviews was how participants had been re-peatedly told throughout their careers that theylacked confidence. Even senior female leaders hadbeen frequently told by their managers that theyneeded to appear more confident. Thus, the stereo-type of “hyper-feminine” attributes of Asian womenas quiet and submissive were imposed on femalemanagers by their bosses, leaving them with per-sonal projects of confidence building if they were torise in the organization. Castro and Holvino (2016:339) similarly found that “women were socializedinto dressing andbehaving in certainways, thereforedistancing themselves from stereotypes of gender,racio-ethnicity, and class that ostracize indigenousand poor women in Mexico.”

Role Allocation

The third prominent practice tied to the reificationof inequality that emerged from our review of theliterature was how the roles that people play in or-ganizations get assigned. Although often associatedwith hiring, role allocation remains relevant as amore general organizational practice. Presented inthe literature as meritocratic and designed to en-hance organizational efficiencies through a neutral,value-free process, the allocation and occupancy ofroles reflect entrenched values made manifest, forexample, in preferences and expectations of seniordecision-makers. This is not a recent observation.Twenty-five years ago, Baron and Pfeffer (1994: 191)noted that “organizations affect inequality by influ-encing how jobs are defined, how rewards are at-tached to positions, howpeople arematched to thesejobs, and howworkers determine whether they havebeen fairly treated.”As they go on to explain, the factthat wages tend to be more ascribed to jobs ratherthan individuals results in the structuring and allo-cation of jobs of particular importance to under-standing inequality.

Cobb (2016) has also argued that two key ways inwhich firms contribute to societal inequality is inhow they reward individuals for their labor anddetermine who should fill particular jobs (see alsoBaron, 1984). As we examine how the roles thatpeople fill in organizations have become implicatedin societal inequality, two interdependent factorsemerge as particularly important: the demandsmade on thosewho fill particular roles and the tasksto which individuals are allocated. It is to these thatwe now turn.

Organizational demands. According to the lit-erature, a common refrain in organizations is thatsome individuals are more suited to the re-quirements placed on them than others and, thus, itis more efficient for the organization if this is takeninto account when allocating roles, particularlythose that are most demanding. As Acker (2006:448) explained, “Eight hours of continuous workaway from the living space, arrival on time, totalattention to the work, and long hours if requestedare all expectations that incorporate the image ofthis unencumbered worker.” For the upper- andmiddle-class worker, this is generally not a prob-lem; for the lower-class worker, however, whomayalso be a single parent, unable to afford childcare,or with unreliable access to personal or publictransportation, it can be difficult to adhere to theseexpectations. This is reflected in the roles that


individuals are allocated. Those who are seen as“committed” are rewarded withmore specialist rolesand/or identified as having the leadership potentialrequired for career advancement. By contrast, thosewho are seen as less committed, perhaps becauseof family obligations, are often assigned less centraland/or temporary roles (Cha, 2010; Rhoton, 2011).Thus, social closure practices within organizationscan prevent the development of skills and expe-riences required to advance trapping some in lessdemanding and lower paid positions, and thus repro-ducing inequality.

Thus, while on the face of it, roles appear neutral,with a set of competencies, skills, and responsibilitiesattachedto the role regardlessof thepersonoccupyingit, in actual fact, roles are implicitly, among otherthings, raced, classed, and gendered. Even women inhigher positions who take advantage of family sup-port policies suffer as they are seen as less dedicated,and less deserving, of advancement. Thus, the as-sumption and expectation of the unencumbered,dedicated worker play an important role in main-taining inequality in the workplace: unencumberedworkers remain highly valued, whereas those withoutsidecommitments are relegated to lower ranksandlower pay. The long hours and commitment requiredwithin organizations are linked to the reinforcing ofseparate spheres formen andwomen (Cha, 2010); thesocial constructions of gender and management per-vade organizational practices and discourse, limitingaccess to opportunities (Ely, 1995; Martin, 2000).

The roles assigned to individuals involved in dif-ferent stages of global supply chains also contribute tothe reproduction of inequality within organizations.This has not only been particularly noticeable inmanufacturing and extractive industries but also isapparent in the agricultural, construction, and servicesectors. Postcolonial discourse emphasizes divisionsbetweenworkers, and the roles they fill, in the GlobalNorth and South (Khan, Munir, & Willmott, 2007). Itclearly shows that not all workers are equal in theglobal economy. In pursuit of economic advantage,often in the form of cheap labor that can be assignedmanual production roles, transnational firms differ-entiate between workers in different geographic re-gions. Those assigned to roles reliant on educationand training, predominantly in the North, are muchbetter compensated and have very different careerpaths than those doing the physical work in theGlobal South, who often are employed through sub-contractors and frequently operate in conditions thatare dangerous and degrading (e.g., Chamberlain, 2012;Chan, 2013; Pattisson, 2015).

Task assignment. The tasks to which people areassigned are clearly central to the roles that they playin organizations. In fact, Ashcraft (2013: 6) has arguedthat “the nature of an occupation is tied to the socialidentities with which it is aligned.” Ashcraft uses a“glass slipper”metaphor todiscuss theways inwhichcertain traits and competencies become associatedwith certain tasks within the organization, makingthem seem suitable for particular groups of people.This draws attention to systematic disadvantages forthose with particular identities (see Amis, Munir,Lawrence, Hirsch, andMcGahan (2018) for a review).

This line of inquiry has received support fromTilly(1998), for whom job categorization and distinctionswithin organizations act as powerful mechanismsthat maintain inequality by reproducing exteriorculturally legitimate categories that create social dif-ferentials. Tilly points to opportunity hoarding anddevaluation as two mechanisms through which in-equality is maintained within organizations. Oppor-tunity hoarding refers to social closure practices inwhich certain tasks are seen as suitable for certaincategories ofworkers.Devaluation, on the otherhand,refers to the lower status and material rewards at-tached to work done by “other” groups (Tilly, 1998).

Chan and Anteby (2016), focusing on task segrega-tion as another mechanism of within-job inequity,point out that even if women are put into similar jobsas men, their role within the job can still be curtailedthrough the tasks to which they are assigned. In theirstudy of security workers at an airport, they foundthat women were allocated tasks that required morephysical exertion, emotional strain, and relationaltensions.This resulted inwomenexperiencinghigherlevels of work intensity, emotional exhaustion, andpoor coping in the job. It also meant that they weremore likely to receive sanctions from supervisors fortaking time to recuperate and that their skill set waslimited, which had consequences for promotion, pay,retention in the role, and job satisfaction.

Recent work on entrepreneurs also illustrates howinequality gets reified even in the context of self-pickedroles. Inprinciple, entrepreneurshipconstitutesaviablepathway to social mobility and economic autonomy.However, Neville, Forrester, O’Toole, and Ridding(2018) showed how discouragement—continuous ex-perience of being considered unequal—significantlylimited the potential and ability of African Americanand Hispanic American entrepreneurs to access neces-sary resources. The authors also suggested a similareffect may play out in corporate environments wheremanagers belonging to racial minorities might in-ternalizenegative experiences andbecomediscouraged


with the institutional pathways and corporate careerladders.

It is also apparent that those who occupy lowerskilled positions have a very different work experi-ence to other employees. Riaz (2015), for example,noted how elites often gain career advantages bymoving across the organization in a series of short-term assignments seen as an efficientway to increasetheir breadth of experience. By contrast, for thoselower down the hierarchy, such practices are seenas inefficient and often simply result in increas-ing job insecurity (see also Bidwell et al., 2013). Afurther source of inequalitywas identified byKossekand Lautsch (2018), who showed how work–lifeflexibility is unequally attached to roles, with lowerlevelworkers unable to benefit in theway that higherlevel workers can. This is unfortunate because it isthose from the lower classes with least discretionaryresources who would likely benefit most from moreflexible schedules to help with childcare, attendmedical appointments, take sick leave, or access re-liable transportation.

Furthermore, those lower down the hierarchy of-ten carry out tasks while being closely supervised,having little control over the pace or content of theirwork, and engaging in no supervision of others(Zweig, 2004). These constraints have become in-tensified, in the name of efficiency, by the use oftechnology with jobs such as warehouse pickers anddelivery drivers conditioned to having their sched-ules and pace of work closely monitored, and set, bythe devices that they carry. Marmot (2015: 171)provides a vivid example of this with his case studyof Alan, a warehouse picker: “His handheld elec-tronic gizmo was not just his control it also fed backwhat he had done, so his performance can be moni-tored to see how he did against his target. He waswarned when he did not keep up the pace. . . . ‘Didyou ever,’ I asked Alan, ‘in all the time you werethere, meet your target and finish a shift with a senseof achievement?’ Not once was his answer. Hour af-ter hour, day after day, and feeling always that he hadfallen short.”

Bapuji (2015) notes the different ways in whichindividuals of differing classes interact with tech-nology in the workplace. Recently, this has ofteninvolved the creation of disruptive business models,such asAirbnb,Alibaba,Amazon, Facebook,Netflix,Tencent, and Uber. Usually led by charismatic en-trepreneurs and celebrated by market analysts, suchfirms often hide new, oppressive power relationsprivileging the credentialled elite over workers onthe other side of the digital divide (Amis et al., 2018).

This points to a shift in the employment relationshipwith thevastmajority of frontline tasks carriedout bymore efficient outsourced, cheap, and disposableworkers who have virtually no chance of career ad-vancement or even acquiring the technical skills andexperience required of those who are directlyemployed. This reflects Craypo andCormier’s (2000)reference to an hourglass-shaped employmentstructure and Sassen’s (1996: 72) description of a“bipolarity in skill requirements” in which there is arestructuring of organizational roles: “a demand forhighly specialized and educated workers alongsidea demand for basically unskilled workers whetherfor clerical, service, industrial service, or produc-tion jobs” (see also Fine, Manyika, Sjatil, Tacke,Tadjeddine,&Desmond, 2019; PewResearchCenter,2015). This, in turn, has removed the need for muchinternal training, the collapse of internal labor mar-kets and upwardly mobile career paths, and thecorresponding increase in employment agencies asfirms rely more on short-term and part-time con-tracted workers (Bidwell et al., 2013; Sassen, 1996).These conditions have contributed to the rapid de-velopment of conditions inwhich low-wage roles arefilledbypeople already characterizedby abackgroundof poverty, the so-called working poor (Leana,Mittal, & Stiehl, 2012; see also; Dorling, 2014).Such roles are often stigmatized, further adding tothe psychological stress in which such workersfind themselves.

Compensation

Pay constitutes the largest source of income for thevast majority of individuals (Atkinson et al, 2011;Baron&Bielby, 1980). Thus, compensationpracticesconstitute an important lever for reproducing andpotentially mitigating inequality in organizations.In this section, we explain the main mechanismsdistilled from our review that link compensationpackages—thatmayormaynot includebenefits suchas pension contributions, stock options, and healthcare—and the reproductionof inequality: the generalremuneration structures of organizations includingdifferential entry compensation packages, and theexploitation of those who lack power.

Remuneration structure. An important but of-ten underspecified mechanism underpinning in-equality manifested in pay differentials is howcompensation is performed in organizations. Paystructures are perceived to be largely meritocraticand constructed to be an efficient way to retain tal-ent in varyingly competitive marketplaces. This,


however, is usually not realized in practice. It is ap-parent that different compensation scales are often setat the point of first entry into the organization (Bielby& Bielby, 1984). For example, Petersen and Saporta(2004) showed that female starting salaries are typi-cally 15 percent less than for male workers. This hasbeen exacerbated by females often being allocatedlower hierarchical roles (Calas & Smircich, 2006;Castilla, 2008). DiPrete and Soule (1988) showed howdifferential sorting at the time of hiring, wherebywomen are placed in jobs that have lower pay, alongwith continued hurdles and barriers faced by womenin advancing within organizations combine to createlong-term gender differences in earnings. Thus, de-spite women being more likely than men to hold atertiary degree, they will earn only 84 cents for every$1 that men earn (Fine et al., 2019). It is a similar casewith those from working class backgrounds who,when they are able to enter high-status professions,earn on average 17percent less than their higher-classcolleagues (Laurison & Friedman, 2016). In otherwords, the professions appear to confer not only aclass-based access advantage but also a remunerationbonus.

Most organizations compensate employees usinga categorization scheme that clusters membersof different groups into different occupations.Friedman and Laurison (2019), for example, showhow themost lucrative occupations, and the highestpaid jobs within particular industries, dispropor-tionately go to those from higher socioeconomicbackgrounds. Other studies show that occupationsthat are dominated by women pay less on averagecompared with occupations dominated by men(Acker, 1989; Aldrich & Buchele, 1986; England,Reid, & Kilbourne, 1996;Muzio & Tomlinson, 2012;Reskin & Bielby, 2005). This is in large part becausecompensation structures are skewed against rolesthat aremore frequently performed bywomen, suchas “relational practices” (Meyerson & Kolb, 2000)that facilitate interdependence and manage con-flict. Research from the United States has alsoshown that black and Hispanic workers are simi-larly segregated into occupations that pay less(Kmec, 2003; Semyonov & Herring, 2007).

Compensation structures vary between those thatemerge as a by-product of seemingly benign de-cisions and those that verge on the explicitly dis-criminatory (Belliveau, 2012). For example, Reskinand Bielby (2005) showed how rates of pay are oftenaltered so that men allocated roles traditionally oc-cupied bywomen garner a higher salary for the samework. Foschi (2000) argued this results in a “double

standard” by which women have to outperformmento attain a similar level of compensation.

Of course, there have been repeated attempts toreduce the differentials in rewards between differentgroups of workers. One of these has been the in-troduction of remuneration structures that are basedon merit or “payment by results” (Castilla, 2008;Castilla & Benard, 2010). Castilla (2008) suggestedthat these merit-based reward systems, ostensiblyviewed as rational and fair, can continue to be biasedif there is a lack of transparency, increased discretion,and less accountability around performance evalua-tions. Performance-based reward systems can alsoreproduce bias as the subjectivity involved inmakingmerit-based evaluations can continue to discriminateagainst those who are underrepresented within theorganization (Castilla, 2008; Castilla & Benard, 2010).Castilla (2008) also found no race or gender differ-ences in managerial evaluations but did find signifi-cant white male advantages in the size of salaryincreases awarded as a consequence of them. Thechallenge for organizations, then, is to be attentive tobiases that arise precisely because of the adoption ofmerit-based practices and policies. Despite good in-tentions and the “hope of motivating employees andensuring meritocracy, policies with limited trans-parency and accountability can actually increase as-criptive bias and reduce equity in the workplace”(Castilla, 2008: 1479).

When remuneration structures are made trans-parent and those involved in making merit assess-ments are held accountable, then, as Castilla (2015)found in a longitudinal analysis of a large privatecompany covering 9,000 employees, the distributiongap in compensation across different groups perform-ing the same work can be significantly decreased.These results, although quite startlingwhen comparedwith other studies, are also hopeful. Transparency andaccountability policies, when fully implemented, canreduce unfair compensation practices.

It is also important to note that “individuals eval-uate their attitudes, actions, and attainments notonly in absolute terms but also relatively, by com-paring themselveswith thosewhom they perceive assimilar and contrasting themselves to those whomthey perceive as different” (Baron & Pfeffer, 1994:193). Cobb and Stevens (2017) used this observationin their analysis of employment data from the 48contiguous United States between 1978 and 2008.They found that employees in large firms have atendency to make social comparisons about wages,and that as a consequence firms adopt practices suchas wage compression, to help lessen the damage that


such comparisons might cause to the culture of theorganization. Their results show that as the numberof workers employed by large firms decreases overtime, income inequality increases. Importantly, fromour perspective, larger firmswill typically pay lowerwageworkersmore than themarket value andhigherwage workers less than the market value. Hence,larger firms are advantageous, from a reward per-spective, for those from traditionally disadvantagedgroupswho, aswehave seen, are typically hired into,and tend not to be promoted from, lower level posi-tions. The correlation between employment con-centration and inequality was also analyzed by Cobband Lin (2017), who demonstrated that as the num-ber of people employed in large firms increases, in-equality goes down, an observation that holds incountries around the world. Thus, compensationpractices in large firms, particularly if they are pub-licly available and attributable, tend to decreaseinequality.

