Is there a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions? Evidence from a large-scale field experiment with over 12,000 job applications

Ethnic inequalities are pervasive in the higher echelons of organizations. We conducted a field experiment to analyze if there is a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities entering leadership positions. We submitted over 12,000 job applications, to over 4,000 job advertisements, to investigate hiring discrimination against six ethnic groups for leadership positions. Drawing on implicit leadership theory, we argue that ethnic discrimination is particularly pronounced in the recruitment of leadership positions. Our findings confirm this hypothesis. We find that discrimination increases for leadership positions. Resumes with non-English names receive 57.4% fewer positive responses for leadership positions than identical resumes with English names. For non-leadership positions, ethnic minorities receive 45.3 percent fewer positive responses. Ethnic discrimination for leadership positions is even more pronounced when the advertised job requires customer contact. In contrast, ethnic discrimination in leadership positions is not significantly influenced by whether the organization’s job advertisement emphasizes individualism or learning, creativity, and innovation. These findings provide novel evidence of a glass ceiling for ethnic minorities to enter leadership positions.