Recruiting immigrants : A Swedish study of the recruitment practice in the hospitality industry

Immigration is a megatrend that continues to change our society. With an influx of people this means that the workforce becomes more diverse. Diversification is something that is becoming increasingly noticeable today, which has led to diversity issues gaining greater topicality, which in turn contributes to the management of diversity gaining greater importance. This is also a current issue when it comes to politics in Sweden, as one side of today’s political climate is against promoting cultural diversity in Sweden. Which is one reason why foreign-born, or immigrants are an underrepresented group in society. Most literature in the management field regarding diversity, recruitment and diversity management has an Anglosphere perspective which is why this thesis brings in the Swedish perspective. Our purpose is to identify and describe existing phenomenon in diversity management, recruitment and how much one's ethnicity or nationality matters in the recruitment process. In order to be able to answer the purpose, two research questions have been designed: What does a hospitality organization's diversity management look like to manage cultural diversity in the workplace? What role does the candidate’s nationality and ethnicity play in recruitment? We utilized an abductive approach which meant that we challenged existing theory with the data we collected. This research was done by a qualitative semi-structured interview with six respondents from the hospitality industry, specifically restaurants and cafes. The interview included questions about their own view on diversity, how the recruitment process is, and how they manage diversity. Through this, we were able to obtain data regarding diversity, recruitment, and diversity management, which helped us reach a conclusion. The findings indicate that one's ethnicity or nationality does not play a role in the recruitment process and that the requirements are relatively low. This was based on the manager’s or owner’s personal attitude towards diversity. The most prominent way to manage diversity is to be open to hiring people from different backgrounds. The recruitment is done with an informal or pragmatic recruitment process because of the recruiters' requirements being personality and organizational fit. Additionally, it was found that diversity management or a human resource strategy was not included in most organizations and potential conflicts and challenges were handled by communication. Finally, this study contributes with a Swedish perspective on recruitment and shows that theories and what is done in practice differ