African Americans are getting the short end in employment opportunities due to their lack of access to networking groups dominated by whites, according to a New York Times article published this week.

The article notes that white Americans tend to get the edge in seeking certain jobs by accessing social networks that black Americans are not part of. Disturbing as this trend is, it stems from referrals that may seem innocuous to the people making them, say Wharton professors Janice Bellace and Katherine L. Milkman.

One stark fact: The U.S. civilian unemployment rate as of April 2013 is 6.7% among whites and 13.2% among blacks, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Even as the economy improves, African American workers continue to be worse off than the country as a whole, writes Rutgers professor Nancy DiTomaso in the Times. She sees the culprit as favoritism with a strong racial component, arguing that whites are more likely to help other whites and that the social connections that could give someone an “in” to good, high-paying professional jobs are concentrated among whites. DiTomaso bases her findings on interviews she conducted with candidates for 1,463 jobs.

“Most Americans do not think of themselves as living in segregated communities, but they do,” says Bellace, a Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. She notes that much of this segregation resulted from zoning laws dating to the early 20th century that sought to keep suburbs free of the diverse mix of residences, commerce and people found in cities. “The result was diverse cities — in terms of race, ethnicity and household income — surrounded by white suburbs with income homogeneity,” she says. That housing pattern persists today, in part because public transportation in the suburbs is poor, she adds.

Bellace notes that similar forces have contributed to social networks that unwittingly worsen opportunities for black workers. Today’s college students know that the best way to land a coveted job is to obtain an unpaid internship, and the best route to doing that is to know someone. “White, upper middle class students are much more likely to be included in the social circles that will help them,” she says.

How Bias Hurts Businesses

Businesses hurt themselves with favoritism or discrimination in hiring, notes Milkman. When company leadership does not hire the best-qualified candidates because they fail to recruit minorities, they hurt themselves by not getting the best talent and fail to reach their “full potential,” she adds. “Teams that lack a diversity of perspectives also tend to be less creative,” she says, citing academic research on the subject.

Companies could overcome those problems in many ways, according to Milkman. Managers could be “more systematic about highlighting some of the uglier implications of what most employees view as a good deed — helping a friend make a connection.” She also calls for a “crackdown” on nepotism, which she describes as “an extreme form of the type of social networking that can harm minorities.”

Leslie Benoliel, executive director of Entrepreneur Works, a non-profit microenterprise development organization, is a champion for change. As head of an organization that provides loans from $500 to $25,000 to small business owners in underserved neighborhoods, she is surrounded by clients’ hope and positive energy.

Her personal journey, which she shared with a roomful of Wharton alumnae at a conference last month, is also one of change. In the early 1980s, Benoliel was headed toward a bright future in New York City’s banking sector after graduating from the University of Vermont.

“New York was really fun then. I had a great apartment, but I was unsatisfied,” Benoliel said. “I kept asking myself: Is this all there is? Is this where I want to be? I was desperate to do something more meaningful, but I didn’t know what.”

At 30, Benoliel listened to her inner voice, quit the bank, sold her car, split from her boyfriend and bought an “around-the-world” plane ticket. “Letting go was the hardest part,” she noted. “If I leave, can I come back? The fear factor was real. But I‘m the oldest of five [children], and used to taking chances. My parents were supportive.”

She traveled alone for 14 months, largely in Asia. “Exploring the sights — and myself — was a wonderful experience. I needed to extract myself from that fast track in order to grow. My advice to people caught in the same dilemma is: ‘Get out of your comfort zone and do something completely different. Just do it.’”

Reentry was difficult, she recalled. “I felt out of place when I returned. I kept trying to resist being pulled back on my former path.”

Benoliel decided to enter graduate school, completing her MBA at Wharton in 1991. Her most transformative experience during that time was a program called Rebuilding Philadelphia, which exposed her to the deep poverty that existed in the city.

Still, the expectation to chase power and money was still there. “I felt pressure to do something big with my Wharton degree, but I had to let that go,” she said.

Now the mother of two teenage boys, Benoliel has achieved a level of job satisfaction that she didn’t think was possible. She has turned Entrepreneur Works into a force for change, particularly in the Germantown section of the city, creating opportunities for start-up restaurants, day care centers, bicycle shops and nail salons. The grassroots organization, formerly called the Philadelphia Development Partnership (PDP), provides classes in business development, training, finance and network opportunities, as well as access to loans.

In a survey of the organization’s loan recipients, 45% went on to start additional businesses, 88% of the original businesses are still operational and 94 jobs have been created, according to Entrepreneur Works’ website.

In June, Benoliel was invited to participate in the second annual Clinton Global Initiative Conference in Chicago to brainstorm about ways to curb unemployment and stimulate economic recovery in the United States. Benoliel joined 1,000 leaders from the business, foundation, NGO and government sectors.

Benoliel and her seven-person staff have raised more than $15 million in loan capital from banks, other corporations and government agencies, and have advanced over 360 microloans. She has also marshaled private resources from companies including Hewlett-Packard, Prudential and Starbucks.

“I love working with neighborhood entrepreneurs because they don’t have much but their desire to be their own boss and their personal gifts,” Benoliel noted. “These businesses then become economic engines by creating jobs and supporting the local economy.”

The world may be getting flatter but a recent report by human resources firm Kelly Services on recruitment in the Asia-Pacific countries suggests that HR professionals need to devise “distinct, and often quite different, hiring, retention and reward strategies in different regions.” As Martin Nicholls, vice president of global solutions and services for Asia Pacific at Kelly Services notes, “As globalization increases, I guess the gap will narrow, but it’s pretty wide as of now.”

According to R. Ravi Kumar, professor of organizational behavior and human resources management at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore, culture-specific behavior has decreased as the workforce has become more globally-distributed. He predicts that in the future, “HR practices will get more and more standardized. However, culture-specific behavior will never be negligible, and however diminishing, it will remain vital.”

The Kelly report lists five distinct areas that recruiters need to give special attention in the Asia-Pacific region: Understanding what motivates employees, digging deeper into a candidate’s resume, being aware of the pressures of a growth market, offering flexibility and giving a positive experience to the candidate.

In addition, the report notes that in the West, employees are motivated primarily by opportunities for career development and being appropriately rewarded in terms of compensation and benefits. In Asia Pacific, on the other hand, “the value that employees perceive they have, both within and outside of the organization” ranks high. “In some cultures, the family unit is very important and so the ‘status’ within the family and also within the social network plays a key role. Job titles in particular, influential roles and money are very important here,” says Nicholls.

The report also points out that it is important to keep cultural norms in mind while reading the resumes of candidates, since a job title in the Asia Pacific region may not necessarily reflect the same skillset as a similar title in a Western organization. Organizations in Asia Pacific are also constrained to hire less experienced people because of shortage of talent in a high-growth environment. This makes it imperative, the report notes, for recruiters to assess the candidates’ aptitude for ongoing training, teamwork, leadership and communication skills, and their ability for problem solving and strategic insights.

“Getting the right people, at the right time and in the right quantities is important for every organization across the world,” Nicholls says. “But it is more critical in places like India and China because hiring here is in very large numbers.”

Hema Ravichandar, a strategic HR advisor, adds another perspective. She points out that the first thing companies must keep in mind while recruiting in any region is that their practices must be compliant with the laws of the land. “Many times people forget that, especially in an outsourced world where the recruiter team may be sitting in some other geography. Next comes the aspect of being sensitive to cultural nuances. Once these two aspects are taken care of, I would say it’s best for organizations to have common practices but differential benefits. This requires a two- way education between the headquarters and the various geographies.”