Smells like the American Workplace: A Study of Workplace Ostracism in Foreign-Born Workers

The workplace is becoming increasingly global and international, with increasing numbers of employees entering new cultures. However, the role of visceral factors in cross-cultural adjustment has thus far been understudied. This paper explores the phenomenon of perceived misfit and feelings of being ostracized that legal, foreign-born workers experience from odors in the American workplace. With a sample of 35 foreign-born workers currently employed in the American workforce, we used semi-structured interviews to enhance the understanding of the unspoken but lived experiences of this population when they first encountered the culture and odors of the American workplace. We found that odors with cultural and religious significance (i.e., cooked-meat odors for workers practicing Hinduism from India and cooked-pork odors for workers practicing Islam) result in perceptions of misfit and ostracism. Additionally, our findings suggest that foreign-born workers not only experience cognitive dissonance from food-based odors but also display physical symptoms such as nausea (sometimes with vomiting) and headaches/migraines (sometimes requiring medication). Beyond the physical and psychological symptoms, we uncovered that foreign-born workers often choose not to involve human resources staff or their managers in resolving these issues despite decreases in their performance and other negative consequences of culturally offensive odors. After discussing these findings, we suggest implications/directions for future research.