Companies strive to gain a competitive advantage by recruiting highly qualified employees. One way to achieve this goal is by recruiting foreign workers, frequently through the H-1B visa program. However, immigration has become a contentious political issue in the United States, making it more difficult to recruit foreign workers. We examine how politicians on the board influence recruitment strategies aimed at attracting foreign workers. Studying the aftermath of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” policy, we estimate the impact of political directors on recruiting strategies. By analyzing the near-universe of job advertisements in the United States, we develop novel firm-level measures of employment barriers for foreign workers. We find that the presence of political directors increased the employment barriers for foreign workers after Trump’s inauguration. We also argue that the information processing capabilities of the board moderate this effect: diverse boards and boards with Human Resources committees decrease the employment barriers for foreign workers, whereas shareholder meetings during periods of heightened political risk increase these employment barriers.

中文翻译：

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政治董事和外国工人的招聘


公司努力通过招聘高素质员工来获得竞争优势。实现这一目标的一种方法是招聘外国工人，通常是通过 H-1B 签证计划。然而，移民在美国已成为一个有争议的政治问题，这使得招聘外国工人变得更加困难。我们研究了董事会中的政治家如何影响旨在吸引外国工人的招聘策略。通过研究 2016 年美国总统大选和唐纳德·特朗普总统的“购买美国人，雇用美国人”政策，我们估计了政治董事对招聘策略的影响。通过分析美国招聘广告的近乎世界范围，我们开发了新的公司层面的外国工人就业壁垒衡量标准。我们发现，特朗普就职后，政治董事的存在增加了外国工人的就业壁垒。我们还认为，董事会的信息处理能力会缓和这种影响：多元化的董事会和设有人力资源委员会的董事会降低了外国工人的就业壁垒，而在政治风险加剧时期的股东大会则增加了这些就业壁垒。