Strangers in Strained Lands: Learning From Workplace Experiences of Immigrant Employees

Abstract

Immigrants have become an important source of talent as well as a flash point for conflict in many countries. Alongside established streams of research on immigrants in other disciplines, we hope to galvanize interest among management scholars, particularly about immigrant employees. We begin by observing the identity and status changes undergone by immigrants relative to their standing in their origin country and the persistent insecurity they feel as they work and live in their destination country. We then expound on other microlevel research topics and literatures that are especially relevant to the experiences and contributions of immigrant employees: creativity and voice, diversity, coworker and supervisor support and antagonism, and social network structures. These ideas are presented to help generate broader and more active research agendas among management scholars that include such immigrant employee experiences and contributions and to promote partnerships with organizations to test interventions for integrating immigrants more fully into the workplace.