We also know, however, that compensation prac-tices vary according to employment status even forthose doing identical jobs (Bidwell et al., 2013). Thatis, although employment in large firms is advanta-geous for lower level employees, if work is out-sourced away from the firm, those workers doing asimilar job will almost certainly be paid less than ifthey were part of an internal labor market. By con-trast, firms then often increase the pay of more skil-led workers and senior managers (Baron & Pfeffer,1994; Bidwell et al., 2013). Although temporary andpart-time contracts have always been a feature ofseasonal work in many parts of the world, Hamannand Bertels (2018) demonstrate how these have be-come a more prominent component of a broaderoutsourcing strategy that further shifts the opportu-nity for value appreciation away from lower levelworkers and more toward owners and senior exec-utives (see also Dube & Kaplan, 2010).

Bapuji, Husted, Lu, and Mir (2018) furtherassessed the distribution of value by examining theways in which firms contribute to inequality byaggressively pursuing strategies to maximize rev-enues while decreasing costs. Stock options andperformance-based compensation further skew thevalue distribution toward those in the executiveclass and away from those at lower levels of the or-ganization. Using data from the largest 350 firms inthe United States, Mishel and Wolfe (2019) showedthat whereas in 1965 the CEO-to-typical-workercompensation ratio was 20:1 and in 1989 58:1, by2018 that multiplier had reached 278. Furthermore,they found that although wages for the typical

worker grewbetween1978 and2018 by11.9 percent,CEO compensation grew by 940 percent (Mishel &Wolfe, 2019: 1). This of course is predicated on anefficiency motive, whereby more senior executivesare perceived to be in a highly mobile global mar-ketplace and thus must be paid accordingly, some-thing that Hargreaves (2019) showed is manifestlyfalse. By contrast, outsourcing tasks that were pre-viously held within the organization and subject tothe controls of an internal labormarket allow the firmto take advantage of reduced levels of compensationwith wage stagnation and decline occurring for alarge proportion of those in lower level positions(Fine et al., 2019). The decline in unionization inmany parts of the world has further amplified theseeffects (McKinsey, 2018). Combined with Becker,Kraus, and Rheinschmidt-Same’s (2017) finding thatthose from lower-class backgrounds are much lesslikely to contest their disadvantaged position thanthose from the upper classes who strive to retain thestatus quo, the likelihood of systemic change beingrealized is unlikely.

The shift in compensation practices is furtherevidenced by how many workers who used to beemployed have now been pushed into temporaryor “zero-hour” contracts, or have been forced to be-come self-employed, for example, as delivery or taxidrivers (Bell & Blanchflower, 2013). In the UnitedKingdom, for example, the Office for National Sta-tistics reported that in 2004 104,000 people (0.4percent of the population) were employed on zero-hour contracts; by 2019 that figure had increased to896,000 (2.7 percent of the population) (ONS, 2019).In addition to lower direct compensation, other em-ployment costs and risks are also often pushed ontothe worker and away from the service provider,which is able to increase rewards for seniormanagersand shareholders. The ongoing technological trans-formation of many industries, such as through theintroduction of artificial intelligence and the use of“big data,” is also havingprofoundeffects onmanyofthose performing frontline roles (Davis, 2016). Forexample, the advent of driverless vehicleswill likelysignificantly reduce the number of truck drivers,whereas more automated health care monitoring,diagnosis, and even drug administration will impactthe number of health care professionals performingminor care roles. As such individuals with limitedskills and educationmove out of the workforce, theywill find it increasingly difficult to find new em-ployment. Thus, digitalization is exacerbating thebifurcation we described earlier, with benefits dis-proportionately accruing to those who are highly


educated, whereas those who are not find them-selves increasingly disadvantaged (e.g., Acemoglu &Autor, 2011; Marmot, 2015).

Exploitative and discriminatory practices. Theliterature we reviewed also points to how compen-sation practices are established to deliberatelyexploit some groups in the belief of maximizingefficiency. An extreme example of this occurs withthe hiring of illegal immigrants who, because oftheir vulnerability to discovery and deportation,will accept low wages without complaint. With noapparent options, such forms of exploitation arerarely challenged. Modern slavery is an insidiousexample of this type of exploitation, with a recentreport in the United Kingdom noting how someorganizations involved in construction, agricul-ture, shell fishing, car washing, and nail bars haveexploited workers who may or may not be in thecountry illegally, often do not speak English, andfeel compelled to pay off debts incurred to bringthem to the United Kingdom (GLAA, 2018).

Furthermore, despite the supposed closer prox-imity ofNorthern andSouthernworkers, transnationalinequalities remain intact (Castro & Holvino, 2016;Hayes, Introna,&Kelly, 2018;Kelan,2008;McCarthy&Moon, 2018). For example, women from the GlobalSouth are frequently seen as oppressed, lacking confi-dence, and in need of patronage from those in theNorth. As Munir, Ayaz, Levy, and Willmott (2018)showed, this image is often used tomobilizewomen tojoin factory work, often at a fraction of the wages thatwere being paid to men, hence not only producinginequality within local organizations but also main-taining the larger inequality between the Global Northand South.

Exploitation is also often rife through global sup-ply chains in which workers in the South are oftenmobilized into poorly paid, dangerous extractive,and factory work (e.g., Hamann & Bertels, 2018;Marmot, 2015; Munir et al., 2018). As Alamgir andAlakavuklar (2018) have shown in the case of theBangladeshi garment manufacturing industry, mon-itoring worker abuse is difficult when multinationalsengage with networks of subcontractors. It is onlywhen accidents happen, as when the Rana Plazabuilding located in Dhaka collapsed in 2013 killingmore than 1,100 people, that multinational firms arequestioned. Alamgir and Cairns’ (2015) work on theextreme, long-term, and systematic economic dep-rivation of the “perpetually temporary,” or “badli,”workers inBangladesh’s jutemills andMunir et al.’s(2018) study of textile mills in Pakistan similarlyshows how inequality is created and sustained by

compensation practices realized across global pro-duction networks. Riaz (2015) also draws attentionto the ways in which global supply chains haveinherent inequities structured into themwithwell-paid design and executive positions contrasting withthose involved in retail and production.

A further example is provided by Berry and Bell(2012) who investigated the ways in which compen-sationpractices supportedby labor laws in theUnitedStates contribute to the reproduction of inequality.They conclude that whereas differential pay on thebasis of gender or race is widely considered un-acceptable, “class-based differentials are still widelyviewed as legitimate” (Berry & Bell, 2012: 244). Thismaybebecause, asAcker (2006) haspointedout, classdifferentials are viewed as inevitable, something thatwas not always the case, particularly during the de-pression of the 1930s and the socialmovements of the1960s. In focusing on home health aide workers, theynote how the very poorly paid personal care assis-tants, home health aides, and the like who performdirect care work in the United States are “gendered,raced, and classed.” Furthermore, and particularlytroubling, Berry and Bell (2012) showhow labor lawsand court decisions legitimate and reinforce in-equalities forworkerswhoare alreadyeconomicallydisadvantaged.

Organizational Structuring

The structure of an organization comprises the for-mal and informal systems by which decisions aremade, activities coordinated, and resources allocated.Over time, these structures become imbuedwith valueand are underpinned by highly institutionalized rules.The management literature has largely depicted orga-nizational structures as neutral entities designed tomaximize efficiencies through meritorious, rational,and often global development in a way that is largelyseparate to those acting within them. By contrast, ourreview revealed how these structures directly and in-directly contribute to how inequality gets reproducedwithin and by organizations.

Following the seminal work of Baron and Bielby(1980), there has been a steady, if not large, streamofresearch focused on how organizational structuringcan shape inequality. Tilly (1998: 15), for example,accentuated the role of organizational structure increating “durable inequality” noting that shifts inattitudes “will have relatively little impact ondurableinequality,whereas the introduction of neworganiza-tional forms. . . will have great impact.”Acker (2006)has similarly pointed to the role of organization


structures in constituting inequality. Our review ofthe literature revealed two mechanisms by whichthe structuring of organizations reifies inequal-ity: the creation of organizational cultures and theestablishment of hierarchies that concentrate andfortify power structures in ways that supportbureaucracies that significantly advantage someand disadvantage others. We consider each of thesehere.

Organization cultures. In her seminal research onorganizations and inequality, Acker (1990; 2006) ar-gued that terms such as job, role performance, and taskwere deeply embedded within a culture that rein-forcedparticularwaysof being.As shenoted, languagewithin organizations, developed predominantly bymen, positionsmen as actors andwomen as emotionalsupport, with organizational symbols and imagesreinforcing and perpetuating divisions of labor, whichlead to the exclusion of women from positions higherup in the organizational hierarchy (see also Kanter,1977). These consistent patterns are not the outcomesof efficient, rational, and neutral organizational prac-tices that they are often depicted to be; every aspect oforganizational life and practice is imbued with valuesthat reflect, and can perpetuate, inequality.

The role of cultural norms in actively perpetuatinginequality is well exemplified in the limited workpertaining to inequality and the professions. Forexample, Muzio and Tomlinson (2012) outline thelegal exclusion of women from most professionalfields up until the First World War, whereas Viator(2001) is among those who have charted the diffi-culties African Americans have had in enteringprofessional service firms in the United States. Al-though legislative changes in countries around theworld have ostensibly reduced structural disadvan-tages to women and minority groups, inequities re-main entrenched. One of the main reasons for thisis continued reinforcement of traditional valuesand norms that result in marginalization and sub-ordination. For example, research has drawn atten-tion to how male scientists exclude women fromprofessional networks, devalue their work, andgenerally make them feel unwelcome (Blickenstaff,2005; Cockburn, 1985; Etzkowitz, Kemelgor, & Uzzi,2000). As this stream of research shows, such out-comes are not a consequence of the preferences of afew individuals but have become accepted organi-zation norms. Rhoton (2011) also draws attentionto cultural assumptions that underpin disciplinarynorms within science, technology, engineering,and mathematics disciplines. She argues that scien-tists are regarded as being decisive, methodical,

objective, unemotional, competitive, and assertive,characteristics associated with masculinity. Alongwith this, scientists are supposed to demonstrate acomplete dedication to their work, which precludesany outside distractions such as family or care com-mitments, again disadvantaging those responsible forsuch tasks.

Control over expertise and technical knowledge isseen as another important way of limiting access totop professional positions (Blickenstaff, 2005). Thisis illustrated by Cardador’s (2017) examination oforganizational practices within engineering firmsthat perpetuate the exclusion ofwomen frommovingto leadership positions. She suggests that despitemeasures to promote gender equality, engineeringremains one of themost sex-segregated occupationalfields with affirmative action initiatives intended topromote more women to managerial roles actuallylinked to further segregation. Women who are pro-moted are seen as less technically competent by theircolleagues; furthermore, they often lose their iden-tificationwith engineering and aremore likely to exitthe field (Cardador, 2017).

In contrast to professions such as engineering,those such as teaching or nursing in which womendominate are regarded as “semi-professional” withlower “comparable worth” (Muzio & Tomlinson,2012). This is regarded as another way of devaluingthe work done by women. However, along with this,even within professions in which women are over-represented, men are more likely to occupy leader-ship positions (Williams, 1992, 1995). This may bebecause men are regarded as unsuitable for tasksrelated to front-line roles and are moved onto rolesthat involve more managerial tasks that can lead toquicker promotions. The term “glass escalator” hasbeen used to describe the hidden advantages avail-able to men in occupations in which women domi-nate (Williams, 1992).

Research has also documented attempts to counterpersistent patterns of inequality within organiza-tions. However, this research also reveals how or-ganizational culture often hinders the promotionof disadvantaged groups (e.g., Chesley, 2017; Desai,Chugh, & Brief, 2014; Pager & Pedulla, 2015;Thebaud & Pedulla, 2016). For example, Pedulla andThebaud (2015) outlined how the introduction ofwork–family policies was intended to encouragemore egalitarian balancing of home and work be-tween men and women. These policies includedflexible working hours, childcare support, and paidleave. However, whereas their introduction sawgreater shifts in preferences for the balancing ofwork


and family responsibilities among women, mencontinued to prefer the traditional relationships inwhich they are the primary breadwinners with fewhousehold responsibilities. Thus, even when avail-able, men are generally less likely to take advantageof such policies if they feel they will be judged un-favorably by other males (see also Thebaud, 2015;Thebaud & Pedulla, 2016). Furthermore, Chesley(2017) suggests that women who are primary bread-winners in their families continue to feel a conflictbetween their work and care responsibilities (seealso Haveman & Beresford, 2012).

Dale and Burrell (2008) further extend our un-derstanding of organizational culture by explaininghow space in organizations is tailored to a universal,male, middle-class subject. Using Foucauldian tech-nologies of the self, which include enclosure, parti-tioning, classification, andhierarchy,Dale andBurrell(2008) noted the ways through which organizationsreproduce a segregated workplace leading to docileemployees (see also Puwar, 2004). Wasserman andFrenkel (2015) developed these ideas to suggest thatspace in organizations influences activities by trans-mitting messages of howmembers of different groupsshould move, who they should speak to, and wherethey should sit, often to the disadvantage of women.

Hierarchies and bureaucracies. The hierarchicaland bureaucratic arrangements that are developedover time also have implications for inequality. Al-though intended to produce economic efficiencies, itis of little surprise that researchhas revealed the oftensubtle ways in which inequality is perpetuated bythese formal arrangements despite seminal researchsuch as the Hawthorne studies (e.g., Landsberger,1958; Mayo, 1949) and Crozier’s (1964) work onbureaucratic systems viewing such arrangements asneutral and value free. Kanter (1977) was one of theearliest to identify the effects of hierarchies on dis-advantaged groups. Furthermore, hierarchies andbureaucracies persist, along with the social ordersthey create. For example, Kalev (2009) showed howless rigid hierarchical job distinctions are morelikely to break down traditional systems of advan-tage. Such working environments increase intergroupcontact and networking, which in turn improve op-portunities for advancement, irrespective of identitycharacteristics. By contrast, hierarchies can reinforcedivision, become taken for granted, and are seenas impossible to challenge (Amis et al., 2017). Inanother study, Kalev, Dobbin, and Kelly (2006)found that the creation of formalized personnelpolicies hadnegative effects onminorities’ access tomanagement.

It is thus apparent that, within organizations, hi-erarchical structures, job specializations, and man-agement discourse result in a system in whichinequality rather than meritocratic- or efficiency-based decision-making is inevitable. With respect toclass, this was exemplified by Gray and Kish-Gephart’s (2013: 672) theorization of how “socialclass is constructed and reinforced (often un-consciously) through routines and practices thatperpetuate inequality.”These routines and practicesare socially created and accepted as legitimate waysof operating, resulting in the inequalities that arecreated becoming institutionalized, at which pointthey become very hard to undo (Gray & Kish-Gephart, 2013). Along with this has been a furthershifting of hierarchical arrangements through thepractice of outsourcing jobs that can take place lo-cally, such as to a cleaning firm or caterer, or furtherafield, as in manufacturing industries, leading toenhanced inequality (Williams, 2013).

