Is there a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions? Evidence from a field experiment with over 12,000 job applications

TY - JOUR

T1 - Is there a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions? Evidence from a field experiment with over 12,000 job applications

AU - Adamovic, Mladen

AU - Leibbrandt, Andreas

N1 - Funding Information: We thank the following research assistants for their excellent work with collecting the data: Diarmuid Cooney-O'Donoghue, Samuel Eyamu, Peter Ghin, Vrushali Gulhane, Edward Hyatt, Yasi Saninejad, and Deborah Towns. We also thank Peter Gahan for his helpful comments regarding the study design. Finally, we thank Olga Epitropaki and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and suggestions during the review process. Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Authors

PY - 2023/4/5

Y1 - 2023/4/5

N2 - We conducted a field experiment to analyze if there is a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities entering leadership positions in organizations. We submitted over 12,000 job applications, to over 4,000 job advertisements, to investigate hiring discrimination against six ethnic groups for leadership positions. Drawing on implicit leadership theory, we argue that ethnic discrimination is particularly pronounced in the recruitment of leadership positions. The results confirm this hypothesis. For leadership positions, applicants with English names received 26.8% of positive responses for their job applications, while applicants with non-English names received 11.3% of positive responses. This means ethnic minorities received 57.4% fewer positive responses than applicants with English names for leadership positions despite identical resumes. For non-leadership positions, applicants with English names received 21.2% of positive responses for their job applications, while applicants with non-English names received 11.6% of positive responses. This means ethnic minorities received 45.3% fewer positive responses for non-leadership positions despite identical resumes. Ethnic discrimination for leadership positions was even more pronounced when the advertised job required customer contact. In contrast, hiring discrimination for leadership positions was not significantly influenced by whether the job advertisement emphasized individualism or learning, creativity, and innovation. Our findings provide novel evidence of a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions.

AB - We conducted a field experiment to analyze if there is a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities entering leadership positions in organizations. We submitted over 12,000 job applications, to over 4,000 job advertisements, to investigate hiring discrimination against six ethnic groups for leadership positions. Drawing on implicit leadership theory, we argue that ethnic discrimination is particularly pronounced in the recruitment of leadership positions. The results confirm this hypothesis. For leadership positions, applicants with English names received 26.8% of positive responses for their job applications, while applicants with non-English names received 11.3% of positive responses. This means ethnic minorities received 57.4% fewer positive responses than applicants with English names for leadership positions despite identical resumes. For non-leadership positions, applicants with English names received 21.2% of positive responses for their job applications, while applicants with non-English names received 11.6% of positive responses. This means ethnic minorities received 45.3% fewer positive responses for non-leadership positions despite identical resumes. Ethnic discrimination for leadership positions was even more pronounced when the advertised job required customer contact. In contrast, hiring discrimination for leadership positions was not significantly influenced by whether the job advertisement emphasized individualism or learning, creativity, and innovation. Our findings provide novel evidence of a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions.

KW - Audit study

KW - Correspondence testing

KW - CV study

KW - Ethnic discrimination

KW - Field experiment

KW - Glass ceiling

KW - Hiring discrimination

KW - Human resource management

KW - Implicit leadership theory

KW - Labor market

KW - Leadership prototype

KW - Recruitment

KW - Resume study

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85141311185&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2022.101655

DO - 10.1016/j.leaqua.2022.101655

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85141311185

SN - 1048-9843

VL - 34

JO - LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY

JF - LEADERSHIP QUARTERLY

IS - 2

M1 - 101655

ER -