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        The Right Amount of Cards, Cash and ID to Carry in Your Wallet

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        How do sustainable supply chains improve the continuity of supply and protect the environment?

        How do sustainable supply chains improve the continuity of supply and protect the environment?

        3 Ways Boston University’s Online MBA Is A Disruptor In Business Education

        New Immigration Data Point To Larger U.S. Workforce Issues

        A Risk Management Nightmare at Silicon Valley Bank

        How CFOs are navigating the debt ceiling standoff

        Opposing scientists find no clear evidence for gender bias in academic science

        Opposing scientists find no clear evidence for gender bias in academic science

        Benefits of Supply Chain Visibility

        Benefits of Supply Chain Visibility

        The Right Amount of Cards, Cash and ID to Carry in Your Wallet

        Why Employees Hate Hot-Desking

        Ethics Professor Raises Key Questions About the Future Use of AI

        Loneliness is at epidemic proportions in modern organizations. Questrom expert tells how to address it

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        Demotivating Effects of Relative Performance Feedback on Middle-Ranked Workers’ Performance

        Demotivating Effects of Relative Performance Feedback on Middle-Ranked Workers’ Performance

        S1:E1 CVS Paying the “Pink Tax” on Certain Products and the Evolution of the Electric Vehicle Industry

        AI: What is it and how will it impact business?

        Is Creativity in Advertising Dead in the age of AI?

        Is Creativity in Advertising Dead in the age of AI?

        How Higher Ed Can Contend with Learning Platforms

        How Higher Ed Can Contend with Learning Platforms

        How Companies Deal with Disruption

        How Companies Deal with Disruption

        Money: It’s created. It’s destroyed. But what is it?

        Money: It’s created. It’s destroyed. But what is it?

        Blockchain, Beyond Crypto

        Blockchain, Beyond Crypto

        S1:E1 CVS Paying the “Pink Tax” on Certain Products and the Evolution of the Electric Vehicle Industry

        S1:E2 What the FTX?

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        Here’s Why Experts Say Russia and China’s Attempts to ‘De-Dollarize’ Global Markets are Going Nowhere

        5 ways Russia’s been sidestepping Western sanctions and keeping its economy alive, from switching to the Chinese yuan and dabbling in ghost trades

        3 Ways Boston University’s Online MBA Is A Disruptor In Business Education

        New Immigration Data Point To Larger U.S. Workforce Issues

        A Risk Management Nightmare at Silicon Valley Bank

        How CFOs are navigating the debt ceiling standoff

        Opposing scientists find no clear evidence for gender bias in academic science

        Opposing scientists find no clear evidence for gender bias in academic science

        Ethics Professor Raises Key Questions About the Future Use of AI

        Questrom marketing researcher explores the data-tracking debate

        Ownership in AI: Who is responsible for the benefits and downsides of AI’s output?

        Ownership in AI: Who is responsible for the benefits and downsides of AI’s output?

        The Right Amount of Cards, Cash and ID to Carry in Your Wallet

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          Will Generative AI Create a New Era of Search Competition?

          A Better Approach to Customer-Centric Messaging and Engagement

          A Better Approach to Customer-Centric Messaging and Engagement

          How Coworking Spaces Impact Employee Well-Being

          How Coworking Spaces Impact Employee Well-Being

          Will Salary Transparency Laws Change Employee Compensation?

          Will Salary Transparency Laws Change Employee Compensation?

          Heroes from Above But Not (Always) from Within? Gig workers’ reactions to the sudden public moralization of their work

          Heroes from Above But Not (Always) from Within? Gig workers’ reactions to the sudden public moralization of their work

          To Encourage Patients to Fill Prescriptions, Fix Copays

          To Encourage Patients to Fill Prescriptions, Fix Copays

          Is Tesla’s Era of Dominance Coming to an End? What Experts Say

          Is Tesla’s Era of Dominance Coming to an End? What Experts Say

          ESG Investing

          ESG Investing Isn’t Designed to Save the Planet

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          Home Our Insights Business Challenges Diversity, Equity & Inclusion

          How Serious is “Reverse Discrimination”?

          byLaurina Zhang
          November 23, 2020
          in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
          62
          A A
          How Serious is “Reverse Discrimination”?
          The recent #MeToo and Black Lives Matter movements have sparked increasing discussion around gender and racial diversity in the workplace. Many organizations are keen to increase participation from under-represented groups by requiring minimum diversity quotas on boards, enhancing diversity and inclusion training, and developing mentoring and scholarship programs for under-represented employees. At the same time, organizations face increasing challenges in balancing the desire for diversity while not discriminating against other candidates.

