Open AccessAssimilation, Integration or Inclusion? A Dialectical Perspective on the Organizational Socialization of Migrants
Author(s) -
Vedran Omanović,
Ann Langley
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of management inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.315
H-Index - 62
eISSN - 1552-6542
pISSN - 1056-4926
DOI - 10.1177/10564926211063777
Subject(s) - dialectic , socialization , sociology , disadvantage , workforce , contradiction , perspective (graphical) , situated , inclusion (mineral) , political science , gender studies , economic growth , social science , economics , philosophy , epistemology , artificial intelligence , computer science , law
Given the increasing importance of migrations around the world, and the challenges that migrants face in entering the labor market, the process of socialization of migrants into organizations deserves more attention from management scholars. Indeed, societal discourses promoting equality and diversity often appear to be in contradiction with the unequal power relations migrants experience on entering the workforce. Drawing on a dialectic perspective and a qualitative meta-synthesis methodology, we show how the practices engaged in by organizations to socialize migrant employees are deeply embedded in and influenced by macro-social contexts that may place migrants at a disadvantage, giving rise to emerging tensions. We examine a range of contingencies that can mitigate the inequalities that migrants experience, and we reveal a variety of dynamic dialectical pathways surrounding migrant socialization practices through which they may be reproduced or transformed depending on the mutual relationships between situated conditions, emerging tensions and human praxes.