Wilcox, Annika and Amanda Koontz. 2022. “Workplace Well-being: Shifting from an Individual to an Organizational Framework.” Sociology Compass. Online First.

This article integrates organizational sociology and the psychological well-being literature to argue that work-related well-being should be understood as an organizational rather than individual issue. It develops the concept of “workplace well-being” as a means of describing how workplaces can create or undermine well-being, depending on how they implement diversity, inclusivity, and equity.

Accompanying blog post: Wilcox, Annika and Amanda Koontz. August 2022. “Well-being is a Characteristic of Companies – Not Just Individual Workers.” Sociology Lens.

Wilcox, Annika, Amanda K. Damarin, and Steve McDonald. 2022. “Is Cybervetting Valuable?” Industrial and Organizational Psychology 15(3):315-333.

This article examines the costs of “cybervetting” (i.e. employers examining job candidates’ online presence to make hiring decisions) for job candidates, hiring agents, and organizations. It argues that cybervetting as currently practiced promotes privacy invasion, enables biased hiring decisions, and can perpetuate white male-dominated organizations – and that a redefinition of this practice is therefore necessary.

Wilcox, Annika, Steve McDonald, Richard Benton, and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey. 2022. “Gender Inequality in Relational Position-Taking: An Analysis of Intra-Organizational Job Mobility Networks.” Social Science Research 101.

This article utilizes social network analysis to examine how patterns of internal job mobility (i.e. movement between jobs within an organization) contribute to gendered job segregation. It finds that female-typed jobs tend to steer workers into female-typed work and preclude their promotion, whereas employment in male-typed jobs can facilitate upward movement. Further, this effect is exacerbated in organizations with higher levels of income inequality.

Shriver, Thomas, Laura Bray, Annika Wilcox, and Adriana Szabo. 2022. “Human Rights and Dissent in Hybrid Environments: The Impact of Shifting Rights Regimes.” The Sociological Quarterly 63(3):541-561.

This article examines how shifting rights regimes impact the political context of social movements. It draws on archival records, in-depth interviews, and media coverage to analyze cycles of dissent within Communist Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1977. It identifies three key features of rights regimes and illustrates how political opportunities and threats across multiple scales (domestic, regional, and international) collectively shape resistance.

Shriver, Thomas, Annika Wilcox, and Laura Bray. 2020. “Elite Cultural Work and Discursive Obstruction of Human Rights Activism.” Social Currents 7(1):11-28.

This article examines how authoritarian state leaders respond to social movements advanced by socially and culturally privileged activists. Analyzing a historical case of human rights activism in Communist Czechoslovakia, it identifies tactics of discursive obstruction (vilifying activists, distorting activists’ messages, symbolically amplifying values that activists challenge, and constructing regime support utilizing other privileged identities) as means by which authoritarian leaders attempt to neutralize the threat posed by democratic activists.

McDonald, Steve, Amanda K. Damarin, Jenelle Lawhorne, and Annika Wilcox. 2019. “Black Holes and Purple Squirrels: A Tale of Two Online Labor Markets.” Research in the Sociology of Work 33:93-120.

This article draws on in-depth interviews to examine how HR professionals assess active job candidates (who are actively applying for work) and passive job candidates (who are already employed and not seeking work, but open to being recruited). It illustrates that HR professionals’ labeling of passive job candidates as ideal candidates, and active job candidates as undesirable, serves to reinforce inequalities between the “haves” and the “have-nots” of the online labor market.

Accompanying blog post: McDonald, Steve, Amanda Damarin, and Annika Wilcox. August 2019. “Segmenting the Online Job Market: Avoiding Black Holes and Recruiting Purple Squirrels.” Work in Progress.

Select Media Coverage: Forbes, Science Daily