Afro-descendants' experiences in Portuguese workplaces: Perspectives on subtle discrimination and HRM practices in managing diversity

• Autor(a) principal: Germano, Natacha Andreia Gouveia da Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/19523
• topic: Workplace experiences; Afro-descendants; Workplace diversity; Discrimination; Experiências no trabalho; Afrodescendentes; Diversidade laboral; Discriminação

With the European political landscape becoming increasingly intolerant of differences, where neoconservative, racist and xenophobic ideologies are becoming more popular and with the decline of traditional racism marked by its evidence and easy recognition, and the spread of subtle forms of ethnic discrimination in organizations, it is important to trace where graduated Afro-descendants with white-collar jobs stand in the spectrum of discrimination in Portuguese organizations. This qualitative study aims to analyse the workplace experiences of graduated Afro-descendants in the ‘first person’, with a specific focus on the perceptions of unequal treatment and discrimination. Twelve graduate men and women who define themselves as Afro-descendants participated in semi-structured interviews and exposed their perceptions and understandings of potentially discriminatory situations at work, ways of coping with these events, and HRM policies favouring cultural diversity, equality and inclusion in organizations. The interviews were analysed by using a thematic analysis style – Template Analysis – producing the following main themes: ‘perception of discrimination’, ‘coping strategies’, ‘consequences of ethnic discrimination’, and ‘HRM practices’ developed and explored in 12 sub-themes. It was found that ethnic identity plays an important role in the perception and attribution to discrimination, that subtle discrimination permeates Portuguese organizations which are fairly homogeneous in terms of cultural diversity, and that HRM policies must be appropriate to adequately manage diversity counteracting the multiculturalist approach of including diversity without considering the existing inequalities between dominant group and ethnic minorities.