Call for Papers
Indigenous Peoples’ Work Experiences: Emerging from Adversity and Chasing their Dreams

Editors: Dianna L. Stone and Brian Murray
Proposals due: Feb 1, 2025
Final Papers due: October 1, 2025

Open to scholars in Psychology, Management, Human Resource Management, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Indigenous Entrepreneurship, Indigenous studies, Organizational Behavior, Sociology.

Indigenous people face extraordinary challenges in work organizations including exclusion, discrimination, harassment, incivilities, and workplace violence (Ducharme, in press; Stone et al., in press). In addition, they typically have high unemployment rates which leads to poverty, housing and food insecurity, and high rates of illness and health problems. Many indigenous people are also invisible in societies, and some people have noted that they have never met an indigenous person. Despite these challenges, they have demonstrated remarkable resilience in supporting one another and crafting opportunities to improve their work and life circumstances (Vazques-Maguirre, 2020). To date, there has been relatively little research on indigenous people at work (e.g., Black & Kennedy, in press; Dabdoub et al., 2021; Murry et al., in press) and very few scholarly books have been published on the topic (e.g., Littlefield & Knack, 1996; Stone, Lukaszewski & Murray, in press; Whalen, 2018). As a result, organizations do not have the research evidence needed to effectively attract, motivate, and retain indigenous workers, to significantly improve their work situations, or to leverage their distinctive indigeneity to positively impact organizational creativity, adaptability, or competitiveness.
To address this need, the present volume will (a) provide a review of the challenges and obstacles facing the world’s indigenous people in work organizations, (b) consider strategies that organizations, communities, and indigenous people might use to increase their inclusion, (c) review the existing research on Indigenous peoples’ experience of work, and (d) present propositions for future research and practice that can address the distinctive circumstances they face.
Employment Challenges Facing Indigenous People
The employment challenges faced by Indigenous people are substantial, exceed those faced by other racial and ethnic minorities, and are ubiquitous across the globe. For example, in the U.S., Native American and Alaska native unemployment far exceeds the rates of all other racial groups (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2024). In the Australia region, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples likewise face higher unemployment relative to non-indigenous people (Fransciso et al., in press). They also are more likely to be in lower-status labor and personal service jobs than in managerial or professional positions. Camargo and colleagues (Camargo et al., 2022) reviewed similar disparities throughout Mexico, Central, and Latin America, citing negative differentials for wages and quality of work opportunities. Errico (2017) similarly reported that Asian Indigenous persons face substantial discrimination and are engaged in less desirable work. Like Camargo et al. (2022), she also observed an increase in wage-work and a move toward urban employment such as street vendors, construction labor, or domestic services in which they received lower wages, had weaker contract rights, and faced higher risk of dismissal.
Together, these reports paint a picture of systematic and pervasive negative experiences for Indigenous people that are incrementally more pronounced relative to the experiences of other racial groups or different because of the unique characteristics and needs of Indigenous persons. In recent years, there has been considerable research in organizational behavior and human resource management (HRM) on unfair discrimination against ethnic minorities (e.g., African Americans, Dipboye & Colella, 2005; Hispanic-Americans, Blancero et al., 2014; Asian-Americans, Cheng & Thatchenkery, 1997). However, much of the research has focused on African Americans, older workers, or women and has not specifically examined the experiences of other ethnic minorities (i.e., indigenous people) (e.g., Findling et al., 2019; Muller, 1998; Stone et al., 2023). There has been relatively little research on indigenous people (Gladstone, in press; Murray, in press) because they have very different histories, life experiences, and cultural values that make them distinct among world groups. For example, many of them were conquered and colonized by dominant countries, had their lands confiscated, suffered enslavement, and experienced the effects of cultural annihilation.
Theoretical Perspectives on Unfair Discrimination Against Indigenous People
As a starting point for gaining a better understanding of Indigenous peoples’ experience of work, there are several theoretical perspectives such as cultural racism theory (Barker, 1981; Stone et al., 2023), social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), and the influence of culture on HRM processes and practices (e.g., Stone & Stone-Romero, 2008) that help to explain others’ treatment of Indigenous persons. A missing piece to the puzzle is the intersection of the typical drivers of discrimination and exclusion and the factors that are idiosyncratic to being an Indigenous person. A common assertion, particularly regarding North American Indigenous persons, is that they culturally espouse a unique perspective on the connectedness of all things including the natural environment, persons, animals, and resources, have a distinctive circular sense of time, and value collectivism, cooperation, equality, and community. These cultural characteristics both distance Indigenous workers from coworkers and Western approaches to work and decision making and provide an opportunity for the organization to draw on their alternative perspectives to improve creativity and decision making (Black & Kennedy, in press).
Potential Manuscript Topics
To achieve the goals described above, we invite chapter proposals for the following topics. Other topics also will be considered relative to the objectives of the volume.
• Employment problems facing indigenous people throughout the world including on the regions of Asia, Africa, the Americas, Europe, the Artic, and Australia and the Pacific Islands.
• Reasons for the challenges faced by indigenous people: Explanations based on theories of cultural racism, social dominance, social identity theory, social cognitive theory, or other established perspectives
• Reasons that Indigenous people have trouble gaining and maintaining access to organizations: Comparisons of cultural values, norms, common and distinctive characteristics of indigenous persons.
• Influence of culture values and norms on patterns of self-identity, communication, socialization, decision-making, teamwork, leadership, or work-related outcomes
• Reactions of indigenous workers to working in non-indigenous and indigenous organizations
• Influence of cultural values on recruitment and selection (job choice preferences, biases), training, performance management, compensation and reward preferences, or employee relations
• Reactions to organizational policies (e.g., work-family policies, alternative work schedules including hybrid work, flexible schedules, job sharing) or other job design characteristics
• Patterns of indigenous workers job attitudes and behaviors (e.g., satisfaction, commitment, withdrawal, Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), stress and well-being)
This volume will be part of the Handbook of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Management - World Scientific Publishers. The handbook series, edited by Payal Kumar and Pawan Budhwar, is a 5-volume, multi-disciplinary, comprehensive reference work. The present volume will consist of approximately 22 peer-reviewed chapters on the challenges and prospects for indigenous people in modern work organizations
KEY DATES:
Proposals Due Feb 1, 2025. Brief proposals (1 to 2 pages) must be submitted and approved. Please provide a description of the intended topic coverage. Proposals will be reviewed for fit with the volume’s intent and overall topic coverage for the volume.
Final Manuscripts due: October 1, 2025
Please send proposals and final manuscripts to Dr. Brian Murray at bmurray@udallas.edu.
All manuscripts must be no more than 7,000 words including tables, references, etc., and conform to the APA 6th edition style guide. Authors may use AP 7th edition guide, but DOI numbers are not needed for either edition.

References Supplied Upon Request