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> Sociology: Prohibiting Discrimination In The Workplace

> Requirements: Prepare a paper that analyzes an organizational policy prohibiting discrimination in your workplace. Include a discussion of strengths and weaknesses of the existing policy. Also make recommendations to improve the effectiveness of the policy and its implementation (e.g., through training, publication, monitoring, and incentives.).

> Project Developed:

Introduction.

A civil society can be thought of as the more advanced stage of cultural and institutional development whereby there exists a set of rights and freedoms to be enforced consistently at all times and across all subgroups within the society. These rights may be rather general or they may pertain to particular areas such as the market for labor (with focus on employment policies), markets for products and services (consumer rights protection), and securities market (investor protection). Our study will focus on the first domain, and dwell on organizational policies prohibiting discrimination in the workplace.

Workplace Organizational Policies: A Rationale.

The earlier formulations of such policies primarily involved provisions against discrimination on the basis of religion, racial or ethnic affinity, ancestry and social class, and relatively more recently gender. Discrimination of one form or another has always taken place, and in most cases has had to do with basic stereotypes or prejudice treating some groups (outsiders) as inferior with respect to certain properties of value or of comfort to the 'insiders.' Of course, while racial and ethnic bias can be viewed as outright 'unscientific,' the issue might be somewhat more controversial when it comes to sexual discrimination. Thus, while intellectual prerogative appears neither feasible nor politically correct to establish, some physiological or psychological differences do exist that make females and males relatively better at some types of activities--but certainly do not deny the very right or ability to perform these by representatives of the opposite sex. One therefore would need to distinguish between 'normal' vs. 'pure' (or inadmissible) types of discrimination.

Still another, and perhaps more intricate issue, pertains to what can be referred to as 'strategic' bias. For instance, the person vested with authority or responsibilities might himself have no such prejudice, and yet be concerned with the possible externality that his choice to accept an 'outsider' might have on the biased 'insiders.' For instance, an employer might refuse to offer a job to a person revealed to have a non-traditional sexual orientation, based on his fears that such dilution might provoke a counter-conducive atmosphere within the existing team of 'straight' ones. Since we have already illustrated the issue, it might be about time we mentioned the novel dimension increasingly called upon to be incorporated in the organizational anti-discrimination policy: provision against bias based on sexual orientation (formerly termed 'sexual preference'), over and above gender.

What is the rationale behind adopting such minimum and extended anti-discrimination policies? Why should organizations care about anything beyond the federal and state law? Here, one need be careful to distinguish between the pragmatic benefits versus obligation or social responsibility aspects of the 'should.' For one, any organization must observe the human and civil rights solely because these are enforces legally within applicable jurisdictions. On the other hand, the legal or official status of human and civil rights makes it an imperative imposed on the society at large to assure them, so there is little reason to expect that a single company will voluntarily exceed the minimum level of constraints or obligations for it to meet. In fact, to expect or force the company to do so would be unethical on the part of the society. On the other hand, the conventional rationale behind adopting many such provisions proactively is to secure good public relationship and a status as good corporate citizen favoring diversity and affording equal employment opportunities based on professional and related qualities only. Interestingly, that could in fact even be formalized in the apparatus of the modern theory of social choice and prospects, as an Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives (IIA) assumption, which means a change in an irrelevant dimension cannot possibly alter a preference relationship between alternatives. Thus, if A(x) is preferred to B(x), then even if some variable y changes, A(x;y) would still be preferred to B(x;y) given that x did not change.

Organizational Policy: An Application.

