Why do highly skilled migrants encounter difficulties getting a skilled job? In this study, instead of searching for an answer in migrants’ characteristics, we turn to organizations and ask: why do organizations underemploy migrants? With an in-depth qualitative study of a program for highly-skilled migrants’ labour integration in Sweden, we show that highly skilled migrants are perceived as a potential threat to organizational norms and habits. Using the relational theory of risk – approaching risk as socially constructed – the study provides a novel explanation for highly-skilled migrants’ underemployment. It shows an organization logic protecting corporate practices seen as ‘normal’ from a perceived disruption that employing highly-skilled migrants could possibly cause. Theoretical contributions to the understanding of highly-skilled migrants’ employability are threefold: (1) the field assumption that organizations are favorable to hiring migrants is challenged, (2) highly-skilled migrants’ underemployment is explained through a protective organizational logic, and (3) we stress the necessity to problematize an implicit reference to organizational normality when recruiting.

为什么高技术移民在获得技术工作时遇到困难？在这项研究中，我们没有寻找移民的特征的答案，而是求助于组织，并提出了疑问：组织为什么没有充分利用移民？通过对瑞典高技能移民的劳动力整合计划进行的深入定性研究，我们发现高技能移民被视为对组织规范和习惯的潜在威胁。该研究使用风险的关系理论（即从社会角度处理风险），为高技能移民的就业不足提供了新颖的解释。它显示了一种组织逻辑，可以保护被视为“正常”行为的公司行为免受可能雇用高技能移民造成的干扰。