Research

Industry awards convey status and visibility to their winners, but evaluation biases can limit how equitably these benefits are distributed. Indeed, award-giving organizations are often criticized for not recognizing the achievements of women and racial minority workers. Interventions to close these gender and racial gaps have focused on diversifying award committees to reduce evaluation biases, with mixed direct effects on awards decisions. This paper investigates the indirect effects of these interventions, specifically how diversifying award committees influences hiring decisions within the evaluated industry. Using archival data on 193,394 hiring decisions on 6,999 films released in the U.S. from January 2010 to April 2021, I examine an intervention by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to increase the number of women and racial minority Oscar voters. The results show a positive association between the Academy’s intervention and the likelihood of award-seeking film productions hiring women or racial minority workers. Moreover, these hiring effects are concentrated in visible occupations and primarily benefit workers who are Academy members, suggesting a strong strategic component in organizations’ response to the evaluator’s diversity intervention. These findings provide insights into the role that awards and third-party evaluators can play in reducing inequality within an industry.