Dear OOW members! We are delighted to share a new publication from OOW member Letian Zhang:

CITATION:

Zhang, Letian. “Regulatory Spillover and Workplace Racial Inequality.” Administrative Science Quarterly 67, no. 3 (September 2022): 595–629. https://doi.org/10.1177/00018392221085677.

ABSTRACT:

This article suggests that regulations targeting the U.S. public sector may influence racial inequality in the private sector. Since the 1990s, nine states have banned affirmative action practice in public universities and state governments. I theorize that although these bans have no legal jurisdiction over private-sector firms, they could influence such firms normatively. After such a ban, executives who have been skeptical of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) policies may feel more normative license to reduce commitment to EEO practices. Using a difference-in-differences estimation on 11,311 firms from 1985 to 2015, I find that the bans are indeed associated with slower racial progress in private-sector firms: after a state adopts the affirmative action ban, growth in the proportion of Black managers in establishments with corporate headquarters in that state slows by more than 50 percent, and this slowdown is mostly concentrated in firms with politically conservative CEOs. These findings suggest a mechanism for the persistence of racial inequality and show that regulations can influence actors well beyond legal jurisdictions.

Hi OOW members! We’re excited to share a new article by Guillermina Altomonte:

CITATION: Guillermina Altomonte, Class and culture in the making of an assisted living market, Socio-Economic Review, 2022;, mwac034, https://doi.org/10.1093/ser/mwac034

Abstract:

This article examines the growing industry of elite assisted living in Chile, which represents a break with a longstanding culture of care provided at home by family members and domestic workers. How does this market, locally associated with deprivation, abandonment and standardization, become a legitimate option for the rich clientele it caters to? Drawing on 40 interviews with consumers and providers of institutional care, I show that the market for assisted living is moralized through material and symbolic continuities with forms of class privilege that residents feel slipping away. Respondents interpret assisted living as an extension of the domestic work previously consumed in clients’ homes, they reframe care as an exclusive commodity and they highlight residents’ entitlement to bend organizational structures and retain authority over space and labor. These findings shed light on the relationship of class to processes of cultural legitimation by revealing the extent to which not only the affective meanings of ‘home’, but its social hierarchies, play a role in moralizing markets of care.

Hi OOW members! Today we’re sharing a new publication from Cristina Silva, Michelle Newton-Francis and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz:

Citation: Silva, Cristina, Michelle Newton-Francis, and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz. 2022. “Negotiating Racialized Organizational Spaces and Intimacies: An Ethnography of Playpen Strip Club.” Gender, Work & Organization: 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12882. 

Abstract:

Based on 18 months of ethnographic research in a Northeast corridor strip club we call Playpen, we engage sex negotiations, erotic service exchanges, and the circulation of desire within an informal, weekly “Latina Night” event. We treat Playpen as a gendered and racialized organization in which patrons, dancers, and employees manage established, yet unspoken rules. Labor interactions and dynamics between dancers and clients are racialized when gesturing toward bodily currency – which materializes in tips, drinks, paid lap dances, and more exclusive attention; dancers compete for such currency, using their selection of music and dance, movements, adornments, body modifications and emotional labor. Selected pairings negotiate open spaces by turning pockets of the club into semi-private, intimate ones. Dancers’ and clients’ gendered and racialized notions of currency (in this case, racialized Latinidad) clash, ultimately serving the club in keeping “Latina Night” in place. 

Hi OOW members! Today we’re sharing a new publication by Sandra Portocarrero and James T. Carter!

CITATION:

Portocarrero, Sandra, and James T. Carter. “Diversity Initiatives in the US Workplace: A Brief History, Their Intended and Unintended Consequences.” Sociology Compass, May 24, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/soc4.13001.

Abstract

Diversity initiatives are designed to help workers from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve equitable opportunities and outcomes in organizations. However, these programs are often ineffective. To better understand less-than-de- sired outcomes and the shifting diversity landscape, we synthesize literature on how corporate affirmative action programs became diversity initiatives and current literature on their effectiveness. We focus specifically on work deal- ing with mechanisms that make diversity initiatives effective as well as their unintended consequences. When taken together, these literature point to several inequality-specific omissions in contemporary discussions of organizational diversity initiatives, such as the omission of racial inequality. As we contend in the first section of this review, without affirmative action law, which initially tasked US employers with ending racial discrimination at the workplace, we would not have diversity initiatives. We conclude by providing directions for future research and elaborating on several core foci that scholars might pursue to better (re)connect issues of organizational diversity with the aims of equity, equality and social justice.