Detailed insight revealing the ways in which in-stitutionalized bureaucratic means of operating re-inforce systems of inequality is provided byHamannand Bertels’ (2018) historical analysis of South Afri-canmining companies, which reveals how low-levelworkers were exploited to provide greater profits formine owners and senior executives. Particularlyimportant is the way in which the practices put inplace were not challenged for many years by thosewho were disadvantaged, predominantly becausethere was no imaginable alternative for workersother than to adhere to the rules established by themining companies. As one human resourcemanagerexplained in an interview in the early 1990s, “Peo-ple’s liveswerebeing controlled inmanyways.Theirjobs were chosen, and the bus they would get on [intheir village], and all of that stuff in the compounds. . .the compounds were cut off from society. . . you havethis total institution, like a prison. . .and so you hadthe company maintaining control” (interview 3C1,Hamann & Bertels, 2018: 406). Thus, working-classpeople with very limited opportunities had theirwork activities, levels of remuneration, and livingconditions totally controlled by the mining compa-nies. Following a series of demonstrations and up-risings, the mine owners realized that they wouldhave to engage in some reforms. They therefore of-fered a “living out allowance” that allowed workersto live outside the tightly controlled single-sexcompounds. Although overtly intended to free theworkers, in effect it freed the mine owners fromhaving to provide living accommodation: that re-sponsibility passed to the workers themselves and to


the government. At the same time, mine owners alsooutsourced recruitment of labor to “labor brokers.”With labor now in greater supply, and no need toprovide housing, mine owners could hire and fireworkers much more quickly: again, the economic ad-vantage resided with the mine owners, whereasworkers were consigned to living in slums that werecreated around the mines and surviving on non-guaranteed short-term contracts.

Aswe can see from the aforementioned discussion,an important part of the institutionalization of in-equality through the establishment of hierarchicaland bureaucratic arrangements is the accumulationand use of power. As power is concentrated in a par-ticular group, so the tendency is, either deliberately orinadvertently, for organization-based inequalities tobe strengthened. If groups are excluded from posi-tions of power, they are unable to voice their per-spective or protect their interests (e.g., Rao&Kelleher,2003). This has been exemplified in work that hasexamined how some groups become silenced andinvisible in organizations (e.g., Calas & Smircich,2006), whereas those at the top of organizations workto maintain the status quo. As Willmott (2015) hasargued, even relativelymundane forms of oppressioncan become institutionalized in ordinary organiza-tional settings (see also Dacin et al., 2010).

Summary. In summary, our purpose in this sectionhas been to synthesize research that has provided ev-idence of how those organizational practices that wetake for granted contribute to the reproduction of in-equality. We integrate this literature, dispersed acrossdifferent disciplines, to specify the mechanisms bywhich inequality is perpetuated unreflectively. Thisreveals how the reproduction of inequality is shapedby hiring practices that serve as gatekeeping mecha-nisms; by promotion practices that constrain upwardmobility; by role allocations that confine employees toidentities shaped by social categories; by compensa-tion practices that reify economic disparities often inconcert with formal laws, regulations, societal norms,and traditions; and by structures that impose rigidityand reinforce extant power differentials.

Our review reveals that practices are reinforced andlegitimizedbywidelyacceptedmyths thathavebecomeimbued within and across the practices to provide a“rational theory of how” organizations are supposed tooperate (Meyer & Rowan, 1977: 342; see also March,2010). In the next section, we reflect further on thesemyths and examine how research and transmission offlawed ideals have helped to reinforce the status quo.This allows us to develop proposals for how researchand knowledge dissemination can be reimagined to

offer ways in which inequality may be reduced, ratherthan strengthened, by organizational practices.

INSTITUTIONAL MYTHS AND THEPERSISTENCE OF INEQUALITY

The review preceding this section shows that mun-dane organizational practices make the reproductionof different forms of inequality in organizations sys-temic rather than accidental. Practices are regularlyand predictably enacted in ways that repeatedly priv-ilege some people over others, and yet the notion thatthese practices yield outcomes that are fair and justappears to be deeply institutionalized. This leads us tothe third question that we raised in the Introduction:Why is the practice-based reproduction of inequalityso persistent and prevalent across organizations invaryingdomainsof activity? It is to this thatweturnourattention.

When confronted with ample evidence of inequalitywith a vastmajority of those involved still believing thesystem to be functioning justly, one must look for un-derlyingbeliefsormyths (March,2010;Meyer&Rowan,1977) that allow things to carry onunquestioned.Aswereviewed the literature, three myths emerged as funda-mental to understanding the link between persistentorganizational practices and the reproduction of in-equality: the myths of efficiency, meritocracy, and pos-itive globalization. The relationships between myths,practices, and the inequalities that they perpetuate areillustrated in Figure 1.

By identifying and describing the salient mythsthat allow various inequalities to persist in organi-zations, we are able to build bridges between theinequality and institutional literatures. Followingthe social constructivist perspective offered byBerger andLuckmann (1966),wehold to thepositionthat the practices of organizations reflect the salientmyths of their institutional environments, not sim-ply the technical demandsof theirwork activities. Byadhering to these prescriptions, organizations dem-onstrate their legitimacy.

Thus, the formal organizational practices of the typewe describe in the previous section of the article arisein, and reflect, highly institutionalized environments.Consequently, anorganization’spursuit of success andunderstanding of how it is to be achieved are all in-stitutionally defined. This creates the opportunity forthe development of institutional myths to determineorganizational practices—such as what is valued in anew recruit, what criteria should be used for pro-motion, or what levels of compensation should be setacross the organization.


In the past three decades, however, institutionalistshave tended to focus narrowly on how ideas and be-liefs come to dominate particular institutional fields atthe expense of identifying more universal myths thatcut across field boundaries and explain cross-fieldsimilarities (Hallett, 2010). Moreover, institutionaltheorists have been inattentive to the relationshipsbetween inequality engendered by organizations andthe myths that justify it. We seek to redress this bydescribing each of the myths that emanate from ourreview and synthesizing the ways in which they le-gitimizepractices thatmakeorganizationscomplicit inthe persistent reproduction of inequality. The uncov-ering of these myths along with the modes of practiceimplementation described earlier have importantimplications for future research and also for howwecommunicate to our constituent groups, from un-dergraduate students to senior executives.

The Myth of Efficiency

Themyth of efficiency, in the context of this article,refers to the false premise that adoption of efficiency-

enhancing practices is what leads to organizationalsuccess. According to this position, efficiency makesan organization more competitive and being compet-itive brings superior performance and victory. Thus,a drive for efficiency is believed to be at the heart oforganizational competitiveness (March, 2010). Fromthis perspective, formal organizational structure re-flects a rational response to the coordination andcontrol demands on an organization. As these de-mandsbecomemore complex, organizations evolve toadapt to them.

For example, traditional economic theories such astransaction cost theory (Williamson, 1981) and agencytheory (Fama& Jensen, 1983; Jensen&Meckling, 1976)emphasize that the purpose of organizations is to con-sistently pursue the goal of efficiency to maximize thereturns to shareholders. In such views, organizationsare considered as bundles of economic contracts withpeople incentivized to deliver what their job demands.Such a view implies that if there are kinks in thesystem—for example, individuals shirking work; re-cruitment, promotion, or task allocation not based onmerit; or compensation that is not aligned with the

FIGURE 1Institutional Myths, Organizational Practices, and the Reproduction of Inequalities

Social & Economic Inequalities

Institutional myths

Organizationalpractices

Promotion

Hiring Compensation

Structure

Role Allocation

Efficiency Positive Globalization

Meritocracy


value an individual is creating—the relentless marchtoward efficiency will iron them out. Organizationsshould thus be blind to individual characteristics in thepursuitof greater efficiency.Our reviewof the literaturedemonstrates that different types of inequalities areperpetuated, and escape scrutiny, because of thewidespread and deeply entrenched belief in thismyth. This means that various organizational prac-tices ranging from recruitment to compensation areunquestioningly assumed to be optimal responses tothe pressures faced by the organization.

Our review reveals how the myth of efficiency,infused in organizational practices, has helped tocreate a system of taken-for-granted ways of operat-ing. For example, the vast gap in compensation be-tween CEO and median worker salaries is seen to bean outcome of competitive forces rather than anyother factors. The absenceofwomen fromroles in theupper echelons of organizations is not seen to be areflection of discrimination but of their “lack ofcommitment,” “need” for flexible work arrange-ments, and different “preferences.” In sum, then,the selection of individuals for particular roles, theircompensation, and their opportunities for promo-tion are legitimized in the name of efficiency.

Thus,whenmanagers hire people like themselves,they do so believing that homogeneity is more effi-cient. One wonders, with a heterogeneous workerpool, and a clear positive relationship between di-versity and organizational performance, how didorganization leaders come todesire andactively seekto achievehomogeneity? It is the efficiencymyth thatserves to obscure the fact that homogeneity based ondiscrimination actually reduces performance. AsKanter (1977) argued, minority members, women,and other employees with restricted opportunitiesultimately lower their aspirations and commitmentand engage in behaviors that reinforce negativeopinions about their potential contributions to anorganization.

Our review across disciplines also makes ap-parent how efficiency, as a prevalent myth under-pinning organizational life, links practices andmakes the reproduction of inequality systemic(e.g., Davis & Cobb, 2010). Hierarchical organiza-tional structures, justified in terms of the efficiencyof decision-making, actually hinder the progress ofdisadvantaged groups who become less likely toreach management positions (Dobbin, Schrage, &Kalev, 2015). By contrast, less hierarchical work-ing environments increase intergroup contact andnetworking, which in turn improve opportunitiesby reducing stereotypes (Kalev, 2009).

The systematic and integrative review of the lit-erature we conducted unveiled how the mythicalpursuit of efficiency helps to explain why organiza-tional practices remain entrenched over time. In re-vealing why decisions and beliefs that support thestatus quo remain unquestioned, we demonstratehow this myth helps to reproduce different types ofinequality. Importantly, the myth of efficiency doesnotwork in isolation but is buttressed by othermythsincluding that ofmeritocracy, towhichwe now turn.

The Myth of Meritocracy

The concept of meritocracy implies a social systemin which advancement and rewards in society arebased on an individual’s capabilities and performancerather than on the basis of family, seniority, race, gen-der, or class (Bellow, 2003). However, intuitive or de-sirable, the idea of meritocracy is surprisingly not thatold. In fact, it was only in the late 1950s that the termwas coined by British sociologist Michael Young(1958) as a sarcastic label for a new dystopia inwhich individuals were judged only by their IQ andeffort,whereas thediscriminatory systemcontinued toexist through particular definitions of “merit.”

The institutionalization of the concept of meritoc-racy was a dramatic step. Until the late 19th century,both public and private sector organizational hierar-chies were based on hereditary and patronage. Theearliest “meritocratic” logic determining who gotwhat position in organizations was one based on eu-genics and “efficient” allocation of human resourcesbasedon “intelligence” or “mental age.”The ideawaspresentedbyFrancisGaltonas abenevolent one: onceeveryone’s “natural” capacity was determined, theywouldnot be punished for inefficiency andbelowparperformance (Bulmer, 2003). Through such a systemof scientifically allocated labor to its appropriateplace in the economy, increases in economic effi-ciency would become possible. Given that higherschooling was accordingly reserved for “intelligent”pupils only, unsurprisingly, such a system led to anorganization of labor thatwas stratifiedprincipally byclass. Various changes to the system, such as com-prehensive schools, where everyone could be edu-cated, were slow to arrive and even when they did,many argued these were essentially meant to providemore latitude within the overall system, rather thanchange it radically.

More recently, organizations have adopted “per-formance” or “merit-based” evaluation and compen-sation systems (Castilla & Benard, 2010). Despite theinstitutionalization of merit-based practices, our


review of the literature clearly shows that entry, ad-vancement, and reward in organizations remainnonmeritocratic inmany importantways. This is truenot just in the United States, wheremost studies havebeen conducted, but in countries around the world.

Belief in the myth of meritocracy has become sotaken for granted that it has assumed a fact-like sta-tus. In the United States, for example, survey re-search repeatedly reveals that Americans believethat the system they work in is essentially merito-cratic. Perhaps unsurprisingly, research shows thatwhites are more likely to believe that meritocracyexists and endorse the belief that minorities onlyhave themselves to blame for their lack of progress(Fraser & Kick, 2000). But the deep-rootedness of thebelief in meritocracy is reflected in studies of thedisadvantaged who seem to believe with equal zealin its existence (e.g., Haines & Jost, 2000; McCoy &Major, 2007).

Overall, an acceptancebypeople of their roles, andindeed lives, in organizations is an outcome of, at thehighest level, the myth of meritocracy. This is sup-ported by othermyths, such as themyth of efficiencydiscussed earlier, and the myth of the Americandream, which through the example of the occasional“rags-to-riches” success story reinforces and repli-cates the ideal that anybody can be successful if theyhave talent and/or work hard enough.

As we show in our review, systems instituted toensure meritocratic hiring, promotion, role alloca-tion, and compensation have very limited efficacy.This implies that many of the practices ensuringmerit-based rewards are essentially ritualistic andceremonial (Meyer & Rowan, 1977). They are at bestadopted symbolically to gain legitimacy but arein fact inefficient or ineffective, not necessarilyaccomplishing their stated purpose (e.g., Cech &Blair-Loy, 2014; Sliwa & Johansson, 2014). As such,they frequently provide a legitimate cover for themaintenance of inequality. Thus, we need muchmore critical scrutiny of “merit” that focuses on howindividuals in organizations reconcile the discrep-ancies they witness in the systemwith their belief inthe prevalence of meritocracy (Amis et al., 2017).

The Myth of Positive Globalization

Themythof positive globalization suggests a beliefin the notion that globalization is broadly beneficialfor everyone, a tide that lifts all boats. Such a belief iscentral to how organizations’ implication in globalproduction networks is viewed. This myth springsfrom different sources. There is the notion that the

world is more global—a misconception becausetrade during the colonial era was greater in manycases (Chang, 2002). Regardless, the belief is ac-cepted unquestioningly and has, in turn, been re-sponsible for an entire discourse on globalizationstrategies and the accompanying belief in globaldomination as a key measure of corporate success(see, e.g., Cowling & Tomlinson, 2005).

The established focus on organizations as globalactors has also been accompanied by an assumptionthat national contexts are appropriate and obviousopportunities for expansion and merely require ad-aptation. This assumption strengthens a view ofglobalization as an inherently positive exercise thatrequires deftly navigating different continents andcultures and adapting to global supply and demandfor capabilities and labor (e.g., Birkinshaw, 2000;Lessard, Teece, & Lieh, 2016).

Whereas on the face of it, a global presence and adiverse workforce give the appearance of greaterequality across nations and people, our review throwsupanumber of differentways inwhich thepractices oforganizations that cross national boundaries engenderinequalities. This is often through the imposition ofNorthern norms—such as speaking English, beingformerly educated, understanding bureaucratic pro-cedures, and using specified technologies—that be-come “internalized” as the appropriate way to operateinplaceof local practices (Hayes et al., 2018).Membersof this “elite,”many of whom have been to top rankeduniversities in the Global North or local elite univer-sities, tend to be more likely to be promoted to lead-ership positions (Castro & Holvino, 2016; Hayes et al.,2018). Furthermore, as drivers of migration, expatria-tion, and globalization, transnational organizations goon perpetuating patterns of inequality by promotingand rewarding people from a labor pool according tofirm-specific cultural capital as well as national andcosmopolitan capitals (Levy & Reiche, 2018; see also;Castro & Holvino, 2016).

The myth of globalization as the great leveler thusobscures the unequal distribution of rewards andopportunities within global businesses. In globalproduction networks, inequality is often perpet-uated by powerful manufacturers and retailers(Alamgir & Alakavuklar, 2018; McCarthy & Moon,2018). Taking advantage of low wages, combinedwith weak labor and environmental laws, globalbrands are often seen to deny basic labor rights,whereas knowledge workers and senior managerslocated in Northern offices accrue proportionatelyhigher levels of compensation. Furthermore, Muniret al. (2018) found that task allocation in a global


textile production network took place along gen-dered and class-based lines with women drafted infor men because of their “nimble fingers” and ten-dency to “obey.” However, the mere inclusion ofwomen in the labor force, at half the wages that menhad been paid, was trumpeted as a feminist, eman-cipation story by international donors and attributedto the positive effects of globalization.

