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The article aims to provide a discussion of societal norms concerning “attractiveness,” the existence of appearance discrimination in employment, the presence of “preferring the pretty”, and then the authors examine important civil rights laws that relate to such forms of discrimination. Finally, the authors apply ethical theories to determine whether such discrimination can be seen as moral or immoral.

It is a legal paper which covers all the laws related to discrimination based on look. Court cases and Americans laws related to this concept are reviewed and critically discussed.

The paper finds that appearance‐based discrimination is not illegal in the USA so long as it does not violate civil rights laws.

This research is limited to Federal and State laws in the USA and may not be relevant in other countries as the local laws might vary.

Managers and employees can protect themselves in the workplace from illegal discriminatory practices.

Employees know their rights and enhance their understanding of laws related to appearance, attractiveness, and why companies look to hire those who are considered “handsome”, “pretty” and “beautiful”.

This is an original and comprehensive paper by the authors.

This paper aims to examine whether the number of employment discrimination laws in a country influences voice and accountability.

The authors compared the number of employment discrimination laws in different countries to perceptions of voice and accountability.

Results indicate that the number of discrimination laws enacted in a country has a positive impact on the voice and accountability perceptions of citizens. Further, this relationship is found to be moderated by two contextual factors: cultural assertiveness and the percentage of females in the population. Specifically, the positive impact of the number of discrimination laws on voice and accountability perceptions was found to be stronger in highly assertive cultures and in countries with a lower percentage of females in the population.

This is the first study to show a relationship between the number of employment discrimination laws in a country and perceptions of voice and accountability.

The purpose of this paper is to use a risk management perspective to identify the risks of employment discrimination law liability for multinational employers.

Data from 101 US Federal Court cases that involved multinational employers operating both inside and outside of the USA were content coded and then used to identify factors that predict the frequency that foreign employers operating inside the USA – and US employers operating outside the USA – were subject to lawsuits under US employment discrimination laws.

This study found that employment lawsuits based on sex discrimination against females was the most significant risk exposure. Employers whose home country was from a Western culture were at comparatively greater risk for charges of both age and religious discrimination. Employers whose home country was from an Asian culture were at comparatively greater risk for charges of both race and national origin discrimination.

This study demonstrates the viability and usefulness of a risk management framework for examination of issues related to law and management.

This study enables the identification of risk factors that multinational employers can use to strategically target their loss prevention efforts in order to more effectively and efficiently avoid or reduce potential liability for employment discrimination.

The risk factors identified in this study can help employers to take efforts to reduce employment discrimination in their multinational operations, thereby reducing the frequency and likelihood that such discrimination may occur.

This is the first study to use a risk management framework to empirically identify employment law risk exposures for multinational employers.

Appearance is part of a person's non-verbal communication, and looks are often associated with the perceived ‘attractiveness’ of individuals for hiring practices in the workplace. As such, physical attractiveness can be a ‘prized possession’ when it comes to leaving a positive impression on managers who are interviewing candidates. In the twenty-first century environment, our society seems to be more obsessed with physical appearance than ever before because society has conditioned us to associate beauty with other favourable characteristics. Of course, such appearance norms, regarding attractiveness, ‘good looks’ and beauty are linked to years of socialisation in culture, cultural norms and materialistic personality standards.

In a business context, managers and employers often make hiring decisions based on the appearance and attractiveness of the job applicants since outward appearance seems to play a significant role in which candidates eventually might get the job. Physically attractive job applicants and candidates tend to benefit from the unearned privilege, which often comes at a cost to others who are equally qualified. Preferring employees who are deemed to be attractive, and consequently discriminating against those who are perceived as unattractive, can present legal and ethical challenges for employers and managers. In this chapter, we provide a discussion and reflection of appearance-based hiring practices in the United States with relevant legal, ethical and practical implications for employers, human resources professionals and managers. We focus on ‘lookism’ or appearance discrimination, which is discrimination in favour of people who are physically attractive. As such, we examine federal, state and local laws regarding appearance discrimination in the American workplace. We also offer sustainable policy recommendations for employers, HR professionals and managers on how they can be fair to all candidates in order to hire, promote and retain the most qualified professionals in their departments and organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the limited body of research that focuses on the efficacy of sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation in reducing discrimination.

