In search of the suitable candidate: the role of status, upstream and downstream diversity in recruitment partnerships

Abstract

Abstract We conceptualize recruitment partnerships between higher education institutions (HEIs) and accounting firms as a social network. While elite closure is known to be typical of such relationships, we posit that commitments to improving organizational diversity should curtail this tendency. Yet, whereas diversity in employee recruitment is culturally institutionalized, there are no imperatives encouraging HEIs to partner with diverse firms, what we call ‘downstream diversity’. We hypothesize this differentiation should lead elite companies to form more diverse partnerships with HEIs than HEIs do with firms. Our analysis confirms elite HEIs mostly partner with prestigious companies. The latter partner across the status spectrum, but recruitment from lower-status HEIs is for less desirable jobs. We also find elite establishments in both fields are unlikely to partner with organizations with high representation of Black persons. We conclude that (a) recruitment partnerships reproduce status distinctions, (b) firms are failing to meet diversity commitments and (c) downstream diversity needs to be incorporated into HEI diversity management toolkits.