The aim of this study is to investigate why many immigrants end up in uncertain employment.
The paper describes a qualitative case study of three nursing homes in Oslo (Norway), which investigates immigrant employment and recruitment-related practices. Practice theory is used as the theoretical and methodological framework. The study takes an ethnographic approach and combines participant observation, semi-structured shadowing, qualitative interviews and document review.
The recruitment practice, as it is accomplished, is different from the practice that is prescribed in the formal recruitment policy. The configuration of the recruitment-related practices locks in the recruitment practice and reproduces the social order. The net effect of the recruitment-related practices is that immigrant employees remain in uncertain employment.
A practice-theoretical approach, analyzing organizational practices as they are accomplished in space and time and not as isolated activities defined by their purpose, provides a richer understanding of the complexity and connectedness of organizational practices. Combining practice theory and institutional perspectives, the paper demonstrates how normative and regulative mediators order and align related practices. The study demonstrates the importance of examining the configuration of practices to understand how the net effect of related practices affects those who dwell in them, in this case immigrants pursuing secure and stable employment.
This study contributes to the field of diversity management by using practice theory to explain why measures for enhancing immigrant employment may not have the intended effect because they are interwoven in a nexus of practices with conflicting interests that (un)intentionally undermine the measures.
