City Research Online

Abstract

In this study we examine the heterogeneous effects of being affiliated with different minority groups on employees’ career advancements in organizations. We draw on the categories literature and its concept of category distance to hypothesize why some minority groups may be more (dis)advantaged than others in their career advancements. To do so, we define category distance in terms of shared identity markers between groups, where identity markers are salient attributes that audiences commonly associate a group with. We test our hypotheses among religious minority groups using employment data from a large Indonesian government organization. Our results indicate that minority groups closer in distance to the organizational majority group are more penalized in their career advancements than minority groups further in distance. These results hold both at the group and at the individual level. Through our study we make contributions to the literatures on careers, categories, and the burgeoning study of religion in organizations. We conclude with implications for practice.

Publication Type:	Article
Additional Information:	© 2024 The Authors. Journal of Management Studies published by Society for the Advancement of Management Studies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher Keywords:	Careers; Categories; Inequality; Minority Groups; Religion
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BL Religion H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Management
SWORD Depositor:	Symplectic Administrator

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