Not Paying for Diversity: Repugnant Concerns with Instrumental Approaches to Diversity Recruitment

Abstract

In a 20-month ethnographic study, I examine how a technology firm, “ShopCo” (a pseudonym), considered 13 different hiring platforms to attract minority engineering talent. I find that when choosing to adopt hiring platforms focused on racial minority candidates, but not when choosing to adopt hiring platforms where the modal candidate on the platform is white, ShopCo decision-makers expressed distaste with the perceived (a) objectification, (b) exploitation, and (c) ‘race-based targeting’ of racial minorities. These repugnant market concerns influenced which types of platforms ShopCo adopted to recruit racial minorities. ShopCo eschewed hiring platforms that emphasized time, quantity, efficiency, opportunity, and compensation as benefits to candidates (an instrumental approach to candidate recruitment—typically used for white candidates) in favor of platforms that emphasized individuality, ethics, equity, authenticity, and commitment as benefits for candidates (a non-instrumental approach to candidate recruitment). I consider the implications of my findings—specifically, this new demand-side constraint of repugnant market concerns—for organizations looking to create more diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplaces.