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The purpose of this paper is to examine stressor-strain relationships that play a role in foreign-born Hispanic workers’ well-being and family-to-work facilitation (FWF) as a moderator in this relationship.

The authors used a unique sample of foreign-born Hispanic workers employed in blue-labor jobs in Texas (n=163).

Consistent with the theoretical assertions, the authors found support for the negative relationship between legal status concern and Hispanic workers’ psychological and perceived physical health. Further, FWF attenuated the negative consequences of lack of English language proficiency on psychological well-being.

Both organizations and Hispanic workers can benefit from the results of the study. Hispanic immigrants can enhance their well-being by relying more on their families and seeking more support from their friends and families when dealing with immigration-related stressors. Organizations and policymakers can improve Hispanic workers’ well-being by educating them about immigration-related issues and by offering help with mastering English language.

The authors studied psychological and physical well-being of a population that is generally underrepresented in the literature – foreign-born Hispanic immigrant employees. The paper also examined what employers can do to improve the work experience of these workers.

The papers published in this special issue demonstrate that the field of management can make important contributions to the knowledge about Hispanics and Latin Americans (HLAs) in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to offer an alternative yet complementary perspective that conducting research on HLAs will make important contributions to the field of management.

Conceptual paper.

Research on HLAs provides opportunities to develop and use innovative research design and measurement approaches (including qualitative and hybrid methods), leads to innovative solutions and protocols for addressing ethical challenges and Institutional Review Board regulations, and creates opportunities to access large secondary databases, sources of data collection, and research funding.

Additional research is needed to realize the benefits that result from conducting research on HLAs in the workplace.

Because research on HLAs involves designing studies with an end in mind, results will lead to actionable knowledge that will help bridge the science-practice gap.

Future research on HLAs is likely to have important social implications given that demographic changes in the USA have catapulted HLAs into soon becoming the largest ethnic minority group in the country and Hispanic workers are projected to represent about 80 percent of the total growth in the US labor force over the next four decades.

The alternative perspective that conducting research on HLAs will benefit the field of management is not meant to compete with but, rather, complement contributions of the other papers published in this special issue.