          This concern has been amplified in recent years due to several high-profile investigations and lawsuits based on “reverse discrimination.” For instance, the Department of Labor is investigating Microsoft and Wells Fargo’s efforts to increase people of color in senior management positions without discriminating on the basis of race. The common argument that underlies “reverse discrimination” cases is that affirmative action efforts lead to discrimination against majority group candidates and that unqualified individuals may be admitted for the sake of gender and racial diversity.

          While there are no systematic studies on reverse discrimination, survey evidence suggests discrimination against men in the workplace is low. At the same time, the participation rate of under-represented groups in leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship, has been low and remarkably persistent.[1] For instance, among Fortune 500 companies, women make up only 16.5 percent of top-five leadership positions and minorities represent about 16.1 percent of board seats. Indeed, Microsoft, the company being investigated for seeking to increase their ranks of Black leaders, currently has less than 3% of Black workers in positions of senior management. Women represent only 7-18 percent of inventors, depending on cohorts and technological fields, and inventors are three times more likely to be white than black.[2] Female funded startups received only 9 percent of VC-backed investments and just one percent of venture-backed founders were black.

          Research suggests these low participation rates are due to a combination of supply-side and demand-side barriers, such as parental background, lack of access to capital and networks, and biases by decision-makers.[3] Thus, efforts geared toward women and minorities, such as commitment to diversity hiring, mentorship programs, intentional funding for female and minority ventures, are aimed at leveling the playing field and reducing these systemic frictions. Research suggests women and minorities especially benefit from programs that provide access to opportunities and resources that they would otherwise not be able to procure on their own compared to male and Caucasian counterparts.

          Organizations can mitigate the perceived tradeoff between inclusion and quality of candidates in several ways. First, organizations need to recognize that lack of diversity is not a pipeline problem but rather a search problem. Second, it’s incumbent upon organizations to be intentional about recruitment efforts so that they solicit high-quality applications from a wide array of candidates such that there is little reason to trade off inclusion and quality. This may involve going beyond the set of places where they typically seek applicants, such as by tapping into the network of its own under-represented employees and developing relationships with national women and minority-focused professional networks. Third, organizations can minimize potential backlash against diversity efforts by being transparent about the requirements of positions, the evaluation process, and the qualifications of accepted individuals.

          [1] For research that documents underrepresentation of women and minorities among innovation leaders, including startup founders, patent inventors and venture capitalists, see for example, Bell et al., 2019, Hvide and Oyer, 2019, Agarwal and Gaule, 2020.

          [2] See for example, Hoisl and Mariani (2017); Jensen et al. (2018); Bell et al (2019)

          [3] For research on systemic barriers facing women and minorities in entrepreneurship, see for example, Blanchflower et al. (2003), Brooks et al. (2014), and Abraham (2020).


          About Our Expert

          LAURINA ZHANG
          Assistant Professor, Strategy & Innovation

          Laurina Zhang is an Assistant Professor in Strategy & Innovation at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. She is interested in the organizational and policy levers that affect innovation and inequality. Her work has examined how technology and information can affect innovative, entrepreneurial, and creative outcomes through democratization of access and participation for disadvantaged subgroups.

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          Laurina Zhang

          Laurina Zhang

          Laurina Zhang is an Assistant Professor in Strategy & Innovation at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. She is interested in the organizational and policy levers that affect innovation and inequality. Her work has examined how technology and information can affect innovative, entrepreneurial, and creative outcomes through democratization of access and participation for disadvantaged subgroups. Her research has been published in journals such as Management Science and the Strategic Management Journal. Her research has received numerous awards, including the Best Dissertation Award at Academy of Management, the Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship, and financial support from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)’s Innovation Policy and the Economics of Digitization working groups. Her work has been featured in various media outlets, such as Forbes, PCMag, Billboard, Boing Boing, and The Conversation. She has received multiple teaching recognitions, such as Elective Professor of the Year award for her course in Corporate Strategy and Student Recognition of Excellence in Teaching: Class of 1934 award, which is awarded to 40 faculty across Georgia Tech. Prior to joining BU, she served on the faculty at Georgia Institute of Technology’s Scheller College of Business and Western University’s Ivey Business School. Laurina holds her Ph.D. from the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Prior to her PhD, Laurina worked at the Bank of Canada.

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