In 2014, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reported multiple claims of workplace discrimination in the United States; the claims resulted in costly settlements. The purpose of this qualitative, multiple-case study—which used the theory of enterprise risk management as the conceptual framework—was to explore how 4 human resource managers in small-to-medium sized enterprises in the southeastern region of the United States successfully implemented proactive strategies to reduce the financial and legal risk resulting from workplace discrimination. Using Yin’s 5 steps of data analysis along with triangulation of findings from the semistructured interviews, company documents, and websites, the following 4 themes were identified and verified: the need for education, external accountability, formalized policies and procedures, and the barriers to proactive strategies. To reduce risks from workplace discrimination, 3 recommendations for future action by human resources managers were proposed: education, external accountability, and formalized policies and procedures. The findings and recommendations can bridge the gap between small-to-medium enterprise human resource practices and efficacious enterprise risk-management strategies. A diverse workforce can catalyze innovation, increase organizational effectiveness, and thus benefit employers and employees. Communities may benefit by experiencing a culturally representative work environment and lower unemployment for underrepresented populations.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate the effect of exposure to multicultural and colour blind ideologies on discrimination in individual selection decisions, and diversity in team selection decisions. One hundred and fourteen participants role played a hiring manager in a large government organization, and were assigned to a multicultural, colour blind or control condition. Participants rated either an Arab Muslim or a White Canadian job applicant, and then selected a team to form a task force from a diverse pool of employees. However, the diversity ideology espoused by the organization did not have an effect on the individual or team selection decisions that participants made, or on attitudes towards diversity issues in the workplace. Possible explanations for non-significant results and implications for practice are discussed.

This project examines the experiences of 37 gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees of professional, collegiate, and club sport. Using intensive, non-directive interviews and Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM), I explore how employees negotiate the near-total sport institution, perceive the environment for sexual minorities in sport, manage their sexual identities, and identify potential allies at work. Participants informed their beliefs about the sport workplace by the totality of their direct and indirect experiences, their observation of others, and their accumulated experiences in sport as athletes and employees. While employees’ perceptions of the sport environment were slightly negative, their actual experiences were predominantly neutral or positive. Participants discussed their workplace experiences in terms of coming out, being out, and acting out. They identified levels of “how out” they were, even as their behaviors belied that designation. “Being out,” for these participants, involved relying on various motivations and strategies at work. One group of participants felt coming out was part of a larger moral imperative to create social change, and did so by emphasizing gay identity over sport or work identity. A second group felt it was professional or responsible to stay closeted at work, noting that personal lives and private lives should not intersect. A third group also highlighted their work and sport identities over their gay identity, without attaching any liability to their sexual identity. These employees, who were the youngest members of the sample, did not place significance on sexual identity as a salient feature of their overall identity. “Acting out” involved both active and passive strategies to emphasize or deemphasize sexual identity at work. This project suggests that the processes by which employees negotiate their workplace environments (and, particularly, sport as a workplace) are complex and nuanced. For non-heteronormative employees working in sport, their processes of coming out, acting out, and being out were mediated by many factors, including age, type of sport, workplace hierarchy and identity formation processes.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / As the world continues to diversify and we begin to move towards a majority-minority America, it becomes ever critical for organizations to utilize diversity training effectively to create a more equitable work environment. This is especially true when considering the growth of Latino immigrants in the work force and how majority group members may view this as a threat to their group dominance, resulting in experiences of discrimination and prejudice towards minorities. However, research regarding the best methods to utilize to reduce prejudice against specific targeted groups has been inconclusive, and little work has been done to investigate personality characteristics as potential boundary conditions of diversity training effectiveness. Thus, the goal of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of two diversity training methods, perspective taking and imagined contact, specifically for trainees low in Openness to Experience who may be especially resistant to training. To test this over two time points (two weeks apart), we recruited White participants ( N= 471) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, highlighted the demographic changes occurring in the modern workforce, randomly assigned them to either the perspective taking, imagined contact, or control condition, and then measured their Openness to Experience, intergroup anxiety, prejudiced attitudes and behavioral intentions towards Latino immigrants. Results revealed no significant interactions with Openness to Experience, thus resulting in its omission from the final model. Results also did not provide evidence for the training methods having a significant direct effect on the reduction of prejudice and the increase in behavioral intentions towards Latino immigrants. However, there was support found for intergroup anxiety such that it mediated the relationship between the diversity training methods and prejudiced attitudes and behavioral intentions. Exploratory analyses also revealed imagined contact to be more effective at reducing prejudice and increasing positive behavioral intentions via a reduction in intergroup anxiety compared to the perspective taking condition. Implications, future research, and limitations are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to explore how racial and gender discrimination is reproduced in concrete workplace settings even when anti-discrimination policies are present, and to understand the various reactions utilized by those who commonly experience it. I have selected a particular medical center, henceforth referred to by a pseudonym, “The Bliley Medical Center” as my case study. In order to examine the gaps between the normative component instituted to regulate human behavior and the behavioral component in a workplace setting, I will employ critical race theory and feminist theories of intersectionality. The works of critics such as Delgado and Stefancic, Patricia Williams, and Patricia Hill Collins, among others, foreground the utility of storytelling as a means to 1) understand the gaps between formal policies and organizational behavior, 2) call attention to the experiential knowledge and evidence that is traditionally excluded in discrimination cases, and (3) to explain how formal anti-discrimination policies can actually be used to legitimize discrimination. Based on the results of this case study, we can conclude that an alternative interactionist, critical race, and intersectional approach is especially needed in terms of calling attention to traditionally ignored social processes that aid in the reproduction of workplace inequality in concrete workplace settings, thus expanding the current workplace discrimination scholarship. / Master of Science

