Violence Against African Americans in Corporate America

Abstract

Increasing numbers of African Americans are entering the corporate workplace and becoming vulnerable targets for insidious, devastating and punishing forms of abusive behavior exhibited at all levels in America's corporate structures. This article explores violence against African Americans who are attempting to climb the “crystal staircase” in these formal organizations. A model is proposed to assist black executives survive hostile environments in corporate America and in other settings.     

Labor Market Disparities Between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans: Reexamining the Role of Immigrant Selectivity

Black immigrants from the Caribbean have long attained greater labor market success than African Americans. The most recent studies show that Afro Caribbeans have earnings that are approximately 16% greater than African Americans and that Afro Caribbeans are as much as 21% more likely to be employed than African Americans. The most prominent explanation for greater Afro Caribbean success is that, because they have chosen to migrate, Afro Caribbeans are positively self‐selected on characteristics that are key for success in the U.S. labor market. Proponents of immigrant selectivity argue that migrants have greater levels of both hard and soft skills than nonmigrants. Using data from the National Survey of American Life—the first social survey to provide a nationally representative sample of both African Americans and Afro Caribbeans—this study finds that Afro Caribbeans have greater hard skills than African Americans but split the difference on two measures of soft skills: African Americans and Afro Caribbeans are matched on John Henryism, but African Americans have greater personal mastery than Afro Caribbeans. Contrary to expectations, controlling for differences in hard and soft skills does not provide for a meaningful reduction in labor market disparities between African Americans and Afro Caribbeans.     

Brown Suits Need Not Apply: The Intersection of Race,Gender, and Class in Institutional Network Building1

Using ethnographic data, this study investigates network building and the transition from school to work in a career center at a nonprestigious university. Now that disadvantaged students have increased their participation in higher education, it is important to investigate the role of the university in these students’ transition from school to work. I found competing forces of stratification at work in the college career center and while the center mitigated inequality for some, it reproduced inequality for others. The Career Center staff faced pressures to recruit corporations to build job networks, but disinterest from the hiring organizations. Through their interactions with recruiters, the staff saw that African Americans and Latinos were not the standard for the labor market. Although network building ruled the overarching organizational goals, intersections of race, gender, and nationality became the defining logic of the hiring process. Staff members turned away both qualified and unqualified African‐American and Latino men and women, while increasing access for white women and international male students, regardless of their qualifications.     

African American and White Managers:

Research points to differences in the experiences and response of African Americans and whites to organizational situations. This paper presents the results of a study which investigated differences in the management styles in eight local social service agency offices managed by African Americans and eight managed by whites. When the environment was turbulent, white managers responded by becoming more supportive of staff, while African American managers increased problem-solving communications. Staff in African American offices in turbulent environments had higher levels of job satisfation than either white offices of African Americans in nonturbulent environments.     

First‐Generation African American Male College Students: Implications for Career Counselors

The path to upward mobility or economic success for African American men is often filled with obstacles and roadblocks. Many first‐generation African American men entering colleges and universities face limited resources and opportunities to aid in their career development and efforts to meet their career objectives. This article explores the career development needs of African American men attending colleges and universities. The article provides suggestions, techniques, and strategies that career counselors and student affairs personnel can use to assist these African American men in their career development. Implications for career counselors are also addressed.     

Career Patterns of African-American and Hispanic Social Work Doctorates and ABDs

This article reports on an exploratory study of the career paths of African Americans and Hispanics who had completed social work doctorates or had completed all requirements except the dissertation research (ABDs). Results from 118 respondents indicate that career selection and development among the majority of these individuals may not fit traditional career theory models. Three career patterns are identified and discussed—careerists, educational aspirants, and vertical drifters—and implications for action are outlined.     

What Would You Sacrifice? Access to Top Management and the Work–life Balance

This article is based on a current research, combining quantitative (human resources figures and statistics) and qualitative data (60 interviews with career managers, top managers and high potential talents, both men and women), conducted in a major French utility company on the subject of diversity and more specifically on the issue of women's access to top management positions. The main purpose of this research is to understand the difficulties women may encounter in the course of their occupational career linked to organizational aspects, including the ‘glass ceiling’ processes, informal norms related to management positions (such as time and mobility constraints) and social and cultural representations attached to leadership. The other perspective of this research focuses on the different strategies women and men build either to conform to the organizational norms or bypass them. The issue of work–life balance are therefore addressed both from a corporate/organizational standpoint and an individual and family perspective.     

Characteristics of Female Students Who Aspire to Science and Engineering or Homemaking Occupations

This study identified predictors that discriminated between nontraditional and traditional career aspirations in a sample composed of 930 eighth-grade female students (52 Asian Americans, 123 Hispanics, 61 African Americans, 669 Whites, and 15 Native Americans). Results indicated that the students who aspired to careers in science or engineering scored significantly higher on educational aspirations; perceived parental expectations; student-reported grade point averages (GPAs); and mathematics, reading, and science test scores than did girls who aspired to homemaking occupations. They also scored higher on measures of self-esteem, internal locus of control, socioeconomic status, and had fewer siblings. Educational aspirations, parental expectations, self-reported GPA, and science proficiency were the best discriminators between the groups. Results also indicated that differences in the distributions of career aspirations across racial-ethnic groups were significant.     

