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From well before the mid-19th up to the mid-20th century those scholars who read and commented on The Essential Principles of the Wealth of Nations, including Marx and Seligman, seem to have been unaware of the very name of its author. Since then it has become accepted knowledge (again) that the work was written by one John Gray. Beyond the name, however, biographical details about Gray have remained extremely sparse until the present day. If one were to use a measure of obscurity, something which perhaps is appropriate in a work devoted to ‘neglected economists’, then one may use the fact that neither the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (old or new editions), nor the Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (any edition), nor any other biographical dictionaries devote an entry to Gray. The modern authors who discuss his economic writings contend themselves with the statement that ‘little biographical information is available about Gray’ (Delmas & Demals, 1995, p. 119, n. 5).¹ This is unfortunate because at least some knowledge about the personal background and career of an author is often useful in arriving at a better understanding of his or her ideas. This, as will become clear shortly, is the case too for John Gray.

This article outlines the theoretical foundations of the research contributions of this edited collection about “Diversity and Discrimination in Research Organizations.” First, the sociological understanding of the basic concepts of diversity and discrimination is described and the current state of research is introduced. Second, national and organizational contextual conditions and risk factors that shape discrimination experiences and the management of diversity in research teams and organizations are presented. Third, the questions and research approaches of the individual contributions to this edited collection are presented.

Organizational behavior scholars have long recognized the importance of a variety of emotion-related phenomena in everyday work life. Indeed, after three decades, the span of research on emotions in the workplace encompasses a wide variety of affective variables such as emotional climate, emotional labor, emotion regulation, positive and negative affect, empathy, and more recently, specific emotions. Emotions operate in complex ways across multiple levels of analysis (i.e., within-person, between-person, interpersonal, group, and organizational) to exert influence on work behavior and outcomes, but their linkages to human resource management (HRM) policies and practices have not always been explicit or well understood. This chapter offers a review and integration of the bourgeoning research on discrete positive and negative emotions, offering insights about why these emotions are relevant to HRM policies and practices. We review some of the dominant theories that have emerged out of functionalist perspectives on emotions, connecting these to a strategic HRM framework. We then define and describe four discrete positive and negative emotions (fear, pride, guilt, and interest) highlighting how they relate to five HRM practices: (1) selection, (2) training/learning, (3) performance management, (4) incentives/rewards, and (5) employee voice. Following this, we discuss the emotion perception and regulation implications of these and other discrete emotions for leaders and HRM managers. We conclude with some challenges associated with understanding discrete emotions in organizations as well as some opportunities and future directions for improving our appreciation and understanding of the role of discrete emotional experiences in HRM.

Seligman is an important and ironically somewhat neglected figure today in the history of American economic thought. However, an examination of his scholarly achievements reveals that he had a considerable impact on the development of professional economics in America and could count the most influential economists in Europe as personal friends and collaborators (Moss, 2003; Rutherford, 2004; Mehrotra, 2005). Asso and Fiorito (2006), in their introduction to Seligman's autobiography (1929) argue that ‘his personal influence as an academic economist, as a teacher and as a central figure in the dissemination of economic knowledge was second to none and perhaps more meaningful than any single work he wrote’ (p. 1). They also record (quoting his student, Alvin Johnson) that ‘with Seligman…American economics began to acquire a distinctive professional reputation, some very high scholarly standards and a sort of “moral magnificence”’ (p. 2). What this means is that through Seligman's work and guidance economics came to encompass a moral dimension that fed through into social policies, many of which were adopted by American legislatures. The major influences on his method included the German Historical School and a number of heterodox Continental writers that informed Seligman's in great Whig interpretation of the development of economics. He also engaged critically with the more abstract methods of contemporary economic analysis of the early twentieth century.