Reviews past research that documents overt and subtle forms of workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals and describes how legislation plays an important role in changing social norms and underlying attitudes.

Empirically demonstrates that legislation effectively can reduce discrimination.

Informs legislative debate and promotes the expansion and adoption of national, state, and local legislation on sexual orientation anti-discrimination legislation.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.

Retaliation complaints in the workplace have increased 71 percent in the past ten years with a record high of more than 32,000 complaints filed in 2008. The purpose of this paper is to review retaliation legislation to clarify for employers and employees the protected provisions and provide guidance for complying with this important anti‐discrimination statute to aid in promoting a fair and unbiased work environment.

This paper reviews retaliation claims in cases of US employment discrimination including the central elements and covered individuals. It also reviews key recent rulings that have broadened what constitutes retaliation to better understand its impact in workforce management practices. Equity and organizational justice theories are drawn upon to address performance management and employee discipline issues that may arise in the workplace and how organizational action may be impacted by the retaliation statute.

Retaliation is often considered to be an overt act (e.g. demotion or termination) but this review demonstrates that adverse employment actions need not be overt or result from loss of job or wages by the employee. This review can be used to avoid costly litigation but also convey that retaliation statutes do not unduly influence the employer's right to discipline employees.

This paper helps practitioners and researchers better understand retaliation and its purpose in preventing unfair work practices. This historical review of retaliation should help improve employer policies and procedures as well as training efforts in complying with equal employment opportunity laws without compromising concerns related to productivity or disciplinary procedures.

This paper examines whether and how labour market duality can be alleviated through legislation that prohibits discrimination based on employment type.

In 2007, the Korean government undertook a labour reform banning discriminatory treatment against fixed-term, part-time and dispatched workers. By exploiting a gradual implementation of the anti-discrimination law by firm size targeting a subset of non-regular workers, the paper identifies the treatment effects of the anti-discrimination law, taking a difference-in-difference-in-differences approach.

The results suggest that the anti-discrimination law significantly increases hourly wages and the probabilities of being covered by national pension, health insurance, and employment insurance for targeted non-regular workers in small firms relative to other workers. Anticipatory behaviours of employers and selective transitions of employees in response to the implementation of the anti-discrimination law do not underlie the estimated effects. The presence of labour unions contributes to reducing gaps in labour conditions between regular workers and targeted non-regular workers.

The main contribution of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on causal impacts of equal pay legislation on the gaps in labour conditions between different categories of workers, using a difference-in-difference-in-differences estimation.

This study investigates how federal and state-level laws designed to reduce workplace sexual harassment relate to the content of sexual harassment training programs in a sample of private U.S. companies. To gauge the effect of the law on the regulation of sexual harassment, we draw on unique data containing information on federal and state-level legal environments, formal discrimination charges filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and establishment-level sexual harassment training initiatives. State-level legal regulation of sexual harassment at work is linked to more elaborate sexual harassment training programs, even when federal legal regulations are not. Our findings underscore the importance of state-level legal regimes in the workplace regulation of gender-based rights and provide an example for future studies of work inequality and the law.

Every employer, unless he or she has no pool of applicants or potential applicants to choose from, engages in hiring choices. While the hiring process may vary, both from one employer to another and from one job to another, some form of screening occurs. In recent years, students of management have noted the proliferation of screening practices in the hiring process, especially in bringing new technologies such as medical and drug testing procedures. Testing and other screening practices, while wide‐ranging both with respect to their ends and means, have raised consistent patterns of concern among job‐seekers, public policy makers and managers themselves. In this monograph a variety of methods of screening and issues of public policy raised by screening procedures are discussed. An overview of United States law regulating the screening process is provided, together with future directions in the area of screening in the US.