Journal article
Rodolph Durand, John Mawdsley, Lionel Paolella
Best Paper Proceedings of the 2025 Academy of Management Meeting. , 2025
Best Paper Proceedings of the 2025 Academy of Management Meeting. , 2025
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Cite
APA
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Durand, R., Mawdsley, J., & Paolella, L. (2025). “I’m not working for you!: Mitigating Stigma-by-Association in Hiring. Best Paper Proceedings of the 2025 Academy of Management Meeting. .
Chicago/Turabian
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Durand, Rodolph, John Mawdsley, and Lionel Paolella. “‘I’m Not Working for You!: Mitigating Stigma-by-Association in Hiring.” Best Paper Proceedings of the 2025 Academy of Management Meeting. (2025).
MLA
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Durand, Rodolph, et al. “‘I’m Not Working for You!: Mitigating Stigma-by-Association in Hiring.” Best Paper Proceedings of the 2025 Academy of Management Meeting. , 2025.
BibTeX Click to copy
@article{rodolph2025a,
title = {“I’m not working for you!: Mitigating Stigma-by-Association in Hiring},
year = {2025},
journal = {Best Paper Proceedings of the 2025 Academy of Management Meeting. },
author = {Durand, Rodolph and Mawdsley, John and Paolella, Lionel}
}
Abstract
Young workers increasingly manifest their socially-and-environmentally laden values through employer choice: who not to work for. We investigate if transacting with stigmatized buyers reduces U.S. corporate law firms’ ability to hire high-caliber entry-level talent, and whether morally enhancing and career assuring business practices offset this hiring penalty. Our findings indicate that firms hire proportionally fewer graduates from leading law schools when adding a fossil fuel-industry buyer to their portfolio but they can mitigate this penalty through greater pro bono work (“cleansing”) and by broadening their business with non-fossil fuel industry-buyers (“eclipsing”). Supplementary analyses reveal that firm and law school status, as well as rival firms’ cleansing and eclipsing activity, further affect the hiring penalty. Our research contributes to the strategic human capital and stigma-by-association literatures.
Young workers increasingly manifest their socially-and-environmentally laden values through employer choice: who not to work for. We investigate if transacting with stigmatized buyers reduces U.S. corporate law firms’ ability to hire high-caliber entry-level talent, and whether morally enhancing and career assuring business practices offset this hiring penalty. Our findings indicate that firms hire proportionally fewer graduates from leading law schools when adding a fossil fuel-industry buyer to their portfolio but they can mitigate this penalty through greater pro bono work (“cleansing”) and by broadening their business with non-fossil fuel industry-buyers (“eclipsing”). Supplementary analyses reveal that firm and law school status, as well as rival firms’ cleansing and eclipsing activity, further affect the hiring penalty. Our research contributes to the strategic human capital and stigma-by-association literatures.