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Universities and colleges often engage in initiatives aimed at enrolling students from diverse demographic groups. Although substantial research has explored the impact of such diversity initiatives, less understood is the extent to which certain application strategies may continue to favor historically privileged groups, especially white men, as they seek admission to selective programs. With this study, I begin to address this gap by investigating the gender and racial implications of application endorsements—a common, often informal, network practice of signaling support for certain applicants that is shown to significantly boost an applicant’s chances of admission. Using unique data on the applicants and matriculants to a full-time MBA program at one elite U.S. business school, I first assess whether the endorsement advantage differs across demographic groups. Building on the social networks, selection, and inequality literatures, I then identify and test three key theoretical mechanisms by which the endorsement process may potentially benefit white men more than women and racial minorities. Although I do not find evidence in the studied program that the application endorsement is valued differently by key admissions officers or that it provides a different quality signal depending on the applicant’s gender or race, I do find that white men are significantly more likely than women and minorities to receive application endorsements. I conclude by discussing the implications of this study for understanding how gender and racial differences in accessing advantageous (often informal) network processes may undermine organizational efforts to achieve demographic equality and diversity. Funding: Financial support from the James S. Hardigg (1945) Work and Employment Fund and the MIT Sloan School of Management is gratefully acknowledged.

When screening candidates, organizations often give preference to certain applicants on the basis of their familial ties. This “legacy preference,” particularly widespread in college admissions, has been criticized for contributing to inequality and class reproduction. Despite this, studies continue to report that legacies are persistently admitted at higher rates than non-legacies. In this article, we develop a theoretical framework of three distinct sense-making strategies at play when decision-makers screen applicants into their organizations—the meritocratic, material, and diversity logics. We then apply this framework to investigate how legacy preferences either support or undermine each organizational logic using comprehensive data on the population of applicants seeking admission into one elite U.S. college. We find strong support for the material logic at the cost of the other two organizational logics: legacies make better alumni after graduation and have wealthier parents who are materially-positioned to be more generous donors than non-legacy parents. Contrary to the meritocratic logic, we find that legacies are neither more qualified applicants nor better students academically. From a diversity standpoint, legacies are less racially diverse than non-legacies. We conclude with a discussion of our study’s implications for understanding the role of family relationships and nepotism in today’s organizational selection processes.

Copyright: © 2020 INFORMS In this article, we develop a process model that specifies how managers come to understand and approach the evaluation of merit in the workplace. Interviews from a diverse sample of managers and from managers at a U.S. technology company, along with supplemental qualitative online review data, reveal that managers are not blank slates: we find that individuals' understandings of merit are shaped by their (positive and negative) experiences of being evaluated as employees prior to promotion to management. Our analysis also identifies two distinct managerial approaches to applying merit when evaluating others: the focused approach, in which managers evaluate employees' work actions quantitatively at the individual level; and the diffuse approach in which managers assess both employees' work actions and personal qualities, quantitatively and qualitatively, at both the individual and team levels. We further find that, as a result of their different past experiences as subjects of evaluation, individuals who experience mostly negative evaluation outcomes as employees are more likely to adopt a focused approach to evaluating merit, whereas individuals who experience mostly positive evaluation outcomes are more likely to adopt a diffuse approach. Our study contributes to the scholarship on meritocracy and workplace inequality by showing that merit is not an abstract concept but a guiding principle that is produced and reproduced over time based on individuals' evaluation experiences in the workplace.

While scholars have shown that well-connected applicants are advantaged in selection processes, less understood is whether such applicants produce important returns to the organization when key decision makers favor them. We begin to address this gap by investigating whether and why application endorsements―an informal practice whereby certain individuals (i.e., endorsers) advocate for particular applicants―affect organizational selection during the screening of applicants. Through the analysis of the population of 21,324 applicants to a full-time MBA program over a seven-year period, we find that even after controlling for individual qualifications and competencies, endorsed applicants are advantaged over non-endorsed applicants in admissions interview and offer decisions. In seeking to explain this advantage, we develop and test four key theoretical explanations pertaining to the potential returns on application endorsements for the organization. We find inconsistent evidence that endorsed applicants are “better qualified” compared with non-endorsed applicants during screening: while endorsed applicants are sometimes assessed to be stronger “on paper,” they generally receive lower competency assessments than non-endorsed applicants later, during the admissions interviews. Further, our analysis of data on matriculating MBA students reveals that those endorsed as applicants are not “better performers” academically (measured by grade point average) or in the job market after graduation (measured by full-time salaries or signing bonuses) compared with non-endorsed individuals. In contrast, individuals endorsed as applicants appear to be “better citizens” upon joining the organization—in our research setting, they are more likely to participate in student club leadership roles than non-endorsed individuals. We also find that they are “better alumni”―that is, they make larger monetary donations to the school after graduating than their non-endorsed counterparts. We conclude with implications for understanding the impact of application endorsements on labor and educational markets.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants seek legal employment in the United States. Similar to many developed countries, the United States has established immigration policies to protect its citizens’ employment. This study empirically assesses, for the first time, the relationship between U.S. workers’ unemployment rates and immigrant work authorization outcomes, as determined by one key U.S. immigration program—the labor certification process. This program explicitly requires that no willing and qualified U.S. worker be available for the job position offered to a foreign worker. Through the analysis of 40 months of labor certification requests evaluated by U.S. Department of Labor agents, the authors find that, ironically, immigrant labor certification approvals are more likely when the quantity of unemployed U.S. workers within an occupation is high, ceteris paribus. Further, because of the U.S. government’s procedure of auditing applications, the authors are able to assess approval differences when government agents reach similar labor certification decisions using 1) employers’ accounts of their own compliance (e.g., “attestations”) or 2) supporting documentation collected when employers are audited. Only for evaluations of audited applications, in support of the literature on accounts and regulation, are approvals less likely when unemployment is high. The authors conclude by discussing the implications of their findings for theories and policies concerning labor market regulation, immigration, and employment.

