Is the American Accent an Advantage in Employment Decisions in Brazil?

Abstract The aim of the study was to examine the relationship between the accent of hypothetical job candidates and personal characteristics of the candidates (perceived competence and warmth) with job related decisions (job suitability, likelihood of promotion and likelihood of hiring). For this purpose, an experiment was conducted with a sample of 304 students and alumni of an MBA course in Personnel Management from an institution of higher education based in São Paulo. The results showed that candidates with an American accent in Portuguese were evaluated better in terms of suitability for the position, likelihood of hiring and perceived competence than candidates with a Brazilian accent. The Brazilian candidate, in turn, received more favorable ratings in terms of probability of promotion and perceived warmth. Since we identified hiring biases, we suggest that firms should seek out human resource employees that are less likely to use stereotypical judgments in their evaluation of job candidates.