To better understand how ethnicity is actually experienced within organisations, we examined reported increases in ethnic identity salience at work and responses to such increases. Thirty British black Caribbean graduate employees were interviewed about how and when they experienced their ethnic identity at work. The findings demonstrated that increased salience in ethnic identity was experienced in two key ways: through 'ethnic assignation' (a 'push' towards ethnic identity) and 'ethnic identification' (a 'pull' towards ethnic identity). We explore how and when ethnic assignation and ethnic identification occur at work, and their relevance to how workplaces are experienced by this group of minority ethnic employees.The findings suggest the need for further research attention to the dynamic and episodic nature of social identity, including ethnic identity, within organisations, and to the impact of such increases in salience of social identities on behaviour at work.

Research into the role of ethnicity in behaviour in US organizations has been the subject of several reviews. However no such review of British research has thus far been undertaken. Fifty-four years' worth of selected occupational psychology, organizational behaviour and human resource management journals were therefore reviewed to identify the number and focus of articles relating to ethnicity in British organizations. On the basis of the review findings four key questions were addressed: (i) How much work has been done? (ii) Why has relatively little work been done? (iii) What have we learned about ethnicity and the British workplace? and, (iv) What do we still need to learn? The research shows that only a limited amount of research has been conducted and most of this focuses on a small number of topics. Six recommendations for future research are made: (i) studying ethnicity in a more careful and detailed way; (ii) developing theory; (iii) examining what happens to minority ethnic employees after selection; (iv) more research on minority ethnic professionals; (v) more qualitative research; and, (vi) a greater focus on specific ethnic groups. Recommendations to draw lessons from the way other disciplines have conceptualized and researched ethnicity are also discussed.

How do women, outnumbered and outranked, navigate work and careers in information technology? Only one in six information technology (IT) specialists in the UK is female. Such extreme male dominance potentially gives rise to a gender structure that affects women’s experiences of IT work. Using data from interviews with 57 technically skilled female IT professionals, we examine how women orient this gender structure and how they make sense of their gender identities as women working in IT. Our findings elucidate how the IT gender structure shapes women’s careers in this field of work. They reveal how women use their agency to assert notions of femininity into technical careers, disentangle narratives around whether women have unique and different (but less technically focused) strengths in IT and interface with ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’ identities to achieve successful IT careers. In doing so, they provide insight into how technical women continue careers within a structure that externalises them through gender norms. This understanding can be used to aid efforts to retain women within IT as well as other fields facing similar challenges.

A wide range of ethnic groups make up labour markets in most advanced economies. However, we lack a nuanced understanding of how specific groups experience minority ethnic identity within the workplace. This article addresses how an under-represented minority ethnic group, British Sri Lankans, experience being assigned a broad Asian panethnic identity in their workplace, which is both positively and negatively stereotyped. Drawing on theories of social identity-based impression management and selfstereotyping, we highlight how individuals responded to panethnic stereotypes imposed on them by both claiming and rejecting a broader Asian identity, and at the same time attempting to carve out a more distinctive British Sri Lankan identity. We advance knowledge of the multi-level nature of ethnic identity, demonstrating ways in which movement between superordinate and subordinate levels of ethnic identity can occur. Counter-intuitively, we suggest that individuals' positive self-stereotyping efforts may, over time, contribute to a more constricted career path that may leave them less prepared for senior management positions. Practitioner pointsTo help facilitate the development of genuinely inclusive organizations and maximize the use of available talent, practitioners need to be vigilant about the prevalence of ethnic group stereotypes in contemporary work settings. Practitioners should not discourage conversations around ethnicity and culture at work, but they should make it clear that the aim is not to encourage the proliferation of group stereotypes. Proliferation of group stereotypes may contribute to unconscious bias.

Elite higher education institutions in the UK and the US are under increasing pressure to intensify their widening participation efforts and improve access for students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and other underrepresented groups. Through a case study of business and law students who participated in a widening participation scheme at an elite university in the UK, we examine how WP candidates undertake identity work in order to negotiate a sense of fit in an elite higher education setting. We make two theoretical contributions. First we show the complex identity work that social minorities undertake to negotiate a sense of fit in diversifying organisations-dynamically backgrounding and foregrounding their minority identity as the situation befits. Second we illustrate how diversity and inclusion practices form an integral component of a HE institution's identity workspace to crucially shape the identity work that social minorities undertake to negotiate a sense of fit, illuminating how an elite university's inclusive practices facilitate the rhetoric of diversity and enable elite HE institutions to maintain their exclusive status. We discuss the practical implications of our findings.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore how ethnicity remains relevant to the workplace experience of minority ethnic graduate employees in contemporary British organizations.Design/methodology/approachQualitative interviews were conducted with 30 British Black Caribbean graduate employees drawn from a range of public and private‐sector organizations to examine the ways in which they felt their ethnicity impacted on how they experienced their places of work. Template analysis was used to analyse the data.FindingsThe paper finds that racial discrimination, social class and ethnic identity were key elements of the way in which ethnicity was experienced by these minority ethnic graduate employees. The paper discusses the differing ways racial discrimination is experienced and conceptualized in contemporary British organizations; and highlights the ways in which social class may play a role in how a group of (largely) working class minority ethnic graduates progress their careers in (largely) middle class organizational environments. Presented for the first time is a theory on the key facets of the ways ethnic identity might be experienced at work.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research would be required to see if the findings are replicated with graduates from other minority ethnic groups.Practical implicationsThe paper provides insights into ways in which majority and minority ethnic employees may experience organizations differently.Originality/valueThis paper provides some new insights into the role of ethnicity at work. It also attempts to address some of the issues with organizational psychological research on ethnicity at work identified by Kenny and Briner.

No abstract

We examine how minority ethnic employees account for witnessing selective incivility to ethnically similar others. Our study is based on qualitative interviews with British Asian employees – the majority who witnessed incivility directed towards migrant Asian employees working for the same company. Our findings indicate that, for those whose minority ethnic identity was of central importance, witnessing selective incivility towards others from a similar ethnic background can be perceived as an identity threat. We provide insights into three identity work strategies undertaken by witnesses of selective incivility, while illuminating how minority ethnic identity shapes the way witnesses' respond to selective incivility in the workplace.