The notion of social capital has been applied to disparate phenomena ranging from job search to economic development. In this chapter, the authors argue that a common organizational practice—hiring new workers via employee referrals—provides key insights into the notion of social capital. They examine social-capital investments and returns from the perspective of the employer. The authors also argue that employers who use such hiring methods are quintessential "social capitalists," viewing workers' social connections as resources in which they can invest and gain returns in the form of improved hiring outcomes. They identify three ways through which such returns might be realized: the "richer pool," the "better match," and the "social enrichment" mechanisms. The authors suggest that the benefits of applying the term social capital to network-related processes are most likely to outweigh the costs of using the term the more clearly the analysis addresses "investment for return" phenomena.

This study contributes to the labor market inequality and organizations literature by investigating the role that government agents play in shaping the employment of immigrants. Using unique data on applications for immigrant permanent labor certification evaluated by U.S. Department of Labor agents, we assess to what extent immigrants of select citizenship groups experience disparities in the labor certification process—one critical stage of the work authorization system leading to the granting of most employment-based green cards. Despite current U.S. laws that forbid discrimination on the basis of nationality, we find that labor certification approvals differ significantly depending on immigrants’ foreign citizenship, even after controlling for key factors. Additionally, because of the U.S. government’s unique process of auditing applications, we are in a rare position to empirically distinguish between statistical and preference-based accounts of labor market discrimination in the labor certification process. In support of the statistical account, we find that certification approvals are equally likely for immigrant workers from the vast majority of citizenship groups when agents review audited applications with detailed employment information. This article concludes by discussing the implications of our results for addressing disparities in the employment of foreign nationals.

Our symposium uncovers new mechanisms to explain systemic inequalities in career outcomes. Formation of occupational aspirations, processes of matching persons into jobs, allocation of tasks in the...

While substantial progress has recently been made in the literature on social networks and employment, this research has not been accompanied by a larger organizing framework. In this article, we attempt to provide such framework while reviewing the literature that addresses the context of work and employment from a social network perspective – that is, research based on the assumption that actors are embedded in networks of social relations and interactions. In particular, our review focuses on the primary mechanisms that help explain how networks may shape employment outcomes and processes, namely, by conveying resources and providing signals to others. Ties among social actors may transfer better or unique resources such as information, learning, influence, and support, which consequently may affect key employment outcomes. Ties may also provide signals concerning ability, legitimacy/trust, status, and relationship meaning. We conclude by presenting a number of alternative arguments in the literature and discussing future directions for the research on social networks and employment.

In this second article, we continue to survey research that addresses work and employment from a social network perspective. Building on a companion article in this volume, which explores in-depth the main network mechanisms presented in the literature, this article reviews studies addressing how social networks may shape key employment outcomes for both individuals and organizations. Network access and activation may shape individuals' selection into employment opportunities in addition to a variety of post-hire outcomes including employee performance, promotion, rewards, job satisfaction, and termination. Organizations too may be influenced by their network position and by the activation of certain ties, ultimately affecting key outcomes such as firm performance, innovation, and learning measures. We conclude by discussing promising areas for future research on how social networks interact with employment.

Recent research has focused attention on the ways institutions and work practices have transformed the employment relationship. While there has been growing interest in how key employer practices have changed the organization of work, the gender and racial implications of such practices remain less well understood. Using unique longitudinal personnel data from one large organization, this study takes a comprehensive sequential approach to identify at which stages of a widespread contemporary practice—the use of merit-based reward programs to evaluate and reward workers—gender and racial disparities may exist. The analyses show that there are significant gender and racial differences at the performance evaluation, salary, and career setting stages, even after implementing these merit-based work practices. I conclude by discussing the implications for how and where current organizational practices and work arrangements may affect the careers of women and racial minorities in the contemporary workplace.