It is important to point out that it is not simply be-cause of globalization that organizations are siteswhere inequality gets reproduced. Rather, themythofglobalization as the source of prosperity for all iswhatallows inequalities to be created and sustained. Thebelief that different nations and cultures are simplydissimilar rather than necessarily embedded in ahierarchy allows managers, and indeed scholars,to unproblematically justify differences as a conse-quence of local conditions rather than down to thepower differentials that exist across global nodes(Westwood & Jack, 2007). Thus, the myth of global-ization as inherentlybeneficial toorganizationsbeliesthe ways in which hiring, promotion, role allocation,compensation, and bureaucratic practices sustain thereproduction of inequality. Furthermore, the mutu-ally constitutive links between and across the mythsand practices further reify inequality. For example,not only are factory workers in a global supply chainhired on relatively lowwages but also they have littleopportunity to increase their compensation throughpromotion or develop new skills by getting new roleassignments (e.g., Chan, 2013). They therefore end uptrapped in a cycle of low pay, limited opportunities,and, often, dangerous working conditions. This isfurther complicatedby localnormsand traditions thatoverseas firms often fail to understand or ignore(McCarthy & Moon, 2018).

To summarize, along with the other two mythsof meritocracy and efficient organizations, “positiveglobalization” serves as the third pillar that sustainsvarious inequalities in organizations. While believingorganizations to be fundamentally meritocratic anddriven by the overarching goal of efficiency, contem-porary managers have internalized the notion thatglobal business practices are harbingers of opportuni-ties for everyone involved and, thus, should be un-questioningly pursued.

FUTURE KNOWLEDGE GENERATIONAND COMMUNICATION

Our discussion of the aforementioned three mythsreveals some of the blind spots that continue to existin our research on inequality in organizations. An

awareness of theses myths that underpin our un-derstanding of how andwhy organizational practicespersist alongwith the inequalities theyperpetuatenotonlypromises toopenupnewavenuesof researchbutshouldalsocauseus to reflect on thepictureswepaintof organizations in our teaching.

Future Knowledge Generation

Our synthetic review suggests a need for a morecritical and reflective investigation of the ways inwhich the three myths and the underlying practicesmanifest themselves across different organizations.With respects to myths, we highlight eight areasthat emerged as important areas for future research.First, when considering how particular organiza-tional practices come to be justified (Barley, 2010),narratives of efficiency, or broad utility, spring up.The fact that Taylorism—based purely on an effi-ciency logic—was challenged both in factories andoutside is apposite. It would be worth further in-vestigating the specific and ongoing ways in whichjustifications of efficiency are linked to persistentinequality.

Second, althoughdiscourses of efficiencyare oftenimplicit and deeply buried in organizational prac-tices, meritocracy is closer to the surface not leastbecause of pressure on organizations to be fairer topeople, regardless of their identities. Our reviewshows that a belief in the existence of meritocracyhas persisted even in places where it is absent. Al-thoughwe know fromvarious studies that thosewhoare repeatedly disadvantaged still work to maintainthe system that constrains them (e.g., Dacin et al.,2010), it is important that we get a stronger appreci-ation for howwidespread the belief inmeritocracy isamong different subsets of the population acrossdifferent cultural and organizational contexts.

Third, it would also be useful to knowwho engagesin the “institutional work” (Lawrence & Suddaby,2006) required to maintain the taken-for-granted con-figuration of the myths of efficiency, meritocracy, andpositiveglobalization.Furthermore,howis the“work”involved in the implementation of hiring, promotion,role allocation, structuring, and compensation prac-tices positioned as efficient andmeritocratic such thatit goes unchallenged by organization members andresearchers?

Fourth,where are the examples inwhich the beliefin meritocratic practices in organizations have beenchallenged and even dismantled?What precipitatedthe change in acceptance and what actions wererequired to sustain the institutional change? What


were the outcomes of changed practices for social andeconomic inequality? Such research could approachthe problem from the purview of a practice, such ashiring, or a disadvantaged group, such as those from alower socioeconomic class.

Fifth, the myth of globalization as an unquestion-ingly positive development needs more critical scru-tiny. Where globalization undoubtedly has yieldedopportunities for workers and economies around theworld, its benefits have not been uniformly distrib-uted. There is a need to expand the conversationthrough research that brings together both beneficialand more problematic effects of globalization on or-ganizational practices in terms of inequality. There isa vibrant streamof research focused on the challengesthat global organizations and expatriate workers faceand scrutinizes the selection of particular modes ofglobal expansion (e.g., Baruch, Altman, &Tung, 2016;Baruch, Dickman, Altman, & Bournois, 2013; Hinds,Liu, & Lyon, 2011; Marquis & Raynard, 2015). How-ever, this stream has remained more or less quiet onhow globalization influences the various inequalitiesthat organizations exhibit. For example, the literatureoncross-culturalmanagement (e.g.,Hindset al., 2011)focuses on collaboration across borders to reduce la-bor costs or capture specialized expertise, withoutnecessarily taking into account the more unequal as-pects of this collaboration. Similarly, in the researchon expatriation processes, the literature, while ac-knowledging gender disparity in favor ofmen, largelysteers clear of problematizing it, choosing to focusinstead on how multinationals make global careermobility smoother and less expensive (Baruch et al.,2016). Addressing these issues is a significant chal-lenge for scholars.

Sixth, we have identified three myths that haveemerged from our review of the literature. We alsoneed to be open to the existence of furthermyths thatmay be uncovered, particularly by those in otherdisciplines with different theoretical lenses. Thus,the review that we have provided here should beseen as a step toward a greater understanding of whyinequality persists in organizations, not a definitiveoutcome.

Seventh, to inject a more balanced sensibility intothe research streams, we also need to further un-derstand how other stakeholders in emerging econo-mies including low-paid workers, governments, tradeunions, and communities are susceptible to enhancedlevels of inequality as a consequence of the waysin which myths support organizational practices.Currently, when discussing modes of entry, globalsourcing, subsidiary–headquarters relations, cross-

cultural management issues, and so on, nonprimarystakeholders are often overlooked. Although an in-creasing number of scholars are showing interest inthe plight of workers caught up in a “race to the bot-tom” as countries compete to become the lowest costsuppliers to well-resourced multinational firms, theways inwhich roles are allocated in global productionnetworks are still supplementary and not core to howwe look at international business.

Finally, openingup to testimonies of scholars fromthe Global South is critical if we are to devise moreinclusive frameworks for looking at organizations.Venkateswaran and Ojha (2017) explain how two ofthe most prominent academic associations in man-agement, the Strategic Management Society andthe Academy of Management, are overwhelminglydominated by North American scholars. Moreover,the attitude toward developing-country scholarsseems to emphasize the necessity for the latter toadopt the templates, categories, and interests of theirNorth American counterparts. If we are to seriouslyengage with how these scholars view the re-production of inequality in organizations in gen-eral, and the effects of myths in particular, this hasto change.

Although we consider it crucial to pursue theseavenues for research onmyths, there are also variousmore specific lines of inquiry that open up when werecognize how and why the three myths pervadeorganizations and legitimize particular practices. Itis to these that we now turn.

Hiring. The literature we surveyed describes howhiring is influenced by structural and behavioral dy-namics. For instance, membership of particular net-works, possession of high levels of social and culturalcapital, and homophily all affect recruitment intoparticular positions. However, although this researchhas effectively established causal relationships be-tween hiring and a variety of these factors, relativelyless work has been done on how hiring in organiza-tions reinforces the myths of efficiency, meritocracy,and positive globalization. For example, what is theorganizational process through which job specifica-tions are prepared and advertised?Howare notions ofefficiency, meritocracy, and globalization implicatedin discussions that lead to the specification and ad-vertising of roles? Does efficiency in hiring lead todirect or indirect discrimination or exclusion of partof the labor pool?

There are oftenmurmurs about nepotism or racismjustbelowthesurface inorganizations.Whendo theseassume the form of resistance? Where are the exam-ples in which the belief in meritocratic practices in


organizations have been challenged and even dis-mantled?What precipitated the change in acceptanceand what actions were required to sustain the in-stitutional change? Finally, what were the outcomesof changed practices for inequality?

Similarly, a lot more research needs to be carriedout onhiring across subsidiaries.Althoughmuchhasbeenperformedonexpatriation,most of it is not froman inequality perspective. How and when does ex-patriation strengthen or weaken various types of in-equalities? Howare networks and social and culturalcapital implicated in global hiring, whether fromglobal business schools or local ones?

Promotion. Although scholars have compared in-equality in large versus small firms, therehasnot beenscrutiny of how structural aspects of organizationsinfluence patterns of promotion. Bureaucracies existfor efficiency reasons, whereas flatter organizationalstructures are supposed to be less efficient but moreinnovative. What implications do these differenttypesof organizational structureshave for employees’career progression?Dounderrepresented groups tendto do better in flatter or more hierarchical organiza-tions? How is cultural capital implicated in differenttypes of organizations or industries?

Globalization offers attractive promotion possibili-ties for workers and managers working in subsidiar-ies. Whereas extant research on expatriation hasidentifieddifficulties and challenges for expatriates, alot more work needs to be done on patterns withinexpatriation. Who is more likely to be expatriated?How are these decisions taken? Do they, for example,increase class mobility for the country where thesubsidiary is based?

Role allocation. One must remember that the no-tion of meritocracy started with a focus on ‘fit” be-tween the person and his/her role in society.Although the state school system has ensured thatthe poor have an opportunity to improve their lot,most senior leadership jobs have continued to go toindividuals educated in private schools and eliteuniversities (Friedman & Laurison, 2019). Howmightwe overcome this?

What is the criterion that firms use for allocatingindividuals to different roles? Does it differ acrossindustries, regions, or cultures? Howdo jobs becomeassociated with a particular identity or group? Whathappenswhen a role changes, for example, online asopposed to print journalism? Does it lead to a shift inrole allocation criteria, or does the same social hier-archy reproduce itself despite the changes in therole? It would be fruitful to do longitudinal studieson how this process unfurls and investigate how the

myths of efficiency or meritocracy are implicated inthese changes. Similarly, when this process takesplace at a transnational level, such as when the na-ture of a firm’s activities in a particular countrychanges, itwould be useful to understand the criteriaused to select who is offered new roles.

Compensation. Senior managers’ compensationhas changed dramatically over recent years in linewith organizational forms, regulations, and compe-tition. Agency theory’s depiction of the principal–agent problem has been central in contextualizingdiscussions of how tomotivatemanagers so that theydo not stray from their first and foremost duty—maximization of shareholder wealth. The alignmentof incentives is assumed to contribute to the overallefficiency of not only the organization but also theeconomic system. The ongoing debate of organiza-tional responsibilities beyond shareholder wealthmaximization (e.g., The Economist, 2019) providesan excellent opportunity to study how incentivesmight be changing as a manager’s job expands toinclude not only wealth creation but also sociallyuseful actions. Do these changesmake anydifferenceto wage gaps? How do gender, class, and race figurein these changes?

Similarly, under what conditions does the globalwage gap expand or close? It has been suggested thatglobalization brings countries closer together eco-nomically (Fine et al., 2019). However, organization-level studies of this phenomenon are few and farbetween. It would be a highly productive contribu-tion to the globalization debate if we could developmore studies of how vertical and horizontal wagegaps vary over time, by country, and by industry.

Organizational structure. A long tradition ofcritical theorists (e.g., Adler, 2012; Braverman, 1974;Burawoy, 1979) has problematized bureaucracy asa form of domination justified by efficiency argu-ments. Institutional theorists such as DiMaggio andPowell (1983) took exception, suggesting that thebureaucratic organizational form has persisted notbecause of efficiency but institutional reasons. In-stitutional theory now provides a vast array of stud-ies focusing on various aspects of bureaucracies. Itwould be highly useful to bring the insights thesehave generated to focus on the inequalities that oftenremain hidden.

Comparative studies of bureaucracies in differentcountries, particularly under different types of eco-nomic systems, and the various kinds of inequalitiesthat they engenderwouldbe especially fruitful.Moreresearch is also needed to compare how differenttypes of cultures are generated within similarly


structured organizations. With the gig economy andflexible work, what kinds of organizational struc-tures are emerging and with what consequences?

Summary. In all, focusing on the myths that allowvarious types of inequalities to be reproduced in orga-nizations is a fertile area for future research. The waysin which organizational practices emerge and becomeinstitutionalized, andmore importantly are enacted inways that allow for the reproduction andpersistence ofinequalities, also require further investigation. Partic-ularly important is sustained engagement over an ex-tended period of time to allow the causal interactionsand long-term effects of myths and practices to emerge(see Amis et al., 2018). In the following text, we elabo-rate on how to continue this process of problem-atization in student and practitioner education.

Communication

How should the realization of inequality and, inparticular, themyths that obscure systemic inequalitychange how we teach organization and managementin business schools? As things stand, most businessschools teach in ways that normalize white males asleaders with almost a complete absence of consider-ationof behaviors thatdisadvantagemembers of othergroups. Such an approach implicitly, and sometimesexplicitly, justifies massive inequalities. As Reich(2014), Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Adminis-tration and Professor of Economics at University ofCalifornia, Berkeley, pointed out, Harvard BusinessSchool cases have helped to legitimize the growingpay gap between CEOs and ordinary workers. Theconsequences of this for inequality across organiza-tions and society are hardly debated in businessschools. Similarly, leadership is often taught by re-lying on cases of charismatic leaderswith insufficientattention accorded to the dynamics of power, the in-fluence of context, and the significance of followerdissent and resistance (Collinson & Tourish, 2015;Pfeffer, 2015).

The absence of anydiscussion of inequalitywithinour pedagogical texts constitutes a gross mis-representation of reality. Our reviewmakes it amplyclear that such a representation is far away from theactual reality of organizations. Remedying it requiresbringing back many of the critical sensibilities thatwere once part of organization theory6 but got sup-pressed (Hehenberger, Mair, & Metz, 2019). Thispoint is highlighted by Hinings and Greenwood

(2002), who have made a powerful case that discus-sion of the purpose that organizations serve or whobenefits from their activities have been lost becausethe study of organizations moved out of sociologydepartments and into business schools. Similarly,moral questions of who should have authority overwhom, and in what ways do organizations exertdomination and leverage coercion, have fallen by thewayside. Furthermore, problematization of bureau-cracy as an organizational form has largely beeneschewed in favor of functionalist understandings.

Any effort to bring in discussions of systemic in-equality must begin with a larger appreciation of therole of organizations in society. As Stern and Barley(1996) note, the perspective must be pluralistic ratherthan simply that of a senior manager. We notice thateven guest speakers in business schools are invariablysenior managers; hardly, any business schools invitelow-level workers into a classroom. It is simply as-sumed that the perspective of a worker is neither im-portant enough nor worth understanding. Factorytours similarly shyawayfromdiscussionswithunionsor workers, and end with engaging with executiveswho appear attractive because of their authority andability to potentially offer students jobs.

Discussion of organizational practices from a man-ager’s perspective inevitablymeans certain blind spotsremain. For example, structures of disadvantage getwritten out of cases. Issues of power and privilegebased on cultural capital and class are left out too.Business schools understand their purpose as pro-ducing new members of the managerial elite, ratherthan making organizations and, therefore, society afairer, more just place. When stakeholders are dis-cussed, the focus is on how organizations can “man-age” them rather than how an organization can besocially useful, and challenge various inequalities insociety.

The three myths of efficiency, meritocracy, andpositive globalization provide an excellent platformon which to build a more pluralistic, inclusive, andsocially responsible curriculum. Our review couldserve as a helpful entree to organizational life belowthe surface and a questioning of core beliefs aboutorganizations. As Khurana (2010) suggested in hishistory of business schools, managers were not al-ways seen as only “agents” of their “principals” asagency theory suggests, but rather leaders in bothsociety and the economy, with a socially, morally,and historically informed view of the world. Thisnarrowing of mindset must be reversed if businessschools are to become responsive to the “grandchallenges” that the world confronts.

6 Indeed, the first labor process theory conference washeld in Manchester Business School in 1983.


Business schools have been gradually internation-alizing their curricula to cater to an increasinglyglobal pool of students and the careers that they lead.However, the focus is mostly onmodes of expansion,cross-cultural joint ventures, and so on. This in-strumental focus could be replaced by more criticaldiscussions of how outsourcing, setting up of globalproduction networks, and expatriation processes caninvolve perpetuation of inequality.

