TY - JOUR
T1 - Understanding economic inequality through the lens of caste
AU - Bapuji, Hari
AU - Chrispal, Snehanjali
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the handling editor Prof. Raza Mir and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and helpful suggestions. The authors would also like to thank W.E. Douglas Creed, Krishna Udayasankar, Charlene Zietsma, and Michael Zyphur for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article. This paper also benefitted from the comments of participants of Organisation Studies Research Workshop at the University of Melbourne, as well as anonymous reviewers of AOM and IABS conferences. The authors express their gratitude to all of them.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, Springer Nature B.V.
PY - 2020/3
Y1 - 2020/3
N2 - Research on economic inequality has largely focused on understanding the relationship between organizations and inequality but has paid limited attention to the role of institutions in the creation and maintenance of inequality. In this article, we use insights from the caste system—an institution that perpetuates socio-economic inequalities and limits human functions—to elaborate on three elements of economic inequality: uneven dispersions in resource endowments, uneven access to productive resources and opportunities, and uneven rewards to resource contributions. We argue that economic inequalities persist because these three different elements of inequality feed from and reinforce each other. Our study underscores the potential of the caste lens to inform research on economic inequality as well as organizational theory and practice.
AB - Research on economic inequality has largely focused on understanding the relationship between organizations and inequality but has paid limited attention to the role of institutions in the creation and maintenance of inequality. In this article, we use insights from the caste system—an institution that perpetuates socio-economic inequalities and limits human functions—to elaborate on three elements of economic inequality: uneven dispersions in resource endowments, uneven access to productive resources and opportunities, and uneven rewards to resource contributions. We argue that economic inequalities persist because these three different elements of inequality feed from and reinforce each other. Our study underscores the potential of the caste lens to inform research on economic inequality as well as organizational theory and practice.
KW - Caste system
KW - Economic inequality
KW - Income inequality
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052641588&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10551-018-3998-8
DO - 10.1007/s10551-018-3998-8
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85052641588
SN - 0167-4544
VL - 162
SP - 533
EP - 551
JO - Journal of Business Ethics
JF - Journal of Business Ethics
IS - 3
ER -
