Multi-level triggers of anti-woke behaviour: immigrant marginalisation in the workplace

Kamasak, R. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8768-3569 and Palalar Alkan, D. (2025) Multi-level triggers of anti-woke behaviour: immigrant marginalisation in the workplace. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences. ISSN 0825-0383 doi: 10.1002/cjas.70038 (In Press)

Abstract/Summary

This study examines how exclusionary diversity climates in anti-woke organisations foster hostility towards immigrant talent and lead to their underemployment and marginalisation. Drawing on an integrative framework of institutional theory and social cognitive theory, we investigate how macro-level sociopolitical forces and mesolevel factors trigger and reinforce such anti-woke dynamics. Our qualitative study finds that moral panic, broader anti-immigrant signals in the sociopolitical landscape, such as ethnocentric and nationalist ideologies and regulatory shortcomings, are interpreted by organisations into HR practices and narratives. This organisational translation results in biased hiring and onboarding practices, pressures for cultural conformity, moral panic about cultural contamination, doubts about immigrants’ professional legitimacy, and informal boundary policing that reinforce insider–outsider divides. Consequently, we show how an anti-woke stance hampers the effective integration of immigrant employees. We argue that without confronting anti-EDI ideologies and implementing genuine inclusive practices at both institutional and organisational levels, firms will continue to underutilise skilled immigrants, worsening talent waste and skill shortages, which harms both organisations and countries.