In short, whereas business schools have certainlyshown a willingness to bring in the burning issues ofethics and climate change, inequality has unfortunatelynot received the same attention. Our review should im-press on readers the urgency of teaching more realisticportraits of organizations where workers and managershave genders, classes, races, and other points of identitythat intersect. Similarly, it should encourage businessschool students to debate the purpose and role of orga-nizations in society, identifying who has power andto what end, and how they can be implicated in thepersistent reproduction of inequality through organiza-tional practices (e.g., Bell, Connerley, & Cocchiara,2009). Business schools will be doing an enormous ser-vice to society if they can help remedy this.

CONCLUSION

This article delineates a unique space for organiza-tional theorists ingeneral, and institutional theorists inparticular, to contribute to scholarly discussion anddebates on inequality. As our review revealed, re-search into various forms of inequality across disci-plineshasprovidedampleevidence that organizationsare sites where inequality is produced and amplified.This research illuminates organizations as internallabor markets (Fernandez & Fernandez-Mateo, 2006;Bidwell et al., 2013) or as sites of social stratification(Baron & Bielby, 1980; Pager & Pedulla, 2015). We notonly reviewed and integrated this literature but alsoadded a novel perspective that foregrounds in-stitutional arguments (Powell & Brandtner, 2016).More specifically, we showed that myths—the widelyshared cultural ideals and rationalized beliefs abouthow organization ought to operate—help to explainwhy these patterns of reproduction are so persistent.Besides offering a unique angle for organizationalscholarship to advance research on inequality, ourarticle broadens and advances ongoing conversationsabout how to break with patterns of inequality associ-ated with people’s lives in and as members of organi-zations (see Tolbert & Castilla, 2017). Our approachand findings make explicit that the organizational re-production of inequality requires careful theoretical

and empirical attention. However, we also invite amore reflective and honest discussion about ourcomplicity—as researchers and educators—in thisprocess.

REFERENCES

Abraham, M. 2017. Pay formalization revisited: Consid-ering the effects of manager gender and discretion onclosing the gender wage gap. Academy of Manage-ment Journal, 60: 29–54.

Acemoglu, D. & Autor, D. 2011. Skills, tasks, and technolo-gies: Implications for employment and earnings. In D.Card, & O. Ashenfelter (Eds.), Handbook of labor eco-nomics, vol. 4b: 1043–1172. San Diego, CA: Elsevier.

Acker, J. 1989. Doing comparable worth: Gender, classand pay equity. Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress.

Acker, J. 1990. Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of gen-dered organizations.Gender & Society, 4(2): 139–158.

Acker, J. 2000. Revisiting Class: Thinking from Gender,Race, and Organizations. Social Politics: Interna-tional Studies in Gender, State & Society, 7(2),192–214.

Acker, J. 2006. Inequality regimes. Gender & Society,20(4): 441–464.

Acker, J., & Van Houten, D. 1974. Differential recruitmentand control: The sex structuring of organizations.Administrative Science Quarterly, 19: 152–163.

Adler, P. S. 2012 Perspective—The sociological ambiva-lence of bureaucracy: From Weber via Gouldner toMarx. Organization Science, 23: 244–266.

Alamgir, F., & Alakavuklar, O. 2018. Compliance codesand women workers’ (Mis)representation and (Non)recognition in the apparel industry of Bangladesh.Journal of Business Ethics, 1–16.

Alamgir, F., & Banerjee, S. B. 2018. Contested complianceregimes in global production networks: Insights fromthe Bangladesh garment industry. Human Relations,72: 272–297.

Alamgir, F., & Cairns, G. 2015. Economic inequality of thebadli workers of Bangladesh: Contested entitlementsand a ‘perpetually temporary’ life-world. Human Re-lations, 68(7): 1131–1153.

Alderfer, C. P., Alderfer, C. J., Tucker, L., & Tucker, R.1980. Diagnosing race relations inmanagement. Journalof Applied Behavioral Science, 16(2): 135–166.

Aldrich, M., & Buchele, R. 1986. The economics of com-parable worth. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.

Amis, J. M., Munir, K. A., Lawrence, T. B., Hirsch, P., &McGahan, A. 2018. Inequality, institutions and orga-nizations. Organization Studies, 39(9): 1131–1152.


Amis, J. M., Munir, K. A., & Mair, J. 2017. Institutions andeconomic inequality. In R. Greenwood, C. Oliver, T.Lawrence, & R. Meyer (Eds.), The SAGE handbook oforganizational institutionalism (2nd ed.): 705–736).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ashcraft, K. L. 2013. The glass slipper: Incorporating oc-cupational identity inmanagement studies.Academyof Management Review, 38(1): 6–31.

Ashley, L., Duberly, J., Sommerlad, H., & Scholarios, D.2015. A qualitative evaluation of non-educationalbarriers to the elite professions. London: Social Mo-bility and Child Poverty Commission. Retrieved fromhttps://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-educational-barriers-to-the-elite-professions-evaluation.Accessed June 7, 2019.

Atewologun, D., Sealy, R., & Vinnicombe, S. 2016. Re-vealing intersectional dynamics in organizations: In-troducing ‘intersectional identity work.’ Gender,Work & Organization, 23(3): 223–247.

Atkinson, A. B. 2015. Inequality: What can be done?Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Atkinson, A. B., Piketty, T., & Saez, E. 2011. Top incomesin the long run of history. Journal of Economic Lit-erature, 49: 3–71.

Babcock, L., & Laschever, S. 2003. Women don’t ask: Ne-gotiation and the gender divide. Princeton, NJ:Princeton University Press.

Bapuji, H. 2015. Individuals, interactions and institutions:How economic inequality affects organizations. Hu-man Relations, 68: 1059–1083.

Bapuji, H., Husted, B., Lu, J., & Mir, R. 2018. Value crea-tion, appropriation and distribution: How firms con-tribute to societal economic inequality. Business &Society, 57: 983–1009.

Barley, S. R. 2007. Corporations, democracy, and the publicgood. Journal of Management Inquiry, 16: 201–215.

Barley, S. R. 2010. Building an institutional field to corral agovernment: A case to set an agenda for organizationstudies. Organization Studies, 31: 777–805.

Baron, J. N. 1984. Organizational perspectives on stratifi-cation. Annual Review of Sociology, 10: 37–69.

Baron, J. N., & Bielby, W. T. 1980. Bringing the firms backin: Stratification, segmentation, and the organizationof work.American Sociological Review, 45: 737–765.

Baron, J. N., & Pfeffer, J. 1994. The social psychology oforganizations and inequality. Social PsychologyQuarterly, 57(3): 190–209.

Baruch, Y., Altman, Y., & Tung, R. L. 2016. Careermobilityin a global era: Advances in managing expatriationand repatriation. Academy of Management Annals,10: 841–889.

Baruch, Y., Dickmann, M., Altman, Y., & Bournois, F.2013. Exploring international work: Types and di-mensions of global careers. International Journal ofHuman Resource Management, 24: 2369–2393.

Becker, J. C., Kraus, M. W., & Rheinschmidt-Same, M.2017. Cultural expressions of social class and theirimplications for group-related beliefs and behaviors.Journal of Social Issues, 73: 158–174.

Beckman, C. M., & Phillips, D. J. 2005. Interorganizationaldeterminants of promotion: Client leadership and theattainment of women attorneys. American Sociolog-ical Review, 70(4): 678–701.

Bell,D.N.F.,&Blanchflower,D.G.2013.Under-employmentin the UK revisited. National Institute Economic Re-view, 224(1): F8–F21.

Bell, M. P., Connerley, M. L., & Cocchiara, F. K. 2009. Thecase for mandatory diversity education. Academy ofManagement Learning & Education, 8(4): 597–609.

Belliveau, M. A. 2012. Engendering inequity? How social ac-counts create vs. merely explain unfavorable pay out-comesforwomen.OrganizationScience,23:1154–1174.

Bell, E. L. J., & Nkomo, S. M. 2001. Our separate ways:Black and white women and the struggle for pro-fessional identity. Boston: Harvard University Press.

Bellow, A. 2003. In praise of nepotism: A natural history.New York: Doubleday.

Berger, P., & Luckmann, T. 1966. The social constructionof reality. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.

Berry, D., & Bell, M. P. 2012. Inequality in organizations:Stereotyping, discrimination, and labor law exclu-sions. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An Inter-national Journal, 31(3): 236–248.

Berry, D. P. 2009. Expatriates, migrants, gender, race, andclass. Academy of Management Annual MeetingProceedings, 2009: 1–6.

Bidwell,M., Briscoe, F., Fernandez-Mateo, I., &Sterling,A.2013. The employment relationship and inequality:How and why changes in employment practices arereshaping rewards in organizations. Academy ofManagement Annals, 7: 61–121.

Bielby, D., & Bielby, W. 1988. She works hard for the money:Household responsibilities and the allocation of work ef-fort.American Journal of Sociology, 93(5): 1031–1059.

Bielby, D., & Bielby, W. 1984. Work commitment, sex roleattitudes, and women’s employment. American So-ciological Review, 49(2): 234–247.

Birkinshaw, J. 2000. Entrepreneurship in the global firm.Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Blair-Loy, M., & Wharton, A. S. 2004. Mothers in finance:Surviving and thriving. Annals of the American Acad-emy of Political and Social Science, 596(1): 151–171.


https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-educational-barriers-to-the-elite-professions-evaluation

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/non-educational-barriers-to-the-elite-professions-evaluation

Blickenstaff, J. C. 2005.Women and science careers: Leakypipeline or gender filter? Gender and Education,17(4): 369–386.

Bonica, A.,McCarty, N., Poole, K. T., & Rosenthal, H. 2013.Why hasn’t democracy slowed rising inequality?Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27(3): 103–124.

Botelho, T. L., &Abraham,M. 2017. Pursuing quality: Howsearch costs and uncertainty magnify gender-baseddouble standards in a multistage evaluation process.Administrative Science Quarterly, 62(4): 698–730.

Boudreau, J.W., Boswell,W. R., & Judge, T.A. 2001. Effectsof personality on executive career success in theUnited States and Europe. Journal of Vocational Be-havior, 58: 53–81.

Bourdieu, P. 1977.Outline theory of practice. Cambridge,MA: Cambridge University Press.

Bourdieu, P. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of thejudgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-versity Press.

Bowles, H. R., & McGinn, K. L. 2008. Untapped potential inthe study of negotiation and gender inequality in organi-zations.Academy of Management Annals, 2: 99–132.

Brands, R., &Kilduff,M. 2013. Just like awoman? Effects ofgender-biased perceptions of friendship network bro-kerage on attributions and performance. OrganizationScience, 25(5): 1530–1548.

Brands, R. A., & Fernandez-Mateo, I. 2017. Leaning out:How negative recruitment experiences shape women’sdecisions tocompete forexecutive roles.AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 62(3): 405–442.

Braverman, H. 1974. Labor and monopoly capital. NewYork: Monthly Review Press.

Briscoe, F., & Joshi, A. 2017. Bringing the boss’s politicsin: Supervisor political ideology and the gender gapin earnings. Academy of Management Journal, 60:1415–1441.

Bull, A., & Scharff, C. 2017. ‘McDonald’s music’ versus‘serious music’: How production and consumptionpractices help to reproduce class inequality in theclassical music profession. Cultural Sociology, 11:283–301.

Bulmer,M. 2003.FrancisGalton: Pioneer of heredity andbiometry. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress.

Burawoy, M. 1979. Manufacturing consent. Chicago, IL:Chicago University Press.

Burgin, A. 2012. The great persuasion: Reinventing freemarkets since the depression. Cambridge, MA: Har-vard University Press.

Calas, M., & Smirchich, L. 1991. Voicing seduction to si-lence leadership.Organisation Studies, 12: 567–602.

Calas,M. B., & Smircich, L. 2006. ‘From thewoman’s pointof view’ ten years later: Towards a feminist organiza-tion studies. InS.R.Clegg, C. L.Hardy,T. B. Lawrence,& W. R. Nord (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organi-zation studies: 284–346. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Cardador, M. T. 2017. Promoted up but also out? Theunintended consequences of increasing women’srepresentation in managerial roles in engineering.Organization Science, 28(4): 597–617.

Castilla, E. J. 2008. Gender, race, and meritocracy in orga-nizational careers. American Journal of Sociology,113(6): 1479–1526.

Castilla, E. J. 2015. Accounting for the gap: A firm studymanipulating organizational accountability and trans-parency in pay decisions. Organization Science, 26:311–333.

Castilla, E. J. 2018.Meritocracy. In F.M.Moghaddam (Ed.),The SAGE encyclopedia of political behavior,480–482. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Castilla, E. J., & Benard, S. 2010. The paradox of meritoc-racy in organizations. Administrative Science Quar-terly, 55(4): 543–676.

Castro, M. R., & Holvino, E. 2016. Applying intersectionalityin organizations: Inequality markers, cultural scriptsand advancement practices in a professional servicefirm.Gender,Work andOrganization, 23(3): 328–347.

Catalyst. 1999. Women of color in corporate manage-ment:Opportunities andbarriers. NewYork: Catalyst.Retrieved from http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-color-corporate-management-opportunities-and-barriers. Accessed March 6, 2018.

Cech, E.A., &Blair-Loy,M. 2014. Perceiving glass ceilings?Meritocratic versus structural explanations of genderinequality among women in science and technology.Social Problems, 57(3): 371–397.

Cha, Y. 2010. Reinforcing separate spheres. AmericanSociological Review, 75(2): 303–329.

Chamberlain, G. 2012. Olympic brands caught up inabuse scandal. The Observer. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/mar/03/olympic-brands-abuse-scandal. RetrievedMarch 3, 2012.

Chan, C. K., & Anteby, M. 2016. Task segregation as amechanism for within-job inequality.AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 61(2): 184–216.

Chan, J. 2013. A suicide survivor: The life of a Chineseworker. New Technology, Work and Employment,28: 84–99.

Chang, H.-J. 2002.Kicking away the ladder: Developmentstrategy in historical perspective. London: Anthem.

Charles, M., & Grusky, D. B. 2004. Occupational ghettos:The worldwide segregation of women and men.Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.


http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/women-color-corporate-management-opportunities-and-barriers



https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/mar/03/olympic-brands-abuse-scandal



Chesley, N. 2017.What does itmean to be a “breadwinner”mother? Journal of Family Issues, 38(18): 2594–2619.

Cobb, J. A. 2016. How firms shape income inequality:Stakeholder power, executive decision-making, andthe structuring of employment relationships. Acad-emy of Management Review, 41: 324–348.

Cobb, J. A., & Lin, K.-H. 2017. Growing apart: The changingfirm-size wage premium and its inequality conse-quences. Organization Science, 28(3): 429–446.

Cobb, J. A., & Stevens, F. G. 2017. These unequal states:Corporate organization and income inequality in theUnited States.Administrative ScienceQuarterly, 62:304–340.

Cockburn, C. 1985. Machinery of dominance: Women,men and technical know-how. London: Pluto Press.

Cohen, L. E., & Broschak, J. P. 2013. Whose jobs are these?The impact of the proportion of female managers onthe number of newmanagement jobs filled by womenversus men. Administrative Science Quarterly,58(4): 509–541.

Cohen, P. N., & Huffman, M. L. 2007. Working for thewoman? Female managers and the gender wage gap.American Sociological Review, 72(5): 681–704.

Collinson, D., & Tourish, D. 2015. Teaching leadershipcritically: New directions for leadership pedagogy.Academy of Management Learning & Education,14(4): 576–594.

Cook, A., & Glass, C. 2014a. Above the glass ceiling: Whenare women and racial/ethnic minorities promoted toCEO?StrategicManagement Journal, 35(7): 1080–1089.

Cook, A., & Glass, C. 2014b. Women and top leadershippositions: Towards an institutional analysis. Gender,Work & Organization, 21(1): 91–103.