Exploring the Use of the Stages of Change Model to Increase Organ Donations Among African Americans

Abstract

The success of organ transplants is affected by the degree of antigen match between donor and recipient. With organ transplants among African Americans, finding a good antigen match is difficult. While the consent rate for organ donations among Caucasians is 50%, this rate among African Americans is only 12%. The resulting ratio of donors to “recipients” is 1 to 9 in African Americans. The majority of organs received by African Americans come from Caucasian donors, thereby reducing the probability of an antigen match and increasing the probability of organ rejection. These circumstances could be improved if the organ donation rate eamong African Americans was increased. There is some empirical support for the theory that behavior change occurs through identifiable stages. This paper presents evidence for the construct validity of a stage of change measure suitable for use in designing and evaluating attempts to promote organ donations in the African American community. Use of this measure also permits clinicians to assess how receptive a client will be to organ donation promotional material. Use of this measure offers the possibility of refining approaches to organ donations among African Americans. Increases in the donor rate will result in a larger pool of antigen compatible organs in this subpopulation.     

Diversity and equality: Race and class in America

Discussions of diversity, multiculturalism, and democracy often neglect the historical and structural economic and political inequalities embedded in these racial/ethnic/cultural differences among peoples in America. In this article we present a historical materialist analysis of African Americans and other oppressed peoples within the context of capitalist development. The current period of the electronic revolution and the labor displacing technology of the postindustrial era is creating the conditions for the erosion of the reform based social contract, and for heightened degrees of economic and political polarization, often expressed as racial polarization. At the same time, the abundance created by the high technology revolution contains the possibility of realizing equality and democracy for African Americans and for all of the American peoples.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1992 annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.     

My company or my career: managerial achievement and loyalty

This article examines the objective and subjective aspects of managerial careers in six large firms that have experienced organizational restructuring. We begin by assessing the dominant models of change in career structures, particularly those which emphasize the 'portfolio' route to career success. Although elements of the bureaucratic career remain, we find some evidence of the shift predicted by these models amongst the younger generation of managers. However, it is striking that not all young managers are able to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the new career model. Indeed, cultural capital has an increasing impact on career achievement. Younger managers are responding by reorienting away from organizational loyalty towards a concern with individual career projects.     

Enclaves and Entrepreneurs: Assessing the Payoff for Immigrants and Minorities1

Self‐employment and work in sectors with high concentrations of owners and workers of the same ethnicity have been identified as potential routes of economic success for immigrants. This study uses 1990 census data to assess the effects of self‐employment, ethnic employment, and their interaction on the odds of being at work, on number of hours worked, and on earnings of individual members of several representative groups. These groups include Cubans in Miami; African Americans, Puerto Ricans, Koreans, Chinese and Dominicans in New York; and African Americans, Koreans, Chinese, Mexicans and Salvadorans in Los Angeles. Work in ethnic sectors of the economy has no consistent effects, although work in their niche in the public sector offers greater rewards than any other type of employment for African Americans and Puerto Ricans. Findings are mixed for self‐employment, and its estimated effect on earnings depends on model specification. We conclude that the self‐employed work longer hours but in many cases at lower hourly rates. The effects of self‐employment are the same in ethnic sectors as in the mainstream economy.     

Picturing African‐Americans: Readers reading magazine advertisements

In recent years, advertisements depicting stereotypes of African‐Americans have given way to advertising images that show African‐Americans as middle‐ and upper class consumers. This articles uses photo‐elicitation to study the meaning readers attach to advertising images of African‐American success. The results provide insight into how advertisements pull readers into a web of ideological meanings. The results also show how other social structures and their discursive frameworks, e.g., religion, education, political ideology, media and social class mitigate, inflect, deflect and reinforce readers’ readings of advertisements.     

Interracial and Intraracial Patterns of Mate Selection Among America’s Diverse Black Populations

Despite recent immigration from Africa and the Caribbean, Blacks in America are still viewed as a monolith in many previous studies. In this paper, we use newly released 2000 census data to estimate log‐linear models that highlight patterns of interracial and intraracial marriage and cohabitation among African Americans, West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites, and their interracial marriage and cohabitation with Whites. Based on data from several metropolitan areas, our results show that, despite lower socioeconomic status, native‐born African Americans are more likely than other Blacks to marry Whites; they also are more likely to marry other Black ethnics. West Indians, Africans, and Puerto Rican non‐Whites are more likely to marry African Americans than to marry Whites. Interracial relationships represent a greater share of cohabiting unions than marital unions. The majority of interracial unions, including native and immigrant Blacks, consist of a Black man and White woman. The implications for marital assimilation are discussed.     

