Doctoral Dissertation Research: Hiring and Inequality in High Prestige Professions

michele LamontLauren rivera哈佛大学招聘是雇主塑造劳动力市场不平等的一种强有力但尚未得到充分研究的方式。尽管最近的一些研究表明，招聘实践系统性地不利于某些群体的申请人，如女性、少数民族和社会经济背景较低的人，但现有的研究并没有充分探讨为什么会出现这种结果。拟议的论文试图通过打开雇主招聘决策的“黑箱”来弥补这一差距。具体来说，该研究考察了三个经济精英行业——投资银行、管理咨询和公司法——的雇主如何招聘和选择新获得mba和法学博士学位的员工。通过对雇主的120次访谈和对这些行业招聘委员会的民族志观察，本文探讨了雇主用来评估求职者优点的评估标准，以及评估和选择过程如何因专业而异。本文通过将经济学、经济社会学和组织研究的发展与文化社会学的文献结合起来，阐明了人际评价过程如何导致宏观层面的劳动力市场不平等，为社会科学研究提供了重要的智力贡献。论文的结果将对就业歧视的政策辩论产生影响，并将有助于增加就业实践与多样性结果之间关系的知识体系。实际上，这些发现可能会帮助雇主以减少偏见和增加组织内部多样性的方式构建招聘实践。

SES-0727427Michele LamontLauren RiveraHarvard UniversityHiring is powerful yet understudied way in which employers shape labor market inequalities. Although a number of recent studies have demonstrated that hiring practices systematically disadvantage certain groups of applicants, such as women, ethnic minorities, and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, existing research does not adequately explore why such outcomes occur. The proposed dissertation seeks to remedy this gap by opening up the "black box" of employer hiring decisions. Specifically, the study examines how employers in three economically elite professions -- investment banking, management consulting, and corporate law -- recruit and select newly credentialed M.B.A. and J.D. hires. Drawing upon 120 interviews with employers and ethnographic observation of hiring committees in these industries, the dissertation explores the criteria of evaluation employers use to assess the merit of job applicants as well as how processes of evaluation and selection vary by profession. The dissertation provides important intellectual contributions to social science research by bringing together developments in economics, economic sociology, and organizational studies with the literature in cultural sociology to illuminate how interpersonal processes of evaluation contribute to macro-level labor market inequalities. The results of the dissertation will have implications for policy debates on employment discrimination and will contribute to a growing body of knowledge on the relationship between employment practices and diversity outcomes. In practical terms, the findings may help employers structure hiring practices in ways that reduce bias and increase diversity within organizations.