KEYWORDS

affirmative action, diversity initiatives, organizations, US workplace

Hi OOW Members! Today we’re sharing news about Marci Cottingham‘s new book, Practical Feelings.

SUMMARY: Tracing emotions across work, leisure, social media, and politics, Practical Feelings counters old myths and shows how emotions are practical resources for tackling individual and collective challenges.

We do not usually think of our emotions as practical — often they are nuisances to overcome, momentary mysteries to solve, or fleeting sensations to savor before getting back to the business of living. But emotions interlace the practical elements of daily life. In Practical Feelings, Marci D. Cottingham develops a theory of emotion as practical resources. By integrating the sociology of emotion with practice theory, Cottingham covers diverse areas of social life to show the range of an emotion practice approach and trace how emotions are put to use in divergent domains. Spanning work, leisure, digital interactions, and the political sphere, Cottingham portrays nurses, sports fans, social media users, and political actors in more complex, holistic ways. Practical Feelings provides the conceptual tools needed to examine emotions as effort, energy, and embodied resources that calibrate us to the social world.

You can order it online at http://www.oup.com/academic with the promo code ASFLYQ6.

Hi OOW! Today we are sharing Patrick Sheehan‘s new article:

CITATION: Sheehan, Patrick. “The Paradox of Self-Help Expertise: How Unemployed Workers Become Professional Career Coaches.” American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, Number 4, January 2022. https://doi.org/10.1086/718471

ABSTRACT: A wide range of self-styled experts have emerged in recent years to sell professional self-improvement advice in fields as diverse as employment, health, and finances. Despite lacking traditional markers of expertise, these minor experts are gaining credibility and clientele, often at the expense of official experts in their field. Why do people turn to these experts? How do they build credibility? This article analyzes the paradoxical case of career coaches, many of whom were themselves long-term unemployed, to advance a theory of credibility construction among self-improvement experts. Drawing on qualitative data, the author finds that self-improvement experts build their credibility through strategic interactions and relational work with clients rather than through the institutional affiliations and credentials normally associated with expertise. The author identifies three complementary techniques—(1) constructing a shared moral order, (2) building affective trust relationships, and (3) sharing personal testimonials of transformation—and argues that this bundle of tactics represents an alternative and growing pathway for building expert credibility.

Hi OOW members! Today we are sharing some news about Nilanjan Raghunath‘s new book!

SUMMARY:

The widespread belief that tech-savvy, educated millennials are well positioned to handle the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution is unfounded. It does not fully grasp the reality of a flux society, where relevant technological skills and knowledge are continuously changing: no one is permanently tech-savvy. Millennials, like other generations, face the challenge of needing to continually reskill. This has compounded their struggle to begin their careers at a point when there is no longer any guarantee of lifetime employment or retirement at a set age.

Shaping the Futures of Work is a timely sociological exploration of the impact of technological innovations on employment. Nilanjan Raghunath proposes that stakeholders such as states, enterprises, and citizens hold equally important roles in ensuring that people can adapt, innovate, and thrive within conditions of flux. A promising model focuses on collaboration and proactive governance. While good governance includes citizen engagement, proactive governance goes one step further, creating inclusive policies, roadmaps, and infrastructure for social and economic progress. This book reveals that lifelong learning and adaptability are imperative, even for well-educated professionals. Using Singapore and Singaporean millennials as a case study, Raghunath examines proactive governance and delivers research and analysis to elucidate career trajectories, pointing to a work ethic that aims to engage with technological futures.

Looking at local and global sociological literature to confirm the need for proactive governance, Shaping the Futures of Work suggests that Singaporean millennials – and professionals around the world – need to better prepare themselves for flux, risk, failure, and reinvention for career mobility.

More about the book.

