Business faculty research assessing racial bias in hiring presented at conference

Assistant Professor So-Jin Yu presented collaborative research by Business Administration faculty that examined the impact of race in the hiring process, at the annual Business Research Consortium conference on Saturday, April 27.

Many research studies since 2004 have found that racial disparities exist in hiring practices for various jobs, benefiting white applicants over black applicants. To embrace diversity, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has launched initiatives to enroll a more diverse population into the accounting curriculum with the hope of building a more diverse accounting profession.

Compiling the research alongside Dr. Yu were Assistant Professor Mark Nickerson and Associate Professor Lisa Walters.

Their study, “Are Emily and Gregg (Still) More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal (in Public Accounting Firms),” investigated if racial disparity currently exists in the profession despite the AICPA initiatives. To examine this topic, a blind study of callbacks for eight separate fictitious applicants of various races, genders and resume quality was conducted.

What the study found was that although no differences in callbacks existed between blacks and whites, when quality of resumes is considered, whites nonetheless have the advantage, driven by white females.