While great progress has been made in documenting that organizational practices affect workplace inequality, little is known about how managers in particular may shape the careers of the employees below them. Using unique longitudinal personnel data on managers and their subordinates, this study identifies and tests for evidence of three distinct mechanisms by which managers potentially influence the assessment of employee performance in the workplace: (1) social network influence between employees’ current and former managers; (2) manager–manager (horizontal) homophily; and (3) manager–employee (vertical) homophily. I find evidence of the independent effects of all three mechanisms of managerial influence on the outcome of disagreement in the performance evaluation ratings of the same worker between former and current managers. In particular, my results stress that both managerial network influence and horizontal homophily affect the process of employee performance assessments, over and above the well-studied vertical homophily mechanism. I conclude by discussing the theoretical implications of these findings for future research regarding the interactional aspects of workplace inequality within contemporary organizations.

In this article, we develop and empirically test the theoretical argument that when an organizational culture promotes meritocracy (compared with when it does not), managers in that organization may ironically show greater bias in favor of men over equally performing women in translating employee performance evaluations into rewards and other key career outcomes; we call this the “paradox of meritocracy.” To assess this effect, we conducted three experiments with a total of 445 participants with managerial experience who were asked to make bonus, promotion, and termination recommendations for several employee profiles. We manipulated both the gender of the employees being evaluated and whether the company's core values emphasized meritocracy in evaluations and compensation. The main finding is consistent across the three studies: when an organization is explicitly presented as meritocratic, individuals in managerial positions favor a male employee over an equally qualified female employee by awarding him a larger monetary reward. This finding demonstrates that the pursuit of meritocracy at the workplace may be more difficult than it first appears and that there may be unrecognized risks behind certain organizational efforts used to reward merit. We discuss possible underlying mechanisms leading to the paradox of meritocracy effect as well as the scope conditions under which we expect the effect to occur.

Este artículo investiga cómo los procesos organizativos que se utilizan hoy en día para fijar la retribución de los trabajadores/as pueden generar des igualdad salarial dentro de las organizaciones. Utilizando datos de la plantilla de una gran organización del sector privado, identifico y examino las dos etapas principales de una práctica común en la empresa ?la retribución variable de los empleados/as utilizando una gratificación por rendimiento? en la que pueden introducirse disparidades por género y origen étnico en la distribución de las subidas salariales. En la primera etapa del programa de la gratificación por rendimiento, este artículo muestra que la fase de evaluación del rendimiento, debido a su subjetividad, se ve afectada por razones de género, grupo étnico o nacionalidad. Además de esta primera etapa, este artículo pone de manifiesto que esos prejuicios afectan a la traducción del rendimiento en aumentos salariales durante la fase de fijación de la retribución salarial: Mi análisis longitudinal demuestra que empleados/ as estructuralmente equivalentes (es decir, en el mismo puesto y unidad de trabajo, con el mismo supervisor/a y el mismo capital humano) obtienen aumentos salariales diferentes incluso después de haber recibido la misma puntuación en la evaluación del rendimiento, simplemente debido a su género, origen étnico o nacionalidad. Concluyo con una discusión sobre la relevancia de estos resultados para la literatura sociológica existente sobre discriminación y desigualdad salarial por género y origen étnico dentro de las organizaciones contemporáneas.

Science and scientific production have been widely promoted as powerful tools for advancing national economic and social development. While much progress has been made in determining whether this is the case, less understood are the underlying factors influencing national scientific activity in the first place, especially during its 20th-century global expansion. In order to advance our understanding of the development of science and world polity, this study investigates in-depth when and under what functional and institutional conditions countries chose to join any of the scientific unions comprising the ICSU, the pre-eminent and oldest international science institution in the world. According to analyses of historical data for 166 countries from 1919 to 1990, functional arguments are only important predictors of the rate at which nation-states join scientific organizations early in the ‘science diffusion’ process. After 1945, institutional factors best account for worldwide national scientific activity: The joining rate increases more quickly during the post-Second World War era with the rise of the world system. This article also provides evidence of both convergence in the evolution of national scientific activities and of the great invariability in the impact of functional and institutional factors for core and peripheral countries over time. The article concludes by discussing the implications of this research for the future study of national scientific production and development in the world.

Much research in sociology and labor economics studies proxies for productivity; consequently, little is known about the relationship between personal contacts and worker performance. This study addresses, for the first time, the role of referral contacts on workers’ performance. Using employees’ hiring and performance data in a call center, the author examines the performance implications over time of hiring new workers via employee referrals. When assessing whether referrals are more productive than nonreferrals, the author also considers the relationship between employee productivity and turnover. This study finds that referrals are initially more productive than nonreferrals, but longitudinal analyses emphasize posthire social processes among socially connected employees. This article demonstrates that the effect of referral ties continues beyond the hiring process, having long‐term effects on employee attachment to the firm and on performance.

