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This paper outlines the methods and outcomes of a study into equity management strategies in Australian private sector organisations reporting to the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA). Reports from 1,976 organisations indicate 11 key factors characterising equity management in Australia. The study highlights differences within previously identified social structural policies, temperamental and opportunity policies and identifies a further policy type, categorised as “support policies”. Differences have also been identified in relation to distribution structures, suggesting that gender is not the sole consideration in determining equity management strategies. The justice principle of distribution also figures strongly in equity management implementation.

Affirmative action in the USA, and employment equity in Canada, are policy frameworks that have developed through the use of legislation, regulation and decisions by courts and administrative tribunals, as mechanisms for addressing discrimination in employment. Managing diversity, in contrast, is a voluntary initiative by corporate decision makers, at the level of the firm, in response to the growth of diversity in the workforce and marketplace. Provides a framework for comparing and assessing the three approaches and choosing between them.

Equal employment opportunity policies were introduced in Australia in the 1980s in response to women's disadvantaged workforce position. Australia's unique form of affirmative action was underpinned by legislation, and aimed to promote gender equity in the workplace via employer action. Throughout the 1990s there has been a policy shift away from collectivism towards individualism, and away from externally driven social programmes at the workplace towards managerialist driven social programmes. The main process for implementing progressive and inclusive equity programmes at the workplace is through human resource management policies that link employment diversity to organisational objectives (for example, productivity and profitability). Programmes titled “Managing diversity” have been introduced into some organisations, and today there are a variety of approaches towards equity policies in Australian organisations. The article proposes that a distinctive Australian version of managing diversity will develop in some organisations based on the prior national legislative framework.

The international trend in the growth and incidence of “non‐standard employment”, and its highly gendered nature, is well documented. Similarly, interest in employee involvement or participation by academics and practitioners has seen the emergence of a rapidly growing body of literature. Despite the continued interest in each of these areas, the literature is relatively silent when it comes to where the two areas intersect, that is, what the implications are for employee participation in the growth of non‐standard employment. This paper seeks to redress this relative insularity in the literature by examining some broad trends in this area in Australia. The literature lacks one clear, accepted definition of “non‐standard” employment. For ease of definition, and because of the nature of the available data, we focus on part‐time employment in this paper. The paper analyses data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey of 1995 (AWIRS 95). It tests the hypotheses that part‐time employees enjoy less access to participatory management practices in the workplace than their full‐time counterparts, and that this diminishes the access to participation in the workplace enjoyed by female workers in comparison with their male colleagues, since the part‐time workforce is predominantly feminised. These hypotheses were strongly confirmed. This has major implications for workplace equity, and for organisational efficiency.

This study aims to investigate the research question: how do women leaders in the professional business services (PBS) sector develop and approach workplace (in)authenticity?

Ten senior women leaders in the Midlands region of the UK were purposefully selected and interviewed. A semi-structured approach meant that the author adopted a social constructionist paradigm and feminist interpretation. Questions were designed to elicit rich descriptions from the participants. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted to address the study’s purpose.

Four themes were important to women when they developed and approached workplace (in)authenticity: (1) Power Structures, (2) Fit to Belong, (3) Influential Femininity and (4) Through Her Evolution. Women described masculine-majority organisations exerting power. They were pressured into altering their behaviours to “fit” into workplaces. When women had the latitude to be themselves, their leadership excelled. Women’s authenticity developed through increased self-knowledge, helping them to overcome workplace challenges. The study concluded that women face complexities when developing and approaching their constructions of authenticity, namely in the barriers and ramifications they face.

The study suggests several implications for practice and theory concerning enablers and barriers to women leaders' workplace authenticity. The link between authenticity and workplace gender equity needs to be investigated.

The study provides evidence that women are challenged when becoming authentic, therefore, altering their careers irrecoverably in some cases.

The South African government actively intervenes in the labor market in the pursuit of redress of social injustice. These interventions are complicated by economics and have a direct effect on intentions to turnover. In addition, South Africa has a dual labor market, with a high unemployment rate among lesser skilled workers, and a skills shortage at the top of the labor market.

There are four clear eras in the labor market of post-Apartheid South Africa. The first era was after democratic elections in 1994, when the government focused on nation-building with the introduction of indigenization programs. The second era was characterized by economic prosperity and an intensification of indigenization programs. The third era was characterized by rampant state corruption and increased regulatory uncertainty. During this period, the economy stagnated and unemployment increased. Firms restructured and lower-level workers were retrenched and higher-level skilled workers left the country. In 2018, a new president undertook to grow the South African economy and attract foreign direct investment. Despite these efforts, there was a spike in South Africans emigrating, increasing the turnover of highly skilled South Africans of all races.

Economics and politics create both push and pull factors and many unintended consequences, and the dual labor market reacts differently to labor markets than in developed economies. The lower-skilled employees lose their jobs as the economy contracts, while highly skilled jobs remain difficult to fill. However, skilled professionals nonetheless feel increasingly uncertain about their future employability.

Why do so many African Americans get stuck near the bottom or at the middle of the corporate ladder? Why do so many continue to complain about discriminatory pay and promotion decisions many decades after the enactment of anti-discrimination laws? Law and economics commentators who have written about the issue of employment discrimination have failed to address the complexity of the problem of implicit bias and the effects of the frequently inaccurate heuristics used by some white workers when making judgments about their black colleagues. Economic theory without context is useless. But with context, law and economic analysis can help us understand and address specific problems like workplace discrimination that persist within corporate cultures because of an overestimation of the cost of anti-discrimination efforts and an underestimation of the gravity and likelihood of workplace discrimination.

In this chapter, I explore the economic and socioeconomic reality of African American low and mid-level corporate managers in order to capture a more complete picture of the costs of discrimination in the corporate workplace. I also explore the heuristic assumptions that are made about African American professionals and the effects those assumptions have on the black community. Finally, to understand the gravity of the harm to individuals, their families and the communities to which they belong, narratives about the economic and psychological harm caused by discrimination are essential. I offer the narratives of six middle managers and low-level professionals who faced discrimination in the corporate workplace to provide an important context about discrimination's real costs.

Examines the range and changing nature of the initiatives implemented by Australian governments under the rubric of equal opportunity. Reviews the character and trends in the Australian labour market. Provides an account of the public policy framework, including industrial relations, anti‐discrimination and affirmative action legislation. Considers employer responses and the dilemmas for the broader diffusion of diversity management.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the expectations women have of their women managers and/or women employees and to suggest personal and organizational strategies to strengthen those relationships.

Building on a first phase of research using narrative inquiry into the lived experiences of women managing and/or being managed by women, workshops were held with 13 participants to explore their relationship expectations of women managers and/or employees.

While the participants initially believed they expected the same things of a manager or employee irrespective of gender, a closer examination revealed gender-based expectations. Women expect a higher degree of emotional understanding and support from a woman manager, than they would from a man. They also expect a woman manager to see them as an equal, take a holistic view of them as people, understand the complexities of their lives and provide flexibility to accommodate those complexities.

This is an exploratory study in an under-researched area. Extensive further research is warranted.

Understanding the expectations women have of their women managers enables the development of both personal and organizational strategies aimed at strengthening those relationships.

These findings begin a dialogue on the often-unspoken and unrecognized gender-based expectations women have of their relationships with women managers and/or women employees. Although considerable research exists on gender stereotypes in the workplace, little research exists on these gender-based relational expectations.