Executive search as ethnosociality

Abstract

In this article, we explore how executive search consultants in Austria, Finland and Sweden address ethnicity. Our findings suggest that while consultants working in these different sociocultural settings may attribute different meanings to ethnicity, they share a tendency to evade questions of ethnicity with regard to the search process. We specify three discursive practices that serve to eliminate questions of ethnicity from executive search: constructing whiteness as self-evident, constructing varieties of whiteness (articulating deficiency and lack for those not belonging to Us), and distancing responsibility for the current situation to clients and society. In view of these findings, we argue that executive search can be understood as an arena for ethnosociality that stops cultural diversity at the door of management suites and serves to undermine efforts to promote cross-cultural understanding in organizations. Our study indicates that sustaining whiteness as a privileged ethnicity takes multiple forms. While executive search consultants play an important role in these processes, it is suggested that they inherit a more fundamental problem in society and they have few opportunities to change the ethnic status quo at the top.

Executive Search Consultants’ Biases Against Women (or Men?)

“…A noteworthy limitation is that this study focused only on gender and did not include biases based on other social identities (e.g., race) and characteristics (e.g., weight). In particular, researchers have suggested that executive search consultants also have a racial bias toward white people (Dreher et al, 2011;Holgersson et al, 2016). Future research should therefore use implicit and explicit test for racial biases as well as biases against other groups.…”

Gender Equality in Appointments of Board Members: The Role of Multiple Actors and their Dynamics

“…Marianne's evaluations and decisions about which candidates should be on the shortlist were driven by implicit gender notions regarding the qualities that board members should have, by the 'male norm in management' (Hearn, 2004;Wahl, 2014), reproducing a traditional understanding of the ideal board member (e.g. Holgersson et al, 2016). She ascribed her male candidate 'star potential' (see also van den Brink et al 2016) and disregarded female candidates, including the female candidate who was appointed later on in the process.…”

“…Other studies have focused on preconceptions and stereotyping of women, which hold women back from powerful positions in organizations (Eagly and Karau, 2002; Heilman et al ., 2015). Relatedly, studies have given valuable insights in the way evaluators reproduce particular understandings of the ‘ideal' managerial body that disadvantages women, ethnic minorities, and non‐hegemonic men (Holgersson et al ., 2016; Meriläinen et al ., 2015; Tienari et al ., 2013). Whereas our knowledge about how organizations reproduce gender inequalities in senior positions is quite extensive, much less is known about how to reduce these inequalities effectively.…”

Gender in international business journals: A review and conceptualization of MNCs as gendered social spaces

“…Furthermore, other power relations such as those related to ethnicity and social class also condition these practices (Knocke, Drejhammar, Gonäs & Isaksson, 2003). This is evident in Holgersson, Tienari, Meriläinen and Bendl's (2016) study of the way in which ethnic homogeneity is reproduced at the top echelons of organizations in the Global North. The authors apply the notion of ethnosociality to make sense of ethnic inclusion and exclusion in executive recruitment.…”