Cote, S. 2011.Howsocial class shapes thoughts andactionsin organizations. Research in Organizational Be-havior, 31: 43–71.

Cowling, K., & Tomlinson, P. R. 2005. Globalisation andcorporatepower.Contributions toPoliticalEconomy,24(1): 33–54.

Cox, T., &Nkomo, S.M. 1990. Invisiblemen andwomen:Astatus report on race as a variable in organization be-havior research. Journal ofOrganizational Behavior,11: 419–431.

Craypo, C., & Cormier, D. 2000. Job restructuring as adeterminant of wage inequality and working-poorhouseholds. Journal of Economic Issues, 34(1):21–42.

Crozier, M. 1964. The bureaucratic phenomenon. Chi-cago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Curl, H., Lareau, A., & Wu, T. 2018. Cultural conflict: Theimplications of changing dispositions among the up-wardly mobile. Sociological Forum, 33: 877–899.

Dacin,M. T.,Munir, K., &Tracey, P. 2010. Formal dining atCambridge colleges: Linking ritual performance andinstitutionalmaintenance.Academy ofManagementJournal, 53(6): 1393–1418.

Dale, K., & Burrell, G. 2008. The spaces of organisationand the organisation of space: Power, identity andmateriality at work. Basingstoke, UK: PalgraveMacmillan.

Davies-Netzley, S.A. 1998.Women above the glass ceiling.Gender & Society, 12(3): 339–355.

Davis, G. F. 2016. The vanishing American corporation:Navigating the hazards of a new economy. SanFrancisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler.

Davis, G. F., &Cobb, J. A. 2010. Corporations and economicinequality around the world: The paradox of hierar-chy. Research in Organizational Behavior, 30: 35–53.

Derks, B., Van Laar, C., & Ellemers, N. 2016. The queen beephenomenon: Why women leaders distance them-selves from junior women. The Leadership Quar-terly, 27: 456–469.

Desai, S. D., Chugh, D., & Brief, A. P. 2014. The implicationsof marriage structure for men’s workplace attitudes,beliefs, and behaviors toward women. AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 59(2): 330–365.

DiMaggio, P. 1992. Nadel’s paradox revisited: Relationaland cultural aspects of organizational structure. In N.Nohria, & R. G. Eccles (Eds.), Networks and organi-zations: 118–142. Boston: Harvard Business SchoolPress.

DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell,W. 1983. The iron cage revisited:Institutional isomorphism and collective rationalityin organizational fields. American Sociological Re-view, 48: 147–160.

Ding, W. W., Murray, F., & Stuart, T. E. 2013. From benchto board: Gender differences in university scientists’participation in corporate scientific advisory boards.Academy ofManagement of Journal, 56: 1443–1464.

DiPrete, T., & Soule, W. 1988. Gender and promotion insegmented job ladder systems. American Sociologi-cal Review, 53(1): 26–40.

DiTomaso, N. 2015. Racism and discrimination versusadvantage and favoritism: Bias for versus bias against.Research in Organizational Behavior, 35: 57–77.

DiTomaso, N., Post, C., Smith, D. R., Farris, G. F., &Cordero, R. 2007. Effects of structural position on al-location and evaluation decisions for scientists andengineers in industrial R&D. Administrative ScienceQuarterly, 52(2): 175–207.

Dobbin, F., Schrage, D., & Kalev, A. 2015. Rage against theiron cage: The varied effects of bureaucratic personnelreforms on diversity.American Sociological Review,80: 1014–1044.


Dolfsma,W., &Verburg, R. 2008. Structure, agency and therole of values in processes of institutional change.Journal of Economic Issues, 42: 1031–1054.

Dorling, D. 2011. Injustice. Why social inequality per-sists. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.

Dorling, D. 2014. Inequality and the 1%. London: Verso.

Dreher, G. F., & Cox Jr., T. H. 2000. Labor market mobilityand cash compensation: The moderating effects ofrace and gender. Academy of Management Journal,43: 890–900.

Dube, A., & Kaplan, E. 2010. Does outsourcing reducewages in the low-wage service occupations? Evidencefrom janitors and guards. Industrial & Labor Re-lations Review, 63: 287–306.

Due Billing, Y., & Alvesson, M. 2000. Questioning the no-tion of feminine leadership: A critical perspective onthe gender labelling of leadership.Gender,Work andOrganization, 7(3): 144–157.

Eden, L., & Lenway, S. 2001. Introduction to the sympo-sium. Multinationals: The Janus face of globalization.Journal of International Business Studies, 32(3):383–400.

Eitzen, D. S., & Smith, K. E. 2003. Experiencing poverty: Voi-ces fromthebottom.Belmont,CA:Thomson–Wadworth.

Elsaid, E., &Ursel, N. D. 2011. CEO succession, gender andrisk taking. Gender in Management: An Interna-tional Journal, 26(7): 499–512.

Ely, R. J. 1995. The power of demography:Women’s socialconstructions of gender identity at work.Academy ofManagement Journal, 3: 589–634.

Ely, R. J., Padavic, I., & Thomas, D. A. 2012. Racial diversity,racial asymmetries, and team learning environment:Effects on performance. Organization Studies, 33(3):241–362.

England, P., Reid, L. L., & Kilbourne, B. S. 1996. The effectof the sex composition of jobs on starting wages in anorganization: Findings from the NLSY. Demography,33(4): 511–521.

Etzkowitz, H., Kemelgor, C., & Uzzi, B. 2000. Athena un-bound: The advancement of women in science andtechnology.Cambridge,UK:CambridgeUniversityPress.

Fama, E., & Jensen, M. 1983. Separation of ownership andcontrol. Journal of Law and Economics, 26: 301–325.

Faniko, K., Ellemers, N., Derks, B., & Lorenzi-Cioldi, F.2017. ‘Nothing changes, really: Why women whobreak through the glass ceiling end up reinforcing it.’Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(5):638–651.

Fernandez, R. M. 2001. Skill-biased technological changeand wage inequality: Evidence from a plant retooling.American Journal of Sociology, 107(2): 273–320.

Fernandez, R. M., & Fernandez-Mateo, I. 2006. Networks,race, and hiring. American Sociological Review, 71:42–71.

Fernandez-Mateo, I. 2009. Cumulative gender disadvan-tage in contract employment. American Journal ofSociology, 114(4): 871–923.

Fine, D.,Manyika, J., Sjatil, P. E., Tacke, T., Tadjeddine, K.,& Desmond, M. 2019. Inequality: A persisting chal-lenge and its implications. New York: McKinseyGlobal Institute.

Folbre, N. 2012. Should women care less? Intrinsic moti-vation and gender inequality. British Journal of In-dustrial Relations, 50(4): 597–619.

Foschi, M. 2000. Double standards for competence: Theoryandresearch.AnnualReviewofSociology, 26(1): 21–42.

Fraser, J., & Kick, E. 2000. The interpretive repertoires ofwhites on race-targeted policies: Claims making ofreverse discrimination. Sociological Perspectives,43(1): 13–28.

Friedman, S., & Laurison, D. 2019. The class ceiling: Whyit pays to be privileged. Bristol, UK: Policy Press.

Friedman, S., & O’Brien, D. 2017. Resistance and resigna-tion: Responses to typecasting in British acting. Cul-tural Sociology, 11: 359–376.

Gatewood, R. D., Feild, H., & Barrick, M. 2008. Humanresource selection. Mason, OH: Thomson South-Western.

Gerson, K. 2010. The unfinished revolution: How a newgeneration is reshaping family, work, and gender inAmerica. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gerson, K., & Jacobs, J. A. 2004. The work-home crunch.Contexts, 3(4): 29–37.

Giuliano, L., Levine, D. I., & Leonard, J. 2009.Manager raceand the race of new hires. Journal of Labor Econom-ics, 27(4): 589–631.

GLAA. 2018. The nature and scale of Labour exploitationacrossall sectorswithin theUnitedKingdom. London:Gangmasters & Labour Abuse Authority. Available at:https://www.gla.gov.uk/media/3537/external-nature-and-scale-of-labour-exploitation-report-final-version-may-2018.pdf. Accessed September 9, 2018.

Glazer, N. 1991. Between a rock and hard place: Women’sprofessional organizations in nursing, and class, raceand ethnic inequalities.Gender andSociety, 5: 351–372.

Gray, B., & Kish-Gephart, J. J. 2013. Encountering socialclass differences at work: How “class work” perpetu-ates inequality. Academy of Management Review,38: 670–699.

Greenhaus, J. H., Parasuraman, S., &Wormtey, W. M. 1990.Effects of race on organizational experiences, job per-formance evaluations, and career outcomes.Academyof Management Journal, 33: 64–86.


https://www.gla.gov.uk/media/3537/external-nature-and-scale-of-labour-exploitation-report-final-version-may-2018.pdf



Haines, E., & Jost, J. 2000. Placating the powerless: Effectsof legitimate and illegitimate explanation on affect,memory, and stereotyping. Social Justice Research,13(3): 219–236.

Hallett, T. 2010. The myth incarnate: Recoupling pro-cesses, turmoil, and inhabited institutions in an urbanelementary school. American Sociological Review,75(1): 52–74.

Hamann, R., & Bertels, S. 2018. The institutional work ofexploitation: Employers’ work to create and perpetu-ate inequality. Journal of Management Studies, 55:394–423.

Hancock, P., & Spicer, A. 2011. Academic architecture andthe constitution of the new model worker. Cultureand Organization, 17: 91–105.

Hargreaves, D. 2019. Are chief executives overpaid?Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Haveman,H. A., & Beresford, L. S. 2012. ‘If you’re so smart,why aren’t you the boss?’ Explaining the persistentvertical gender gap in management. Annals of theAmerican Academy of Political and Social Science,639(1): 114–130.

Hayes, N., Introna, L. D. &Kelly, P. 2018. Institutionalizinginequality: Calculative practices and regimes of in-equality in international development. OrganizationStudies, 39: 1203–1226.

Heckman,D.D., Johnson, S.K., Foo,M.-D., &Yang,W.2017.Does diversity-valuing behavior result in diminishedperformance ratings for non-white and female leaders?Academy of Management Journal, 60(2): 771–797.

Hehenberger, L., Mair, J., &Metz, A. 2019. The assembly ofa field ideology: An idea-centric perspective on sys-temic power in impact investing. Academy of Man-agement Journal, in press.

Hinds, P., Liu, L., & Lyon, J. 2011. Putting the global inglobal work: An intercultural lens on the practice ofcross-national collaboration. Academy of Manage-ment Annals, 5(1): 135–188.

Hinings, C. R., & Greenwood, R. 2002. Disconnects andconsequences in organization theory.AdministrativeScience Quarterly, 47(3): 411–421.

Holvino, E. 2010. Intersections: The simultaneity of race,gender and class in organization studies. Gender,Work and Organization, 17(3): 248–277.

Huffman, M. L., Cohen, P. N., & Pearlman, J. 2010. Engen-dering change:Organizational dynamics andworkplacegender desegregation, 1975–2005. Administrative Sci-ence Quarterly, 55(2): 255–277.

Ilgen, D. R., & Youtz, M. A. 1986. Factors affecting theevaluation and development of minorities in organi-zations. In K. Rowland, & G. Ferris (Eds.), Research inpersonnel and human resource management: A re-search annual: 307–337. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Jacobs, J. A., & Gerson, K. 2005. The time divide: Work,family and gender inequality. Cambridge, MA: Har-vard University Press.

James, E. H. 2000. Race-related differences in promotionsand support: Underlying effects of human and socialcapital. Organization Science, 11(5): 493–508.

Jensen, M., & Meckling, W. 1976. Theory of the firm: Man-agerial behavior, agency costs, and ownership struc-ture. Journal of Financial Economics, 3: 305–360.

Joshi, A. 2014. By whom and when is women’s expertiserecognized? The interactive effects of gender and ed-ucation in science and engineering teams. Adminis-trative Science Quarterly, 59: 202–239.

Kalev,A. 2009.Cracking the glass cages?Restructuring andascriptive inequality at work. American Journal ofSociology, 114: 1591–1643.

Kalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. 2006. Best practices orbest guesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporateaffirmative action and diversity policies. AmericanSociological Review, 71: 589–617.

Kang, S. K., DeCelles, K. A., Tilcsik, A., & Jun, S. 2016. Whit-ened resumes: Race and self-presentation in the labormarket.Administrative Science Quarterly, 61: 1–34.

Kanter, R. M. 1977. Men and women of the corporation.New York: Basic Books.

Kanze, D., Huang, L., Conley, M. A., & Higgens, E. T. 2018.We ask men to win & women not to lose: Closing thegender gap in startup funding. Academy of Manage-ment Journal, 61: 586–614.

Keister, L. A. 2005. Getting rich: America’s new rich andhow they got that way. New York: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

Kelan, E. K. 2008. The discursive construction of genderin contemporary management literature. Journal ofBusiness Ethics, 81: 427–445.

Khan, F. R., Munir, K. A., &Willmott, H. 2007. A dark sideof institutional entrepreneurship: Soccer balls, childlabour and postcolonial impoverishment. Organiza-tion Studies, 28: 1055–1077.

Khurana, R. 2010. From higher aims to hired hands:The social transformation of American businessschools and theunfulfilledpromise ofmanagementas a profession. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UniversityPress.

Kimmel, M. S., Hearn, J., & Connell, R. 2005.Handbook ofstudies onmen&masculinities. Thousand Oaks, CA:Sage.

Kirsch, A. 2018. The gender composition of corporateboards: A review and research agenda. The Leader-ship Quarterly, 29(2): 346–364.

Kish-Gephart, J. J., & Campbell, J. T. 2015. You don’t for-get your roots: The influence of CEO social class


background on strategic risk taking. Academy ofManagement Journal, 58: 1614–1636.

Kmec, J. A. 2003. Minority concentration and wages. So-cial Problems, 50(1): 38–59.

Konrad, A. M., & Pfeffer, J. 1991. Understanding the hiringof women and minorities in educational institutions.Sociology of Education, 64(3): 141–157.

Kossek, E., & Lautsch, B. 2018. Work-life flexibility forwhom? Occupational status and work-life inequalityin upper, middle, and lower level jobs. Academy ofManagement Annals, 12: 5–36.

Lamont,M., &Molnar, V. 2002. The study of boundaries inthe social sciences. Annual Review of Sociology, 28:167–195.

Landsberger, H.A. 1958.Hawthorne revisited. Ithaca,NY:Cornell University Press.

Laurison, D., & Friedman, S. 2016. The class pay gap inhigher professional and managerial occupations.American Sociological Review, 81: 668–695.

Lautsch, B. A., & Scully, M. A. 2007. Restructuring time:Implications ofwork-hours reductions for theworkingclass. Human Relations, 60, 719–743.

Lawrence, T. B., & Suddaby, R. 2006. Institutions and in-stitutional work. In S. Clegg, W. R. Nord, & T. B.Lawrence (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of organiza-tion studies: 215–254. London: Sage.

Leana, C. R., &Meuris, J. 2015. Living towork andworkingto live: Income as a driver of organizational behavior.Academy of Management Annals, 9: 55–95.

Leana, C. R., Mittal, V., & Stiehl, E. 2012. Organizationalbehavior and the working poor. Organization Sci-ence, 23: 888–906.

Lee, S. Y., Pitesa, M., Thau, S., & Pillutla, M. M. 2015.Discrimination in selection decisions: Integratingstereotype fit and interdependence theories. Acad-emy of Management Journal, 58(3): 789–812.

Lessard, D., Teece, D., & Leih, S. 2016. The dynamic ca-pabilities of meta-multinationals. Global StrategyJournal, 6(3): 211–224.

Levitin, T., Quinn, R. P., & Staines, G. L. 1971. Sex dis-crimination against the American working woman.American Behavioral Scientist, 15: 238–254.

Levy, O., & Reiche, B. 2018. The politics of cultural capital:Social hierarchy and organizational architecture inthe multinational corporation. Human Relations,71(6): 867–894.