Feminist scholars have theorized that the workplace is gendered and heteronormative1, but little research quantifies the economic consequences of those organizations. This study investigates income discrepancies between gay men and straight men and between lesbians and straight women, to quantify these consequences. Using the National Survey of Family Growth 2006-2010, and controlling for several correlates of income, I use ordinary least squares regression to test the hypothesis that lesbians have higher incomes on the average than straight women do, and that straight men earn more than gay men. I also use hierarchical regression to test the relative strengths of the associations between income and possible causes of variation in it. The study found that gay men earn more than straight men because of higher educational attainment, and that lesbians earn more than straight women, though this finding is not statistically significant. / Master of Science

The Employment Equality (Age) Regulations were introduced in England and Wales in 2006, seeking to prohibit age discrimination in employment and vocational training. This thesis assesses whether the legislation adopted is an effective mechanism by which to address age discrimination in the workplace and achieve the dual but contradictory objectives of the European Union Framework Directive on Equal Treatment of achieving equal treatment between age cohorts whilst encouraging the active participation of older citizens in the workplace. The thesis sheds light on this hitherto unregulated suspect ground of discrimination by means of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of all employment tribunal judgments which relate to an age discrimination claim over a three and a half year period. This study shows that very few claimants were successful if their claim of age discrimination was considered by a tribunal and there was considerable inconsistency of implementation and interpretation of the legislation by individual tribunals. Employers have quickly developed defences against claims of age discrimination in order to maintain their freedom to contract and the imbalance between the two parties was particularly noticeable with claimant credibility often under scrutiny – a process claimants appeared unprepared for. Regional discrepancies were found in terms of success rates and compensation awards. A gender award gap was found in both overall compensation and injury to feelings awards, with women given smaller awards than men, whilst younger workers were given smaller awards than older workers. Legal representation made a substantial difference to success rates and compensation awards, but the majority of awards were low and many would not have covered legal costs. The low compensation awards do not provide an effective deterrent, as required by the Article 17 of the Directive. The legislation is particularly ineffective for those who claimed they had suffered multiple discrimination. Although an important first step in regulating ageist behaviour, the Regulations and the subsequent Equality Act 2010 will be unlikely to achieve the aims of the Directive as they provide little incentive for claimants to undertake the stressful process of making a claim under the legislation, which relies upon individual fault-finding.

Decisions by the EEOC in favor of claimants perceived to have disabilities disproportionately exceeded those in favor of claimants with documented disabilities. This finding lends support to the assertion that unconscious/implicit bias is persistent in the workplace.

As the world continues to diversify and we begin to move towards a majority-minority America, it becomes ever critical for organizations to utilize diversity training effectively to create a more equitable work environment. This is especially true when considering the growth of Latino immigrants in the work force and how majority group members may view this as a threat to their group dominance, resulting in experiences of discrimination and prejudice towards minorities. However, research regarding the best methods to utilize to reduce prejudice against specific targeted groups has been inconclusive, and little work has been done to investigate personality characteristics as potential boundary conditions of diversity training effectiveness. Thus, the goal of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of two diversity training methods, perspective taking and imagined contact, specifically for trainees low in Openness to Experience who may be especially resistant to training. To test this over two time points (two weeks apart), we recruited White participants ( N= 471) via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, highlighted the demographic changes occurring in the modern workforce, randomly assigned them to either the perspective taking, imagined contact, or control condition, and then measured their Openness to Experience, intergroup anxiety, prejudiced attitudes and behavioral intentions towards Latino immigrants. Results revealed no significant interactions with Openness to Experience, thus resulting in its omission from the final model. Results also did not provide evidence for the training methods having a significant direct effect on the reduction of prejudice and the increase in behavioral intentions towards Latino immigrants. However, there was support found for intergroup anxiety such that it mediated the relationship between the diversity training methods and prejudiced attitudes and behavioral intentions. Exploratory analyses also revealed imagined contact to be more effective at reducing prejudice and increasing positive behavioral intentions via a reduction in intergroup anxiety compared to the perspective taking condition. Implications, future research, and limitations are discussed.

Facial feminization surgery (FFS) is a set of procedures performed with the goal of creating a facial appearance that is considered phenotypically female. These procedures are usually sought by cisgender women but have become increasingly popular among male to female (MTF) transgender individuals. FFS has been shown to decrease appearance anxiety and increase quality of life. Sexual minorities, including transgender individuals, are subject to a unique set of stressors termed minority stress, which involves the interplay of perceived and outright discrimination. This type of stress has been shown to lead to adverse physical and mental health outcomes. The workplace is no exception to this type of discrimination, and workplace discrimination has specifically been associated with adverse physical health outcomes. However, there have been few studies to date evaluating workplace discrimination and transgender identity. This study aims to expand on that knowledge, and determine the potential role for FFS as an intervention to reduce perceived bias.