Determinants of Migrant Career Success: A Study of Recent Skilled Migrants in Australia

Australia has been aggressively pursuing skilled migrants to sustain its population and foster economic growth. However, many skilled migrants experience a downward career move upon migration to Australia. Based on a survey of recent skilled migrants, this study investigates how individual (age, years of settlement, qualifications), national/societal (citizenship and settlement), and organization-level (climate of inclusion) factors influence their career success. Overall, we found that: (1) age at migration matters more than length of settlement in predicting skilled migrant career success; (2) citizenship uptake and living in a neighbourhood with a greater number of families from the same country of origin facilitate post-migration career success; and (3) perceptions of one's social/informal networks in the workplace – a dimension of perceived organizational climate of inclusion – also have a positive impact on migrant career outcomes.     

HIV/AIDS Prevention in the African American Community:

The high rate of AIDS cases among African Americans, especially women, suggests that HIV risk reduction behavior change programs and messages have not been highly successful in preventing HIV transmission among this population. This paper recommends that the situational and environmental context of African Americans' lives, and their responses to HIV/AIDS be addressed and incorporated into HIV prevention programs in an effort to make these programs more relevant to high risk African Americans. A multilevel system intervention approach grounded in an ecosystem perspective which focuses on the community as the primary target level of intervention is proposed to increase the effectiveness of HIV prevention efforts among African Americans.     

Karriereerfolg als Ergebnis des Personalmanagements

Strategic human resource management has avoided to evaluate its efforts in relation to employees’ careers. Recent research has investigated a selection of individual human resource management (HRM) practices (e.?g., training and development, mentoring, career development, talent management, performance appraisal) in relation to objective and subjective career success, but failed to study HRM systems or bundles. This paper argues that HRM systems and career success can be connected via human capital theory because human capital is understood as an organizational resource and as an individual antecedent to careers. Based on extant research that relates individual HRM practices to objective or subjective career success, this paper reviews and discusses the relationship between bundles of HRM practices and the individual practices contained therein and career success. The final conclusion suggests that evaluations of HRM systems should take careers into account because organizations rely on employees’ human capital. Future research should focus more intensely on the role of HRM for the development of careers also across organizations.     

Does an Immigrant Background Ameliorate Racial Disadvantage? The Socioeconomic Attainments of Second‐Generation African Americans1

Although there is a growing literature on the socioeconomic circumstances of the second generation, this issue has not been systematically considered for African Americans. To help fill this research gap, we investigate the extent to which the socioeconomic attainments of second‐generation African Americans differ from mainstream (i.e., third and higher generation) African Americans. Using data from the Current Population Survey and the 2000 Census, our results indicate that the schooling and wages of second‐generation African Americans consistently exceed those of third‐ and higher generation African Americans. Our findings also reveal that second‐generation African Americans do at least as well as whites in terms of years of schooling, but wage differentials differ significantly by gender. Second‐generation African‐American women earn wages that are at least as high as comparable white women, but second‐generation African‐American men earn wages that are, on average, about 16% less than measurably comparable white men. While no one theoretical perspective can account for all these results, they nonetheless indicate the continuing significance of racial disadvantage for African‐American men, including those with an immigrant background.     

Walk the Walk but Don't Talk the Talk: The Strategic Use of Color‐Blind Ideology in an Interracial Social Movement Organization

In this study, I examine the strategies interracial organizations use in the twenty‐first century, where color‐blind ideology dominates. Much theoretical work on racism examines how it has evolved during different historical periods, but this work does not address how these changing forms of racism affect social movement organizations, particularly those on the left. While the literature on color‐blind ideology has examined how it is expressed by African Americans and European Americans separately, my work investigates how color‐blind ideology operates when European Americans and people of color are working together in the same organizational setting. Studies of social movements have examined how organizational culture affects strategies but have neglected how external racist culture and color‐blind ideology impacts organizational strategies. Findings from 3 years of ethnographic data collected on an interracial social movement organization and its corresponding coalition suggest that activists in interracial organizations use racism evasiveness strategically to maintain solidarity. I conceptualize racism evasiveness as the action resulting from color‐blind ideology within a larger system of racism. While activists perceive advantages to these strategies, there are also long‐term negative consequences. Without explicitly naming and addressing racism, progressive organizations may be limited in their ability to challenge systemic racism.     

Differences Between Black/African American and White College Students Regarding Influences on High School Completion,College Attendance,and Career Choice

Compared with White persons, Black/African American persons in the United States continue to experience high rates of educational deficits and employment stagnation as well as lower college graduation rates. This study examined the influences on Black/African American and White college students' high school completion, college attendance, and career choice. Results indicate that future income and future status have a greater influence on the career choice of Black/African American college students than on the career choice of White college students. The authors discuss these findings and present implications for career development professionals.