Fonsagrives, Agathe
Inequity in Algorithmic Matching in HR: An ethnography on recruitment software providers’ neglect of procedural justice rules
- 2025.
88
This article seeks to shed light on the effects of the practices of actors in the algorithmic matching supply chain on fairness in treatment. It examines how recruitment software providers respond to the ways in which procedural justice rules have been implemented by matching algorithm suppliers. Drawing on Charmaz’s grounded theory approach, it analyzes data collected during a twenty-one-month ethnography conducted as part of a CIFRE doctoral project within a recruitment software provider distributing a third-party matching algorithm. The study is distinctive in that it is based on rare and sustained access to the digital solutions industry, a sector ordinarily hermetic to academic research. The findings reveal that matching algorithm providers supply solutions that violate procedural justice rules, and that recruitment software providers, overly focused on productivity, fail to recognize both this shortcoming and their own role, as distributors, in amplifying it. By adopting a socio-technical perspective, this work contributes to bridging theories on candidate reactions to selection systems with actual professional practices. It also calls on organizations to clarify responsibilities regarding procedural fairness within the subcontracting chain.