Journal Article

Despite evidence of the value of diversity in workplaces, and considerable research on particular areas of diversity management practice, there is less knowledge to date of how, why, and when such practices lead to inclusion. This paper suggests four areas in which embedded, structural practices together constitute inclusion and discusses mechanisms that may render these operative and effective, namely voice, felt security, and felt fairness. It argues that a practice-based theory of inclusion has the potential to augment current understandings of inclusion by extending beyond the individual level of analysis, to conceptualize inclusion as embedded in organizational cultures, norms and structures, produced and reproduced through the choices and practices of organizational actors.

We examine how susceptible jobs are to computerisation. To assess this, we begin by implementing a novel methodology to estimate the probability of computerisation for 702 detailed occupations, using a Gaussian process classifier. Based on these estimates, we examine expected impacts of future computerisation on US labour market outcomes, with the primary objective of analysing the number of jobs at risk and the relationship between an occupations probability of computerisation, wages and educational attainment.

This study investigates the role of the academic program in the incidence, persistence, and economic returns to overqualification among recent Canadian post-secondary graduates. Master's graduates are far more prone to overqualification than other graduates. Overqualification rates vary considerably by major field of study at the college and bachelor's levels, but not at the master's level. Graduates who are overqualified shortly after entering the workforce are far more likely to remain overqualified in the following years. Weak evidence suggests that co-op graduates are less likely to be overqualified at the bachelor's and master's levels, but not at the college level (where co-op programs are more popular). There is a strong, negative earnings effect associated with overqualification at the college and bachelor's levels, most of which dissipates after accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in a longitudinal framework. There is little or no earnings effect at the master's and doctoral levels.

The analysis of how individuals obtain and are paid for their skills is fundamental to labor economics. The basic idea of human capital theory is that workers and firms invest in workers' skills in order to increase their productivity, much as persons invest in financial or physical assets to earn income. Workers develop many skills through formal education not tied to an employer, but an important part of their skills are learned on the job. This paper is a survey of the recent literature on on-the-job training, both theoretical and empirical.

This article focuses on a major host of unpaid intern labor-the music industry-to examine how internships function as a challenging, intermediary step for individuals attempting to launch careers. Based on interviews and participant observation, the author finds that ambiguity plays an important role in producing and maintaining the intern economy. The author uses the term provisional labor to describe the temporary, conditional, and ambiguous standing of interns, as they simultaneously build their employability and provide inexpensive labor. The case study reveals why aspirants encounter varying opportunities in their internships, which may differ from their respective hopes, expectations, and career aspirations.

We use an intercategorical approach to intersectionality to quantify pay and attainment of supervisory positions for groups of immigrants and their descendants who also vary in gender, mother tongue, and race. Using a Canadian nationally representative sample of 20,000 employees across 6000 firms, we find a $10,000 spread in annual pay between the groups with the most advantages and those experiencing the most barriers, loosely corresponding to an additive model of intersectional benefits and barriers. The effects of immigrant generation are partially mitigated by the degree to which firms are internationally-oriented, indicating that international businesses may help to reduce inequities.

Identity is often at the heart of ongoing intergroup conflicts in organizations. Drawing from theories of conflict management, social identity, and organizational identification, we develop the intractable identity conflict resolution model, which delineates a multiphase process by which the conflicting parties' identities shift in order to permit eventual intergroup harmony.

This article provides a conceptual framework for discussing information and communication technology (ICT) skills shortages in a context in which having a sufficient supply of skilled ICT workers—both inside the ICT sector and more broadly—is critical to the performance of the Canadian economy. We start with an outline of a simple model of how ICT skills shortages might be manifested in labour market signals, such as rising wages, and then how, in response to these signals, workers already in the labour market should adjust, whereas young people making schooling and career decisions would be expected to skew toward ICT areas. We then discuss some of the reasons these dynamics might not follow this model, and therefore how ICT skill shortages could potentially endure over time. The article sets the stage for the other articles in this special issue, which address these and other issues related to ICT skills from a mix of traditional academic and industry perspectives.