The Meaning of Success: Ethno-Gendered Reactions to Discrimination at Work

Abstract

Abstract A growing body of research examines discrimination within racialized organizations, but much less attention has been given to workers’ reactions to such experiences. We offer an identity-based theory for understanding varied career reactions to discrimination and apply it to minority professionals within the Israeli pharmaceutical retail industry. We analyze 116 interviews with Arab-Israeli and Jewish pharmacists to explore the experience of exclusion at work and its impact on career plans. Our findings reveal that marginalized professionals can regain their self-efficacy at work by emphasizing a broader identity-based meaning of career success and adapting their career strategies accordingly, within their labor market constraints. While career reactions are highly gendered, our evidence suggests that variations in reactions are primarily explained by the meaning of career success rather than gender. We discuss the implications of our findings for a theory of agency within racialized organizations.