Hi OOW! Today we’re sharing a new article by Daniel Auguste:

CITATION: Auguste, Daniel. Varieties of Gendered Capitalism: Status Beliefs and the Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship.” Social Currents. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294965211053836

ABSTRACT:

Gender status research demonstrates that the power of gender status beliefs in shaping gender inequalities is rooted in the fact that these beliefs are institutionalized and operate at the societal level to shape social relations of inequality at the individual level. However, recent empirical analyses linking gender status beliefs to gender inequality in entrepreneurship have only examined the effect of individual gender, not that of societal-level gender status beliefs, on gender inequality in entrepreneurship. This study fills this gap in this literature by examining the potential effect of societal-level gender status beliefs on gender inequality in entrepreneurship, using data from 51 countries. The results show that gender inequality in entrepreneurship is greater in societies where gender status beliefs are stronger. For instance, gender inequality in entrepreneurship is greater in societies where status beliefs about gender differences in leadership competency and the right to employment are stronger. However, the results also show that these beliefs are more strongly associated with gender inequality among nascent entrepreneurs than established business owners. These findings support feminist scholars’ claim that gender status advantage is pervasive in modern institutions and suggest that gender status advantage may manifest differently across stages of the entrepreneurship process.

Hi OOW members! We’re excited to share news about Elizabeth Hoffmann‘s book, Lactation at Work: Expressed Milk, Expressing Beliefs, and the Expressive Value of Law!

SUMMARY:

In recent decades, as women entered the US workforce in increasing numbers, they faced the conundrum of how to maintain breastfeeding and hold down full-time jobs. In 2010, the Lactation at Work Law (an amendment to the US Fair Labor Standards Act) mandated accommodations for lactating women. This book examines the federal law and its state-level equivalent in Indiana, drawing on two waves of interviews with human resource personnel, supervising managers, and lactating workers. In many ways, this simple law – requiring break time and privacy for pumping – is a success story. Through advocacy by allies, education of managers, and employee initiative, many organizations created compliant accommodations. This book shows legal scholars how a successful civil rights law creates effective change; helps labor activists and management personnel understand how to approach new accommodations; and enables workers to understand the possibilities for amelioration of workplace problems through internal negotiations and legal reforms.

• Utilizes data from three sets of organizational actors: human resource personnel, supervising managers, and lactating employees, in order to observe the application of law into policy, and policy into day-to-day work experiences from three different perspectives
• Draws on two-waves of data, one from immediately after the law was passed in real-time and another about 5 years later
• Engages both organizational theory and law and society scholarship to demonstrate a key intersection of two important scholarly areas to help understand how a law’s application evolves within organizations

Hi OOW members!

France Winddance Twine has a book (NYU press) available for pre-order with a discount through this website.

SUMMARY: An inside account of gender and racial discrimination in the high-tech industry

Why is being a computer “geek” still perceived to be a masculine occupation? Why do men continue to greatly outnumber women in the high-technology industry? Since 2014, a growing number of employment discrimination lawsuits has called attention to a persistent pattern of gender discrimination in the tech world. Much has been written about the industry’s failure to adequately address gender and racial inequalities, yet rarely have we gotten an intimate look inside these companies. In Geek Girls, France Winddance Twine provides the first book by a sociologist that “lifts the Silicon veil” to provide firsthand accounts of inequality and opportunity in the tech ecosystem. This work draws on close to a hundred interviews with male and female technology workers of diverse racial, ethnic, and educational backgrounds who are currently employed at tech firms such as Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, and at various start-ups in the San Francisco Bay area. Geek Girls captures what it is like to work as a technically skilled woman in Silicon Valley.

With a sharp eye for detail and compelling testimonials from industry insiders, Twine shows how the technology industry remains rigged against women, and especially Black, Latinx, and Native American women from working class backgrounds. From recruitment and hiring practices that give priority to those with family, friends, and classmates employed in the industry, to social and educational segregation, to academic prestige hierarchies, Twine reveals how women are blocked from entering this industry. Women who do not belong to the dominant ethnic groups in the industry are denied employment opportunities, and even actively pushed out, despite their technical skills and qualifications.

While the technology firms strongly embrace the rhetoric of diversity and oppose discrimination in the workplace, Twine argues that closed social networks and routine hiring practices described by employees reinforce the status quo and reproduce inequality. The myth of meritocracy and gender stereotypes operate in tandem to produce a culture where the use of race-, color-, and power-evasive language makes it difficult for individuals to name the micro-aggressions and forms of discrimination that they experience.

Twine offers concrete insights into how the technology industry can address ongoing racial and gender disparities, create more transparency and empower women from underrepresented groups, who continued to be denied opportunities.