Research has not satisfactorily answered the question of whether institutions are becoming more similar across countries despite the existence of nationally distinctive social, cultural, political and economic factors. This study presents an institutional account for the process of change in national institutions over time, and specifically examines one of the most important national institutions, health care systems (HCSs). Longitudinal data on national health care systems and population health in the OECD countries show that there has been increasing convergence in the general characteristics of national HCSs since 1960, mainly in the expenditure on health and the level of public coverage of medical costs. At the same time, the composition and utilization of such HCSs have diverged, particularly concerning the national availability and utilization of health care resources. Despite these differences in national HCSs due to variations in national cultural traits like the degree of individualism, countries have healthier populations, and improvements in health appear to converge all over the industrialized world. Results from this study indicate that population health is ultimately affected by social variables such as the level of socioeconomic inequality rather than by the way countries organize health care.

This article argues that a common organizational practice-the hiring of new workers via employee referrals-provides key insights into the notion of social capital. Employers who use such hiring methods are quintessential "social capitalists," viewing workers' social connections as resources in which they can invest in order to gain economic returns in the form of better hiring outcomes. Identified are three ways through which such returns might be realized: the "richer pool," the "better match," and the "social enrichment" mechanisms. Using unique company data on the dollar costs of screening, hiring, and training, this article finds that the firm's investment in the social capital of its employees yields significant economic returns.

Substantial research has focused on how organizational and network processes may affect the screening and hiring of individuals into organizations. Less attention, however, has been devoted to exam...

This study helps to fill a significant gap in the literature on organizations and inequality by investigating the central role of merit-based reward systems in shaping gender and racial disparities in wages and promotions. The author develops and tests a set of propositions isolating processes of performance-reward bias, whereby women and minorities receive less compensation than white men with equal scores on performance evaluations. Using personnel data from a large service organization, the author empirically establishes the existence of this bias and shows that gender, race, and nationality differences continue to affect salary growth after performance ratings are taken into account, ceteris paribus. This finding demonstrates a critical challenge faced by the many contemporary employers who adopt merit-based practices and policies. Although these policies are often adopted in the hope of motivating employees and ensuring meritocracy, policies with limited transparency and accountability can actually increase ascriptive bias and reduce equity in the workplace.

El presente trabajo recoge parte de una investigación sociológica sobre los problemas fundamentales del sector sanitario español utilizando un Delphi. Se realiza durante la década de los noventa a una conjunto de los mejores expertos españoles (varones y mujeres) sobre salud y sanidad. La investigación supone la definición de quince problemas específicos sobre la descentralización y reforma del sistema sanitario español. Todas las personas de la muestra contestan a las quince preguntas base, y las entrevistas son luego transcritas. A continuación aparece un análisis sobre las diversas actitudes, razonamientos, y opiniones sobre la política sanitaria en España de cara al siglo XXI. Se presenta una agenda de problemas para resolver desde la política sanitaria tanto pública como privada. Es un documento indispensable para analizar las políticas públicas respecto del sector sanitario español.

This study advances our understanding of how legal and organizational factors affect inequality in labor markets by investigating the specific role that state agents play in shaping the hiring outcomes of immigrants to the United States. Using a unique matched dataset containing employer-, individual-, and occupation-level information for the entire population of employment-based green card applications reviewed by state agents between June 2008 and March 2011, this work tests whether immigrants of select citizenship groups experience disparities in the labor certification process―the most critical stage of the current U.S. immigration review process. Although this stage is supposed to be citizenship-blind, we find that employment certification outcomes significantly differ depending on the immigrants’ foreign citizenship, even after the introduction of key controls. This article concludes by discussing the theoretical implications of our results for understanding disparities in the employment outco...

Organizational accountability has become an increasingly central strategy discussed in the literature for addressing workplace inequality. According to the accountability mechanism formulated and e...

A lo largo del siglo XIX, grandes cambios sociales, politicos y economicos (y su incomprension) crean el contexto idoneo para el surgimiento de un aparato cientifico-ideologico peculiar con el que analizar y explicar esa compleja realidad del momento. En el articulo se presenta un analisis critico de los modelos de estudio adoptados por las Ciencias Sociales para la investigacion de grandes estructuras y procesos sociales, muchos de los cuales siguen siendo utilizados en analisis contemporaneos. Se propone un modelo alternativo (un programa de interpretacion social que promueva la comparacion sistematica y critica, y el analisis con base historica). Este innovador metodo descarta las generalizaciones como objeto ultimo del estudio social en un intento de comprender los procesos de modernizacion de las ultimas decadas.