Liu, H. 2018. Re-radicalizing intersectionality in organi-zation studies. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Or-ganization, 18(1): 81–101.

Lount Jr., R. B., Sheldon, O. J., & Phillips, K. W. 2015. Bi-ased perceptions of racially diverse teams and their

consequences for resource support. OrganizationScience, 26(5): 1351–1364.

March, J. G. 2010. The ambiguities of experience. Ithaca,NY: Cornell University Press.

Markus, H. R. 2017. In this together: Doing and undoinginequality and social class divides. Journal of SocialIssues, 73: 211–221.

Marmot, M. 2015. The health gap: The challenge of anunequal world. London: Bloomsbury.

Marquis, C., & Raynard, M. 2015. Institutional strategies inemerging markets. The Academy of ManagementAnnals, 9(1): 291–335.

Martin, J. 2000. Hidden gendered assumption in main-stream organizational theory and research. Journal ofManagement Inquiry, 9(2): 207–216.

Martin, J., & Meyerson, D. 1998. Women and power: Con-formity, resistance and disorganised coaction. In R.Kramer, & M. Neale (Eds.), Power and influence inorganisations: 311–348. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Martorana, P., Galinsky, A. & Rao, H. 2005. From systemjustification to system condemnation: Antecedents ofattempts to change power hierarchies. In M. C.Thomas-Hunt (Ed.) Research onManaging in Teamsand Groups (pp.283–-313). Greenwich, CT: Elsevier.

Mayo, E. 1949. Hawthorne and the Western ElectricCompany: The social problems of an industrial civ-ilisation. London: Routledge.

McCarthy, L. & Moon, J. 2018. Disrupting the gender in-stitution: Conciousness-raising in the cocoa valuechain. Organization Studies, 39: 1153–-1177.

McCoy, S., & Major, B. 2007. Priming meritocracy and thepsychological justification of inequality. Journal ofExperimental Social Psychology, 43, 341–351.

McDonald,M. L., Keeves,G.D., &Westphal, J. D. 2018.Onestep forward, one step back: White male top managerorganizational identification and helping behaviortoward other executives following the appointment ofa female or racial minority CEO. Academy of Man-agement Journal, 61(2): 405–439.

McDonald, M. L., & Westphal, J. D. 2013. Access denied:Low Mentoring of women and minority first-time di-rectors and its negative effects on appointments toadditional boards. Academy of Management Jour-nal, 56(4): 1169–1198.

McFarland, L.A., Rya,A.M., Sacco, J.M., &Kriska, S. D. 2004.Examination of structured interview ratings across time:The effects of applicant race, rater race, and panel com-position. Journal of Management, 30(4): 435–452.

McGinn, K., & Milkman, K. L. 2012. Looking up andlooking out: Career mobility effects of demographicsimilarity among professionals. Organization Sci-ence, 24(4): 1041–1060.


McIntosh, P. 1995. White privilege and male privilege: Apersonal account of coming to see correspondencesthrough work in women’s studies. In M. L. Andersen,& P. H. Collins (Eds.), Race, class, and gender: Ananthology (2nd ed.) 76–87. Belmont, CA:Wadsworth.

McKinsey. 2018. Solving the productivity puzzle: Therole of demand and the promise of digitization. NewYork: McKinsey Global Institute.

McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. 2001. Birdsof a feather: Homophily in social networks. AnnualReview of Sociology, 27: 415–444.

Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. 1977. Institutionalized organi-zations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony.American Journal of Sociology, 83(2): 340–363.

Meyerson, D. E., & Kolb, D. M. 2000. Moving out of the‘armchair’: Developing a framework to bridge the gapbetween feminist theory and practice. Organization,7: 553–571.

Mirchandani, K. 1999. Feminist insight on gendered work:New directions in research on women and entrepreneur-ship.Gender, Work andOrganization, 6(4): 224–235.

Mishel, L., Bernstein, J. & Boushey, H. 2003. The state ofworking America 2002/2003. Ithaca, NY: CornellUniversity Press.

Mishel, L., & Schieder, J. 2017. CEO pay remains highrelative to the pay of typical workers and high-wageearners. Washington, DC: Economic Policy Institute.Retrieved from https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-remains-high-relative-to-the-pay-of-typical-workers-and-high-wage-earners/. Accessed June 7, 2019.

Mishel, L., & Wolfe, J. 2019. CEO compensation hasgrown 940% since 1978. Washington, DC: EconomicPolicy Institute.

Mithani, M. A., & Mooney Murphy, A. 2017. It’s not soblack andwhite after all: Black first name bias persistsregardless of race and rank. Academy of Manage-ment Proceedings. 1: 16637.

Moore, G. 1988. Women in elite positions: Insiders oroutsiders? Sociological Forum, 3: 566–85.

Munir,K.,Ayaz,M., Levy,D.L.,&Willmott,H. 2018.The roleof intermediaries in governance of global productionnetworks: Restructuring work relations in Pakistan’sapparel industry.Human Relations, 71(4): 560–583.

Munir, K. A., Naqvi, N., & Usmani, A. 2015. The abjectcondition of labor in Pakistan. International Laborand Working-Class History, 87: 174–183.

Muzio, D., & Tomlinson, J. 2012. Researching gender, in-clusion and diversity in contemporary professionsand professional organizations. Gender, Work & Or-ganization, 19(5): 455–466.

Neville, F., Forrester , J. K., O’Toole, J., & Riding, A. 2018.Why even bother trying? Examining discouragement

among racial‐minority entrepreneurs. Journal ofManagement Studies, 55(3): 424–456.

Nkomo, S.M. 1992. TheEmperor has no clothes: Rewriting“race in organizations.” Academy of ManagementReview, 17: 487–513.

ONS. 2019. EMP17: People in employment on zero hourscontracts. London: Office for National Statistics. Availableathttps://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/emp17peopleinemploymentonzerohourscontracts.Accessed September 18, 2019.

Oxfam. 2019. Public good or private wealth? Oxford:Oxfam.

O’Brien, D., Allen, K., Friedman, S., & Saha, A. 2017. Pro-ducing and consuming inequality: A cultural soci-ology of the cultural industries. Cultural Sociology,11: 271–282.

Pager, D., & Pedulla, D. S. 2015. Race, self-selection, andthe job search process. American Journal of Sociol-ogy, 120: 1005–1054.

Pattisson, P. 2015.Aidmoney for development projects inNepal linked to child labour. The Guardian, 12February. Available at www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/feb/12/aid-money-development-projects-nepalchild-labour?CMP5share_btn_link.Accessed February 12, 2015.

Pedulla, D. S., & Thebaud, S. 2015. Can we finish the revolu-tion? Gender, work-family ideals, and institutional con-straint.American Sociological Review, 80(1): 116–139.

Perry, E., Davis-Blake, A., & Kulik, C. 1994. Explaininggender-based selection decisions: A synthesis of con-textual and cognitive approaches. Academy of Man-agement Review, 19(4): 786–820.

Petersen, T., & Saporta, I. 2004. The opportunity structurefor discrimination. American Journal of Sociology,109(4): 852–901.

Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. 2006. Interpersonal re-lations and group processes: A meta-analytic test ofintergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology, 90(5): 751–783.

Pew Research Center. 2015. The American middle class islosingground.Availableat:https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/. Accessed September 2, 2019.

Pfeffer, J. 2015. Leadership BS: Fixing workplaces andcareers one truth at a time. NewYork:HarperCollins.

Piketty, T. 2014. Capital in the twenty-first century.Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.

Powell, G. N., & Butterfield, D. A. 1997. Effect of raceon promotions to top management in a federal de-partment. Academy of Management Journal, 40(1):112–128.


https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-remains-high-relative-to-the-pay-of-typical-workers-and-high-wage-earners/



https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/emp17peopleinemploymentonzerohourscontracts



http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/feb/12/aid-money-development-projects-nepalchild-labour?CMP=share_btn_link




https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/12/09/the-american-middle-class-is-losing-ground/



Powell, W. W., & Brandtner, C. 2016. Organizations as sitesand drivers of social action. In S. Abrutyn (Ed.), Hand-book of contemporary sociological theory: 269–291.Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.

Puwar, N. 2001. The racialised somatic norm and the se-nior civil service. Sociology, 35(3): 651–670.

Puwar, N. 2004. Space invaders: Race, gender and bod-ies out of place. London: Berg.

Quillian, L., Pager, D., Hexel, O., & Midtbøen, A. H. 2017.Meta-analysis of field experiments shows no changein racial discrimination in hiring over time. Pro-ceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,114(41), 10870–10875.

Ranganathan, A. 2018. Train them to retain them: Workreadiness and the retention of first-time womenworkers in India.Administrative Science Quarterly,63(4): 879–909.

Rao, A., & Kelleher, D. 2003. Institutions, organisationsand gender equality in an era of globalisation.Genderand Development, 11(1): 142–149.

Reich, M. 1981. Racial inequality. Princeton, NJ: Prince-ton University Press.

Reich. R. 2014. How business schools can help reduceinequality. Harvard Business Review. Available athttps://hbr.org/2014/09/how-business-schools-can-help-reduce-inequality. Accessed October 1, 2014.

Reskin, B. F. 1988. Bringing the men back in: Sex differ-entiation and the devaluation of women’s work.Gender & Society, 2(1): 58–81.

Reskin, B. F. 2000. Getting it right: Sex and race inequalityin work organizations. Annual Review of Sociology,26: 707–709.

Reskin, B. F., & Bielby, D. D. 2005. A sociological per-spective on gender and career outcomes. Journal ofEconomic Perspectives, 19(1): 71–86.

Reskin, B. F., McBrier, D. B., & Kmec, J. A. 1999. The de-terminants and consequences of workplace sex and racecomposition.AnnualReviewofSociology, 25: 335–361.

Rhoton, L. A. 2011. Distancing as a gendered barrier.Gender & Society, 25(6): 696–716.

Riaz, S. 2015. Bringing inequality back in: The economicinequality footprint of management and organiza-tional practices.Human Relations, 68(7): 1085–1097.

Ridgeway, C. L. 1997. Interaction and the conservation ofgender inequality: Considering employment. Ameri-can Sociological Review, 62(2): 218–235.

Ridgeway, C. L. 2011. Framed by gender: How genderinequality persists in the modern world. Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Ridgeway, C. L. 2014. Why status matters for inequality.American Sociological Review, 79(1): 1–16.

Ridgeway, C. L., &Correll, S. J. 2004.Unpacking the gendersystem. Gender & Society, 18(4): 510–531.

Rivera, L. A. 2012. Hiring as cultural matching. AmericanSociological Review, 77(6): 999–1022.

Rivera, L. A. 2015. Go with your gut: Emotion and evalu-ation in job interviews. American Journal of Sociol-ogy, 120: 1339–1389.

Rivera, L. A., & Tilcsik, A. 2016. Class advantage, com-mitment penalty. American Sociological Review,81(6): 1097–1131.

Rubineau, B., & Fernandez, R. M. 2015. Tipping points:The gender segregating and desegregating effects ofnetwork recruitment. Organization Science, 26(6):1646–1664.

Saha, A. 2017. The politics of race in cultural distribution:Addressing inequalities in British Asian theatre. Cul-tural Sociology, 11: 302–317.

Sassen, S. 1996. Service employment regimes and the newinequality. In E. Mingione (Ed.), Urban poverty andthe underclass: A reader: 64–82. Oxford: Blackwell.

Savage,M. 2015.Social class in the 21st century. London:Pelican books.

Scully, M. A., & Blake-Beard, S. 2006. Locating class inorganisational diversity work. In A. M. Konrad, P.Prasad, & J. K. Pringle (Eds.),Handbook ofworkplacediversity: 431–454. London: Sage.

Semyonov, M., & Herring, C. 2007. Segregated jobs orethnic niches? The impact of racialized employmenton earnings inequality. Research in Social Stratifi-cation and Mobility, 25: 245–257.

Sennett, R., & Cobb, J. 1972. The hidden injuries of class.New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Sherf, E. N., Tangirala, S., &Weber, K. C. 2017. It is not myplace! Psychological standing and men’s voice andparticipation in gender-parity initiatives.’ Organiza-tion Science, 28(2): 193–210.

Sherman, R. 2017. Uneasy street: The anxieties of influ-ence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Shin, T. 2009. Earnings inequality within organizations.Social Science Research, 38(1): 225–238.

Skeggs, B. 1997. Formations of class & gender: Becomingrespectable. London: Sage.

Sliwa, M., & Johansson, M. 2014. The discourse of meri-tocracy contested/reproduced: Foreign women aca-demics in UK business schools. Organization, 21(6):821–843.

Sørensen, J. B. 2004. The racial demography of racial em-ployment segregation. American Journal of Sociol-ogy, 110: 626–671.

Stainback, K., Kleiner, S., & Skaggs, S. 2016. Women inpower. Gender & Society, 30(1): 109–135.


https://hbr.org/2014/09/how-business-schools-can-help-reduce-inequality

https://hbr.org/2014/09/how-business-schools-can-help-reduce-inequality

Stainback, K., & Tomaskovic-Devey, D. 2012. Document-ingdesegregation: Racial andgender segregation inprivate-sector employment since the civil rights act.New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

Stainback, K., Tomaskovic-Devey, D., & Skaggs, S. 2010.Organizational approaches to inequality: Inertia, rel-ative power and environments. Annual Review ofSociology, 36: 225–247.

Stephens, N. M., Markus, H. R., & Townsend, S. M. 2007.Choice as an act of meaning: The case of social class.Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93:814–830.

Stern, R. N., & Barley, S. R. 1996. Organizations and socialsystems: Organization theory’s neglected mandate.Administrative Science Quarterly, 41: 146–162.

Stiglitz, J. 2013.Theprice of inequality. London: Penguin.

Stoll, M. A., Raphael, S., & Holzer, H. J. 2004. Black jobapplicants and the hiring officer’s race. Industrial andLabor Relations Review, 57(2): 267–287.

The Economist. 2019. Big business is beginning to acceptbroader social responsibilities. The Economist. Au-gust 22.

Thebaud, S. 2015. Status beliefs and the spirit of capital-ism:Accounting for genderbiases in entrepreneurshipand innovation. Social Forces, 94(1): 61–86.

Thebaud, S., & Pedulla, D. S. 2016. Masculinity and thestalled revolution.Gender & Society, 30(4): 590–617.

Tilly, C. 1998. Durable inequality. Los Angeles, CA:University of California Press.

Tolbert, P. S., & Castilla, E. J. 2017. Editorial essay. ILRReview, 70(1): 3–15.

Townsley, N. C. 2003. Review article: Looking back,looking forward. mapping the gendered theories,voices, and politics of organization. Organization,10(3): 617–639.

Trump, K.-S. 2018. Income inequality influences percep-tions of legitimate income differences.British Journalof Political Science, 48(4): 929–952.

Vallas, S. P. 2003.Rediscovering the color linewithinworkorganizations: The ‘knitting of racial groups’ revisited.Work and Occupations, 30(4): 379–400.

Veblen, T. B. 1898. Why is economics not an evolutionaryscience?Quarterly Journal of Economics, 12: 373–397.

Venkateswaran, R., &Ojha, A. 2017. Strategicmanagementresearchonemerging economiesCultural imperialismin universalizing research. Critical Perspectives onInternational Business, 13(3): 204–225.

Viator, R. E. 2001. An examination of african Americans’access to public accounting mentors: Perceived bar-riers and intentions to leave. Accounting, Organiza-tions and Society, 26(6): 541–561.

Wacquant, L. J. D. 1996. Red belt, black belt: Racial di-vision, class inequality and the state in the Frenchurban periphery and the American ghetto. In E.Mingione (Ed.),Urbanpoverty and theunderclass:Areader: 234–274. Oxford: Blackwell.

Waldman, D. A., & Avolio, B. J. 1991. Race effects in per-formance evaluations: Controlling for ability, educa-tion, and experience. Journal of Applied Psychology,76: 897–901.

Wasserman, V., & Frenkel, M. 2015. Spatial work in be-tween glass ceilings and glass walls: Gender-classintersectionality and organizational aesthetics. Or-ganization Studies, 36(11): 1485–1505.

