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6. RACE COMPOSITION
assume that even if this baggage could be unloaded in the workplace that
it would not be repacked the same way at home.
We close by noting that the scope of this chapter has been limited in
tentionally to a concern with environmental influences on the race com
position of organizations. Given the literature from which many of our
arguments were drawn (that sociological body of evidence addressing the
race and sex composition of organizations), we are confident many of the
ideas advanced also should be helpful for understanding the distribution
of women across jobs in organizations. Beyond race and sex, the chapter
demonstrates how the problems of employment discrimination experi
enced, for instance, by gays and lesbians in America or by the Turkish
in Germany might be approached. Once more, our thesis is a simple one:
What goes on inside organizations is influenced by what is happening out
side them. So, for example, how Germans tend to stereotype the Turkish
will influence the personnel decisions made in a German firm about the
selection and placement of Turkish job applicants; these decisions, in turn,
will help shape the Turkish composition of the organization. Only look
ing inside organizations severely limits the development of the knowledge
needed to tackle the problem of employment discrimination experienced
by so many groups of people in America and around the world.
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