A multi‐level process perspective on refugee workplace integration

Abstract Prior research has suggested the need for complementary efforts by multiple stakeholders (government, NGOs, employers) to support workplace integration for refugees, but has paid less attention to how such programs are developed and enacted in specific settings, and how they then influence refugees' workplace integration trajectories. In this article, we develop a process perspective on refugee workplace integration, drawing on a qualitative longitudinal study of the deployment of an internship and mentoring program for skilled refugees in a Swedish manufacturing firm with a history of engagement with diversity and inclusion issues. The data include documents, observations, and 32 interviews with managers, mentors and refugee‐newcomers, the latter interviewed at three points in time during, shortly after, and three or more years after the internship. We derive a process model showing that although practices at the company level may be developed and enacted in a way that reflect goal complementarity between stakeholders, refugee experiences are nevertheless permeated by a shifting pattern of dialectic tensions as refugees progress through four phases of interaction with the firm (pre‐internship, internship, transition to employment, post‐transition). We highlight the central mediating role of the inclusionary practices of front‐line managers and mentors' in interaction with refugee‐newcomers' agency, learning and adaptation in facilitating transitions to first employment and even beyond.