In this episode Dr Kamal Munir, reader in strategy and policy at the Cambridge Judge Business School, joins us to talk about how racial inequality is reproduced in organisations and why it continues to escape scrutiny. 

We think about how the Black Lives Matter protests have prompted organisations to do some soul-searching, and we explore some practical solutions to achieving racial equality at the workplace.

About Kamal:

Dr Kamal Munir is Reader in Strategy & Policy at the Cambridge Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, where he also serves as the Academic Director of the Centre for Strategic Philanthropy. His research interests lie in social change and stasis. Dr Munir is a Fellow of Homerton College and also serves as the Race Equality Champion for the University of Cambridge.

Transcript:

Nick Saffell 0:00   

Hello and welcome to the other university. I'm your host, Nick Saffell. In this episode dr Kemal minear reader and strategy and policy at the Cambridge judge Business School, joins us to talk about how racial inequality is reproduced in organizations, why it continues to escape scrutiny. We think about how the Black Lives Matter protests, prompting organizations to do some soul searching and explore some practical solutions to achieving racial equality in the workplace. I'm going to jump in right into this one, what is institutional racism and sort of how is it different from straight up racism?

Kamal Munir 0:37   

I think institutional racism the clue is in the name that it is institutionalized when something becomes institutionalized, it comes to be taken for granted it is not questioned anymore. So whereas if you see someone walking on the street being called names based on their race, that would be pretty evident to you as racism, institutionalized racism, which mostly happens inside organizations and, and and of course, at a larger level in societies, you may not be able to tell. So white privilege is part of institutional racism, when people actually understand it to be just part of, you know, normal life and part of a meritocratic organization. And this is this is how it is. So, it is it is much less visible, it is much more subtle, and it is embedded in organizational processes and routines,

Nick Saffell  1:41   

thinking about the routines, how do workplaces contribute to sort of racial inequality then,

Kamal Munir 1:49   

basically, based on what I understand of organizations, there are two ways in which organizations contribute to institutional racism. And there are two myths that pervade most organizations. One is that they are meritocratic, and the other is that they are efficient. So, when an organization and the members of the organization understand the workplace to be meritocratic, they automatically assume that everyone who gets promoted everyone who gets hired is on the basis of merit. And if we go deep into organizations, we see that that is not necessarily the case. meritocracy, meritocracy tends to be a myth. And increasingly, there is more and more research coming out, showing exactly why meritocracy remains a myth in organizations. And when we look at organizations numbers, it becomes pretty apparent that there are certain people

Kamal Munir 2:58   

based on race, you know, who are just performing much better than others. So if you look at fortune 500 CEOs, 96% of them are non Hispanic whites. In America, if you look at top management in various sectors, you will take finance companies, only 2.4% of executive committee members 1.4% of managing directors and 1.4% of senior portfolio managers are black. Same in technology, only 1.9% of technology executives and 5.3% of tech professionals are African American in America. So similarly, the average black partnership rate at US law firms between 2005 and 2016 has been estimated at 1.8%. So, there are there are significant differences and yet we continue to understand our organizations as meritocracies and the second myth is that of efficiency. So we simply assume that everything that we do is essentially geared towards greater efficiency in organizations. So what we what we realize is or what we must realize is that at the level of hiring, promotion, the opportunities that you get in organizations, your compensation, there is vast evidence that they are not always geared towards efficiency. So these are the two myths, meritocracy and efficiency that tend to that tend to obscure what goes on in organizations and on an everyday basis. workplaces contribute hugely to institutional racism, but escaped scrutiny because we have bought these myths.

Nick Saffell  4:55   

You gave me a lot of stats about the fortune 500 and I'm just thinking Compared to five or 10 years ago, is there any change happening in reality,

Kamal Munir 5:06   

the change is extremely slow neck, if you compare today with, you know, five or 10 years ago, certainly there is a change in terms of our appetite for doing something. And, and that is that is encouraging me. Because, you know, as recent surveys show, the share of Americans who see racial discrimination in their country as being a problem has risen from 51% in January 2015 to 76%. Now, similarly, 52% of Britons think British society is fairly or very racist, this is a big rise from similar Bulls in the past. Now, when we look at organizations, on the other hand, things are not quite moving as fast as we would like them to So, between 2004 and 2018, for example, black people experience double the unemployment levels in Britain than white people. Similarly, the UK his annual population survey revealed that black people in employment are still paid less on average than white people. And, and the same thing, when we look at performance in in schools. So, it is not quite the same thing, or not quite the speed at which we would like things to move. In fact, the most revealing thing came out in the 2020 Parker review, which was published earlier this year, of course, which found that 59% of the 256 firms they reviewed, did not meet the Parker review target, which was merely to have at least one director of ethnically diverse background on their board, only 5% of footsie 250 firms had a person of color as director only 5%. And even more shocking, just 2% of footsie 250 companies set measurable objectives for board ethnic diversity. So things are not quite moving as fast. In fact, if you look across the pond, it is shocking that the household income gap between black families and white families in America remains the same as it was in 1968. If you if you look at integration, or segregation of cities, in 1970, American cities were almost completely segregated in that 93% of black residents would have needed to move to ensure complete integration. And when the at the time of the most recent census in 2010, this number was 70%. So yes, there has been some progress, but not nearly enough.

Nick Saffell  8:02   

that those are some incredibly alarming statistics and figures. But do you think I'm thinking now of 2020? Do you think the BLM movement has sort of been any form of catalyst to get the conversation going within business? And on that my sort of second question would be, are there any big differences in the way that the big companies are sort of approaching it?

Kamal Munir 8:28   

So in terms of BLM, yes, it has. It has certainly made people you know, sit out and rethink what is going on in organization. So I have been giving talks in in some organizations, for instance, just making them aware that there is a problem out there, you'd be surprised at how many successful people think there isn't really a problem and how many of them think that their organizations are complete meritocracies and, and only pursue one goal which is that of efficiency. Now, what PLM has done is raise awareness that there is a problem. A lot of people still think that you know, this is about this is about the high handedness of American police and, and police suppression of blacks, but it is not just that as I told you the these the status of blacks, the gap between blacks and white remains at at alarming levels. And so, BLM has certainly raised awareness of that now, whether that pressure is going to continue is up to us. So it is up to us to keep the pressure on because when it is when there is external pressure that is when organizations are forced to audit What is going on inside the organization? And and yes, I mean, there will be lots of organizations and there are lots of organizations that essentially have decoupled these things from the actual running of the organization. So they will issue diversity statements, for example. And but what research shows is that organizations that do issue diversity statements, more ethnic minorities are likely to apply to those organizations, but in terms of promotion, there or you know, making it to senior management, there doesn't seem to be any correlation between an organization's signaling that they are, they're diverse, and they value diversity and actually promoting people. So it is up to us to make sure that, you know, they walk the talk. So there is the pressure. Now, in terms of change in companies, yes. I mean, so companies are trying to figure out, what can they do? Or not all companies, I cited, you know, figures from the Parker review. So, you know, I mean, this is, this is still a small minority, but, you know, I mean, many companies, nevertheless, are trying to figure out what are the measures that they can put into place. And some of the measures, of course, are just getting a consultant in to do implicit bias training. Now, the, the evidence on implicit bias training is, is not very encouraging. So, with implicit bias training, you know, 1000 studies show that people soon forget the right answers on bias tra