تحرک مردانه مبتنی بر نژاد در مدیریت : تجزیه و تحلیلی بر سطوح شغلی یقه سفید و یقه آبی

There are few theoretical perspectives that address the dynamics of race-based mobility in the American workplace. The “particularistic mobility thesis” fills this gap: it maintains that even when groups work in similar jobs, discriminatorily induced dynamics associated with the relative inability of minorities to demonstrate informal characteristics—such as loyalty and sound judgment—constitute a handicap in mobility into managerial positions. Findings based on the 2004–2010 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics support theory and indicate that from both white collar and blue collar job levels African American and Latino men, relative to White gender counterparts, are disadvantaged: they have lower rates of mobility, are restricted to a formal route to reach managerial positions that is less dependent on a traditional range of stratification-based causal factors including background status, human capital, and job/labor market characteristics, and take longer to reach management. Further, as predicted by theory, along all issues differences, relative to Whites, are greater among African Americans than Latinos and greater among those tracked from blue collar jobs than white collar jobs. Implications of the findings for understanding short-term and long-term minority disadvantage in the American labor market are discussed.

In the context of race-based mobility analyses, sociologists have advocated conducting more refined analyses than has been typically performed (Roscigno, 2007, Stainback et al., 2010 and Wilson and Roscigno, 2010). In this regard, the statement by Wilson and Roscigno (2010:75) is typical: “race-based analyses among those working in the same or substantially similar jobs should be undertaken as a supplement to the more typical practice of focusing on occupations, which are broad aggregations of jobs and display significant variation in workplace roles and accompanying rewards and status”. Along these lines, comparisons of those in substantially similar jobs constitute about as “level a playing field” as can be obtained in stratification research (Smith, 2005 and Tomaskovic-Devey and Skaggs, 1999). Indeed, sociologists have underscored the common work roles and “supply side” characteristics of incumbents in similar jobs, they “tend to perform similar work tasks and activities performed in a work role” (Bridges & Villemez, 1994:32) and share a similar stratification-relevant profile, consisting of similar skill sets that derive from shared accumulations of pre-work human capital, e.g., education, licensure/certification, and similar levels of on-the-job skill acquisition (Featherman & Hauser, 1977).

Findings from the PSID sample support predictions from the particularistic mobility thesis. The utilization of particularistic criteria racializes mobility prospects into managerial positions among White, African American, and Latino men at a refined level, namely, when they are similarly situated in the blue collar and white collar job structure. Specifically, when tracked from both job levels over seven years of the work-career, African Americans and Latinos, relative to Whites, have lower rates of mobility, are restricted to a discriminatorily-induced formal and deterministic route to reach managerial positions that is less dependent on a traditional range of stratification-based causal factors including background status, human capital, and job/labor market characteristics, and take longer to reach management. Overall, this formal route is predicated on factors related to establishing credibility in the eyes of prospective employers as a prerequisite to promotion: the attainment of, for example, human capital by way of “loading up” on formal credentials as well as spending a greater amount of time with present employer are “relational and “interactional” (Roscigno, 2007) dynamics related to particularistic characteristics that are bases of positive evaluations and promotion.