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An affirmation action continuum

The development of affirmative action strategies designed to achieve equal employment opportunity has been studied along six dimensions of functioning
within four separate organisations. Three of these organisations were
participants in the Federal Government's Affirmative Action Pilot Program in
1984/5, and one was not.
It has been shown that change occurred in a continuous developmental
sequence, here called an "Affirmative Action Continuum", within each of
these six dimensions over the period of study, with each organisation
following a similar sequence of movement. Exceptions occurred where an
organisation made no movement at all, or where one or more of the
sequential processes was omitted or displaced, in a dimension. The
reasons for some of these exceptions, and some of their consequences for
later action, have been explored.
It has been shown that simultaneous activity occurred across several,
dimensions, so that no organisation acted upon only one dimension in
isolation from all others. There was some chronological sequencing between
dimensions.
The indicators of movement along the Affirmative Action Continuum within
each dimension were used to describe the change process in each
organisation. These indicators proved to be useful both in this regard,
and in placing each organisation an the Affirmative Action Continuum in
each dimension at two different points in time. In this way, the
indicators' usefulness was shown to generalise to four very different
institutions, thus suggesting applicability beyond the bounds of this
particular study.
It is intended that the results of this dissertation, and in particular the
model of the Affirmative Action Continuum and the indicators described in
Chapter Two, be used by Equal Employment Opportunity practitioners to
facilitate their decision making about sequencing of activities designed to
achieve equal employment oppportunity.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219420
Date January 1987
CreatorsWauchope, Liz, n/a
PublisherUniversity of Canberra. Administrative Studies
Source SetsAustraliasian Digital Theses Program
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Rights), Copyright Liz Wauchope

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