Weisshaar, K. 2018. From opt out to blocked out: Thechallenges for labor market re-entry after family-related employment lapses. American SociologicalReview 83: 34–60.

Westphal, J. D., & Stern, I. 2007. Flattery will get you ev-erywhere (especially if you are a male Caucasian):How ingratiation, boardroom behavior, and demo-graphic minority status affect additional board ap-pointments atU.S. companies.AcademyofManagementJournal, 50: 267–288.

Westwood, R., & Jack, G. 2007. Manifesto for a post-colonial international business and managementstudies: A provocation. Critical Perspectives on In-ternational Business, 3(3): 246–265.

Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. 2010. The spirit level: Whyequality is better for everyone. London: PenguinBooks.

Williams, C. 1992. The glass escalator: Hidden advantagesformen in the “female”professions.Social Problems,39(3): 253–267.

Williams, C. 1995. Still a man’s world: Men who do‘women’s work’. Berkeley, CA: University of Cal-ifornia Press.

Williams, C. L. 2013. The glass elevator, revisited: Genderinequality in neoliberal times. Gender & Society, 27:609–629.

Williams, C. L., & Connell, C. 2010. Looking good andsounding right: Aesthetic labor and social inequalityin the retail industry. Work and Occupations, 37:349–377.

Williams, C. L., Muller, C., & Kilanski, K. 2012. Genderedorganizations in the neweconomy.Gender&Society,26: 549–573.

Williamson, O. E. 1981. The economics of organization:The transaction cost approach. American Journal ofSociology, 87: 548–577.

Willmott, H. 2015. Why institutional theory cannot becritical. Journal of Management Inquiry, 24(1):105–111.


Wingfield, A. H. 2009. Racializing the glass escalator:Reconsidering men’s experiences with women’swork. Gender & Society, 23: 5–26.

Yang, T., & Aldrich, H. E. 2014. ‘Who’s the boss? Explain-ing gender inequality in entrepreneurial teams.American Sociological Review, 79(2): 303–327.

Young, M. 1958. The rise of the meritocracy. London:Thames and Hudson.

Yuen, N.W. 2016.Reel inequality: Hollywood actors andracism. London: Rutgers University Press.

Zuckerman, E.W., Kim, T.-Y., Ukanwa, K., & von Rittman,J. 2003. Robust identities or nonentities? Typecastingin the feature-film labor market.American Journal ofSociology, 108(5): 1018–1074.

Zweig, M. 2004. Introduction: The challenge of work-ing class studies. In M. Zweig (Ed.), What’s classgot to do with it? American society in the twenty-first century: 1–18. Ithaca, NY: Cornell UniversityPress.

John M. Amis ([email protected]) is Professor of Strate-gic Management and Organisation, Chair of the StrategyGroup and Co-Director of the Centre for Strategic Leader-ship at the University of Edinburgh Business School. Hisresearch interests center on issues of large-scale organiza-tional, institutional and social change.

Johanna Mair ([email protected]) is a Professor ofOrganization, Strategy andLeadership at theHertie Schoolin Berlin. She also directs the Global Innovation for ImpactLab at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil So-ciety. Her research examines how organizations tacklesocietal challenges and alter institutional contexts. Shereceived her PhD in Management from INSEAD.

Kamal A. Munir ([email protected]) teaches at theUniversity of Cambridge’s Judge Business School. Hisworkhas appeared in several leading journals andhasbeenquoted in numerous media outlets ranging from the WallStreet Journal to the BBC. He has acted as a consultant tomany private and public-sector organizations as well asgovernments.


mailto:[email protected]



APPENDIX

A

TABLEA1

Literature

ProvidingInsigh

tinto

thePractices

that

Rep

roduce

Ineq

ualityin

Organ

izations

Hiring

RoleAlloc

ation

Promotion

Organ

izational

Structuring

Com

pen

sation

Ack

er(199

0,20

06),Ash

leyet

al.

(201

5),B

aron

(198

4),B

erry

&Bell(20

12),Bou

dreau

etal.

(200

1),B

rands&Fernan

dez

-Mateo

(201

7),C

astilla(200

8),

Castro&Holvino(201

6),

Coh

en&Broschak

(201

3),

DiM

aggio(199

2),D

iTom

aso

(201

5),D

iTom

asoet

al.(20

07),

Fernan

dez

&Fernan

dez

-Mateo

(200

6),F

ried

man

&Lau

rison(201

9),F

ried

man

&O’Brien

(201

7),G

atew

ood

etal.(20

08),Giulian

o,Lev

ine,

&Leo

nard(200

9),G

lazer

(199

1),K

anget

al.(20

16),

Kan

ter(197

7),K

onrad&

Pfeffer

(199

1),L

aurison&

Fried

man

(201

6),L

ee,P

itesa,

Thau

,&Pillutla(201

5),

McF

arlandet

al.(20

04),Pag

er&Ped

ulla(201

5),P

erry,D

avis-

Blake

,&Kulik(199

4),P

etersen

&Sap

orta

(200

4),Q

uillian

etal.(20

17),Reskin(198

8,20

00),Reskin&Bielby(200

5),

Rivera(201

2,20

15),Rivera&

Tilcsik

(201

6),R

ubinea

u&

Fernan

dez

(201

5),S

avage

(201

5),S

øren

sen(200

4),S

toll,

Rap

hael,&Holze

r(200

4),

Wac

quan

t(19

96),W

eisshaa

r(201

8),W

illiam

s(201

3),

William

set

al.(20

12),Yuen

(201

6)

Ack

er(199

0,20

06),Ash

craft

(201

3),B

apuji(201

5),B

aron

(198

4),B

aron

&Pfeffer

(199

4),

Beckm

an&Phillips(200

5),

Bidwelle

tal.(201

3),B

rands&

Kilduff(201

3),C

ardad

or(201

7),C

astro&Holvino

(201

6),C

ha(201

0),C

han

&Anteby

(201

6),C

harles&

Grusky(200

4),C

obb(201

6),

Cote(201

1),C

rayp

o&Cormier

(200

0),D

acin

etal.(20

10),Dale

&Burrell(20

08),Ding,

Murray

,&Stuart(20

13),

DiTom

asoet

al.(20

07),Ely

(199

5),F

ried

man

&O’Brien

(201

7),G

ray&Kish-G

ephart

(201

3),H

anco

ck&Spicer

(201

1),K

elan

(200

8),K

ish-

Gep

hart&

Cam

pbe

ll(201

5),

Kon

rad&Pfeffer

(199

1),

Kossek&Lau

tsch

(201

8),

Lea

naet

al.(20

12),Liu

(201

8),

Marmot

(201

5),M

artin(200

0),

Mey

erson&Kolb(200

0),

Munir,N

aqvi,&

Usm

ani

(201

5,20

18),Nev

ille

etal.

(201

8),N

komo(199

2),

O’Brien

,Allen

,Fried

man

,&Sah

a(201

7),R

anga

nathan

(201

8),R

eich

(198

1),R

eskin&

Bielby(200

5),R

iaz(201

5),

Rivera(201

2,20

15),Rivera&

Tilcsik

(201

6),S

avage(201

5),

Sassen(199

6),T

heb

aud

(201

5),T

illy

(199

8),W

acqu

ant

(199

6),W

asserm

an&Frenke

l(201

5),Y

uen

(201

6),

Zuck

erman

etal.,(200

3),

Zweig(200

4)

Ack

er(198

9,19

90,2

000),

Atewolog

un,S

ealy,&

Vinnicom

be(201

6),B

abco

ck&Lasch

ever

(200

3),B

aron

(198

4),B

eckm

an&Phillips

(200

5),B

lair-Loy

&W

harton

(200

4),B

ull&Sch

arff(201

7),

Calas

&Smircich

(199

1,20

06),

Castilla(201

8),C

ohen

&Huffman

(200

7),C

ook&Glass

(201

4a,2

014b

),Dav

ies-

Netzley

(199

8),D

erks,V

anLaa

r,&Ellem

ers(201

6),

DiTom

aso(201

5),D

iTom

aso

etal.(20

07),Elsaid&Ursel

(201

1),E

ly(199

5),F

aniko,

Ellem

ers,Derks,&

Loren

zi-

Cioldi(20

17),Fried

man

&Lau

rison(201

9),G

reen

hau

set

al.(19

90),Huffman

etal.

(201

0),Jam

es(200

0),Joshi

(201

4),K

anter(197

7),K

irsch

(201

8),K

ish-G

ephart&

Cam

pbe

ll(201

5),K

onrad&

Pfeffer

(199

1),L

aurison&

Fried

man

(201

6),L

evitin,

Quinn,&

Staines

(197

1),L

evy

&Reich

e(201

8),L

iu(201

8),

Martorana,

Galinsky,

&Rao

(200

5),M

cDon

ald,K

eeve

s,&

Westphal

(201

8),M

cDon

ald&

Westphal

(201

3),M

cGinn&

Milkm

an(201

2),M

oore

(198

8),N

komo(199

2),P

ager

&Ped

ulla(201

5),P

owell&

Butterfield(199

7),P

uwar

(200

1,20

04),Rivera(201

5),

Rivera&Tilcsik

(201

6),S

avag

e(201

5),S

tainba

cket

al.(20

16),

Viator(200

1),W

aldman

&Avo

lio(199

1),W

estphal

&

Ack

er(199

0,20

00,2

006),A

cker

&Van

Hou

ten(197

4),

Alderfer,Alderfer,Tuck

er,&

Tuck

er(198

0),A

mis

etal.

(201

7,20

18),Ash

craft(20

13),

Ash

leyet

al.(20

15),Baron

&Bielby(198

0),B

ell&

Nko

mo

(200

1),B

lick

enstaff(20

05),

Bou

rdieu(197

7,19

84),Bull&

Sch

arff(201

7),B

urgin

(201

2),

Calas

&Smircich

(200

6),

Cardad

or(201

7),C

astro&

Holvino(201

6),C

atalyst

(199

9),C

ha(201

0),C

han

&Anteby

(201

6),C

hesley(201

7),

Cob

b(201

6),C

obb&Steve

ns

(201

7),C

ockb

urn

(198

5),C

ote

(201

1),C

ox&Nko

mo(199

0),

Crayp

o&Cormier(20

00),Dale

&Burrell(20

08),Dav

is&Cob

b(201

0),D

esai

etal.(20

14),

Dob

binetal.(20

15),DiTom

aso

(201

5),D

iTom

asoet

al.(20

07),

Dube

&Kap

lan(201

0),D

ue

Billing&Alvesson(200

0),

Eitzen&Smith(200

3),E

ly(199

5),E

ly,P

adav

ic,&

Thom

as(201

2),E

nglan

det

al.

(199

6),E

tzko

witzet

al.(20

00),

Fernan

dez

(200

1),F

olbre

(201

2),F

ried

man

&O’Brien

(201

7),G

erson(201

0),G

erson

&Jaco

bs(200

4),G

ray&Kish-

Gep

hart(20

13),Ham

ann&

Bertels

(201

8),H

avem

an&

Beresford

(201

2),H

eckm

anet

al.(20

17),Holvino(201

0),

Ilge

n&You

tz(198

6),Jac

obs&

Gerson(200

5),Jam

es(200

0),

Kalev

(200

9),K

alev

etal.

(200

6),K

anter(197

7),K

eister

Abrah

am(201

7),A

cker

(198

9,19

90,2

006),A

lamgir&

Alaka

vuklar

(201

8),A

lamgir&

Cairns(201

5),A

ldrich

&Buch

ele(198

6),A

tkinsonetal.

(201

1),B

apujiet

al.(20

18),

Baron

&Bielby(198

0),B

aron

&Pfeffer

(199

4),B

ecke

ret

al(201

7),B

erry

(200

9),B

erry

&Bell(20

12),Bidwelle

tal.

(201

3),B

ielby&Bielby(198

4,19

88),Botelho&Abrah

am(201

7),B

riscoe

&Josh

i(20

17),

Castilla(200

8,20

15),Castilla

&Ben

ard(201

0),C

astro&

Holvino(201

6),C

han

&Anteby

(201

6),C

obb(201

6),

Cob

b&Lin

(201

7),C

obb&

Steve

ns(201

7),C

ote(201

1),

Crayp

o&Cormier(200

0),

Dav

is&Cob

b(201

0),D

iPrete

&Sou

le(198

8),D

reher

&Cox

(200

0),D

ube

&Kap

lan(201

0),

Englan

det

al.(19

96),

Fernan

dez

-Mateo

(200

9),

Fosch

i(20

00),Fried

man

&Lau

rison(201

9),H

aman

n&

Bertels

(201

8),H

argrea

ves

(201

9),Jac

obs&Gerson(200

5),

Kan

ze,H

uan

g,Con

ley,

&Higge

ns(201

8),K

mec

(200

3),

Lau

rison&Fried

man

(201

6),

Lau

tsch

&Scu

lly(200

7),L

eana

&Meu

ris(201

5),L

eanaet

al.

(201

2),M

armot

(201

5),

Mishel,B

ernstein,&

Bou

shey

(200

3),M

ishel

&Sch

ieder

(201

7),M

ithan

i&Moo

ney

Murphy(201

7),M

uniret

al.

(201

5,20

18),Muzio&

Tom

linson(201

2),M

eyerson


TABLEA1

(Con

tinued

)

Hiring

RoleAlloc

ation

Promotion

Organ

izational

Structuring

Com

pen

sation

Stern

(200

7),W

ingfield

(200

9),Y

ang&Aldrich

(201

4)(200

5),K

immel,H

earn,&

Con

nell(20

05),Lam

ont&

Molnar

(200

2),L

aurison&

Fried

man

(201

6),L

eanaet

al.

(201

2),L

ount,Sheldon

,&Phillips(201

5),M

arku

s(201

7),M

armot

(201

5),M

artin

(200

0),M

artin&Mey

erson

(199

8),M

cDon

aldetal.(20

18),

McIntosh

(199

5),M

cPherson,

Smith-Lov

in,&

Coo

k(200

1),

Mey

erson&Kolb(200

0),

Mirch

andan

i(19

99),Muzio&

Tom

linson(201

2),N

komo

(199

2),O

’Brien

etal.(20

17),

Pag

er&Ped

ulla(201

5),

Petersen&Sap

orta

(200

4),

Pettigrew

&Tropp(200

6),

Puwar

(200

1,20

04),Rao

&Kelleher

2003

),Rhoton

(201

1),

Riaz(201

5),R

idge

way

(199

7,20

11,2

014),S

aha(201

7),

Sassen(199

6),S

avag

e(201

5),

Scu

lly&Blake

-Bea

rd(200

6),

Sen

nett&

Cob

b(197

2),S

herf,

Tan

girala,&

Web

er(201

7),

Sherman

(201

7),S

keggs

(199

7),S

tainba

ck&

Tom

asko

vic-Dev

ey(201

2),

Stainba

ck,T

omasko

vic-

Dev

ey,&

Ska

ggs(201

0,20

16),

Stephen

s,Marku

s,&

Tow

nsend(200

7),T

heb

aud

(201

5),T

heb

aud&Ped

ulla

(201

6),T

illy

(199

8),T

ownsley

(200

3),T

rump(201

8),V

allas

(200

3),V

iator(200

1),

Wasserm

an&Frenke

l(20

15),

William

s(199

2,19

95),

William

s&Con

nell(20

10),

Yuen

(201

6)

&Kolb(200

0),P

etersen&

Sap

orta

(200

4),P

iketty

(201

4),

Reskin(200

0),R

eskin&Bielby

(200

5),R

iaz(201

5),R

idge

way

&Correll(200

4),S

avag

e(201

5),S

emyo

nov

&Herring

(200

7),S

hin

(200

9),S

tiglitz

(201

3),W

estphal

&Stern

(200

7),W

illiam

s(201

3),

William

set

al.(20

12)


the organizational reproduction of inequality · 2019-12-03 · of these practices, and the...

Documents