Investigating the existence of ethnic bias in professional services

The underrepresentation of ethnic minorities persists in professional service organizations because some are reluctant to hire minority employees owing to fear of negative customer evaluations. I apply expectancy violation theory to challenge the assumptions behind such hiring practice and predict that in unambiguous service encounters between majority customers and minority professional service providers (PSP) detrimental consequences are less salient. In four scenario-based studies in two contexts (lawyer, physician), I manipulate PSP ethnicity status and find that clients rate minority (vs. majority) PSPs more favorably in terms of competence, satisfaction, and rapport; rapport also mediates the relationship between PSP ethnicity status and clients’ compliance with their advice. This relationship is moderated by social dominance orientation too. A fifth study shows that the predicted relationships largely hold for positively and negatively valenced encounters. These results suggest an absence of bias effects in professional service settings and have implications for research and practice.