The organization whose policy I will analyze is the National Bureau of Economic Research headquartered in Washington, DC. Its title is fairly self-explanatory, suggesting that it is a major research institution in the country which in particular promotes the publishing of cutting-edge applied and theoretical research in economic and related sciences. As an equal opportunity employer, it does suggest the basic set of guarantees of nondiscrimination based on sex, religion, disability, age, and ethnic origin. However, largely by the very nature of its 'business,' it may well have some unofficial discriminatory rules as to the target markets or schools whose representatives they will consider in the first place. Thus, the nation's top ten are assured acceptance, while the peripheral schools might never see their graduates making it on the NBER staff. Moreover, while scientific search would by its nature fulfill the expectation of nondiscrimination on religious basis, the situation might get more complicated and controversial than that if we were to extend the scope of criteria by adding political and ideological creed. Unlike the 'hard' sciences (and one even doubts about them too), the social sciences necessarily involve normative component over and above positive, and ideological association for that matter. The implications are more than material, in that only those that advocate the 'mainstream' system of assumptions and paradigms get to publish their papers and eventually obtain tenure; others are smashed into permanent oblivion. Now, it is always possible to rationalize the existence of 'mainstream' as well as a host of other institutions, whether in science or on the labor market. However, positive and unemotional analysis suggests that the mainstream represents a core of powers that be who actually control academia and its official paradigm, and sterilize otherthinkingness (intellectual orientation). It is similar to cartelizing the labor market on the part of employers. (Of course, only consistent discrimination would be legalized, and any deviations would likely be outlawed.) Denying the right to publish based on ideological premises, though not widespread, does occur; and in effect, it amounts to controlling the employee's status based on his or her religious or sexual orientation.

Now, of course, this problem is far from organization-specific; rather, it pertains to the entire institutional framework that has evolved in academia. But so too appears the situation with the labor market, which has evolved within the social context. Since these are complementary, one cannot be corrected without the other or solved asynchronously as partial solutions. In fact, company management might wonder just why their work environment should reform faster than does the society at large that does not fully accept all forms of diversity (in sexual orientation and other dimensions). At any rate, acceptance cannot possibly be full, if only because it develops reactively after new forms of diversity emerge and not in advance.

We want diversity and symmetric treatment of all groups irrespective of irrelevant variables. However, we also expect symmetry on their part with respect to society. If one were to conduct a thought experiment, it would not be self-apparent to assume that, if the minority representatives were to eventually seize the organizational control, they would be willing to equally accept and treat each and every one, rather than favoring those just like themselves. (The latter too would amount to sheer discrimination).

One additional issue pertaining to organizational policy involves the effectiveness of its enforcement. For instance, the increasingly pronounced trend in the modern US academia is the growing proportion of foreign graduate and undergraduate students and faculty. The same pattern marks off the situation in education and research alike. However, despite its becoming a norm, the frequency of occurrence of respective bias and prejudice within some groups does not seem to diminish. The National Bureau of Economic Research seems to be no lucky exception. Therefore, a complex of effective enforcement mechanisms must be supplied to ensure not only diversity for its own sake, but a better performing and a more intercompatible team as a result. Mere appealing to political correctness and cultural sensitivity will not work unless the employees see that these virtues yield fruit in terms of superior opportunities. Such vision must be developed and conveyed, which would amount to effective motivation. Suppose such organizational policies favoring diversity do improve public relations for the company; how does the management secure that contribution on a micro level? How does the organization fight free-riding or defecting behavioral propensity on the part of its individual employees? One solution is the explicit declaration of policies and best practices, and specific responsibility (punishment) for failure to contribute to the bottom line on all levels, whether tangible or otherwise (like corporate 'goodwill' or social reputation). Of course, policies will be effective if and only if the monitoring of performance is cost-efficient.

Concluding Remarks.

Workplace discrimination policies as adopted by organizations can be viewed as reflecting the labor market application of the general human and civil rights maintained in the society. However, the corporation or any other public entity might find it in its best long-run interests to seize the initiative of establishing and enforcing some norms and elements of the internal culture that would extend beyond the formally binding rules already established within the society. The organization we have chosen to study faces a complex mix of institutionally determined as well as firm-specific issues that can best be solved as part of the more general body of problems, drawing largely on the demographic and professional trends. The key to providing for an adequate motivational mechanism is to develop a vision for just how such diversity policies can be of benefit to the organizational performance, and how such teams are superior to less diversified staffs ...

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