Abstract

Concealed personal information becomes formally actionable at work when organizations activate procedures that make it visible.
I introduce the idea of activation points, the moments when organizations bring latent information into play, here specifically personal information about criminal charges. Using the population of employer-initiated criminal record checks in Denmark as an empirical setting, I separate having a record on paper from having it seen. This distinction allows me to trace and distinguish two mechanisms, anticipatory worker withdrawal and triggered employer responses, showing how both hinge on the decision to look.
The talk then turns to why these moments matter. Activation points shape who becomes visible to organizations and when, with consequences for how careers unfold. I show how this perspective can be studied by building a full-cycle research infrastructure that makes activation visible and allows us to trace how decisions to look shape labor market trajectories.

Short Bio

Tünde Cserpes is Associate Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship at Aarhus University. She holds a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research examines how out-of-work events generate social market frictions that reshape the joint unfolding of career paths and firm trajectories. She studies divorce, criminal records, and post-startup unemployment to trace the mechanisms through which life outside work shapes participation in it.

What is an AIAS Seminar?

The AIAS Seminar Series is a session of seminars held by the AIAS fellows, AIAS Visiting or Tandem Fellows or by other speakers proposed by the fellows. In each seminar, a fellow will present and discuss her/his current research and work-in-progress to an interdisciplinary audience for 30 minutes, closing off with 30 minutes for questions, comments and discussion.

All seminars are in-person and held in English. To attend online, please contact Cecilie Horshauge at cecilie@aias.au.dk by 9:00am on the day of the seminar as the latest to request a link.