Search results

Discusses principles of equality and justice in order to justify affirmative action and clarify its need. Posits that in both the USA and South Africa, issues of segregation and discrimination are not new and both countries have had the opportunity to address their past policies by way of affirmative action programmes. Looks at what determined the denouncement of the affirmative action in the USA and why the answer to this question may have a great impact on South Africa’s attempt to improve its own affirmative action programmes. Concludes that, although 30 years of affirmative action was deemed unconstitutional, how can South Africa derive and make use of the knowledge gained to help in stopping reverse discrimination.

The purpose of this paper is to show how various organizational justifications for hiring decisions influence the beneficiary's perceptions of fairness. Specifically, the paper investigates the relative impacts of no justification, affirmative action justification and justifications based on attempts to improve organizational creativity.

Participants were asked to read several vignettes in which the justification for the hiring decisions was manipulated. Fairness perceptions were then assessed for each scenario. Paired‐sample t tests were used to test hypotheses.

The paper finds that perceptions of both procedural and distributive justice appeared to follow a common theme across Hispanic and African American subgroups where the hiring decision was perceived to be fairer when no justification was provided. Hiring decisions based on affirmative action and diversity programs designed to promote creativity were perceived as less fair by both African Americans and Hispanics.

The study used a sample of minority students, thereby limiting the generalizability of these findings.

The current study has practical implications in that it may help both academicians and practitioners better understand what applicants perceive regarding the fairness of affirmative action and diversity programs.

Past research has investigated the preferential selection of women and minorities, however, there has been little systematic inquiry into the possible justifications that might reduce the negative reactions of beneficiaries.

This paper explores the impact of affirmative action on the culture of small business enterprises in South Africa. The functions of organizational culture are explored and utilized to reach a deeper understanding of the desired impact of affirmative action. Managers are identified as holding key roles as change agents. Recommendations include managing change from a culture perspective directed at creating participative management processes and shifting the enterprise’s essential values.

This article discusses the costs and benefits of implementing affirmative action programs in higher education. Based on a national survey of institutions of higher education, the author addresses the following questions: What factors impede the ability of the affirmative action officer to achieve program results? What is the effect of staff size, budget, and race on perceived implementation barriers? This study finds that increased impediments to affirmative action program efficacy are greatly affected by program resources and race.

Although affirmative action is often referred to as though it was an homogeneous entity, the reality is that affirmative action policies can take many different forms. To date, the variety of affirmative action policies that have been implemented in Australia has not been well‐documented. In this paper, a framework is developed to describe the variety of affirmative action policies being implemented in Australia in the 1990s. The most frequently reported policies by Australian organisations concern reviewing employment policies for discriminatory practices. The next most commonly reported policies relate to companies’ efforts to assist employees to balance the competing roles of work and family. Policies that seek to challenge traditional patterns of employment, and policies that seek to “fix” women are less commonly reported by organisations. The breaking down of affirmative action into various types of policies provides scope for more fully exploring the question of the effectiveness of affirmative action policies.

The Australian government's commitment to equal employment opportunity has resulted in the enactment of anti‐discrimination and affirmative action legislation at both the federal and state level and the development of a number of labour market, training and social policies specifically designed to remove impediments to women's employment. The Affirmative Action (Equal Employment Opportunity for Women) Act 1986 is pivotal to the removal of discrimination in organisations, but its effectiveness has been hindered by the restructuring of organisations on a divisional basis, a lack of understanding of the nature of equal employment opportunity (eeo) and the role of affirmative action programmes among some employers and employees, and the choices women make about their employment and training. A number of innovative policies have been developed by large organisations to deal with these barriers to the effectiveness of affirmative action programmes and the creation of eeo and they provide useful models for other organisations.

The implementation of the Australian government's affirmative actioning proposals, promoting equal treatment for women in organisations, will reduce some elements of disadvantage faced by women in the labour market. Employment practices directly discriminating against women will be replaced by practices which do not overly acknowledge the sex of the applicant, and the employment of women in a diverse range of occupations will be given credence by the organisation's formal statement of commitment to equal employment opportunity. Attempts to remove disadvantage will have to start from the present work structures which are outcomes of actions and bargains between groups in which women have not played a significant part. Unless the trade union movement is given a more prominent role in the development and implementation of affirmative action programmes, these programmes will create further division in the workforce, as the reassessment of concepts underpinning personnel practices may cause much hostility among employees.

Managing cultural diversity in the workplace and attempts to abolish affirmative action are emerging as some of the most important issues facing American business in the 90s. The relationship between affirmative action and diversity may start in their definitions. Affirmative action was born during the Civil Rights Movement in an effort to reverse the effects of generations of racial discrimination (the concept and the laws which governed it broadened over the years to include women and other traditionally disadvantaged groups). It is federally mandated law to combat discrimination. Diversity on the other hand, is an organisational effort that aims to modify organisation standards, procedures, and management practices that hinder creativity, productivity, and advancement of all employees.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the responsibility of the growing private sector in India towards society and how it can contribute to the providing social justice in the Indian society.

Only doctrinal method of research has been adopted because of time constraints.

During the course of the research, the hypocritical approach of corporates was revealed, especially in the context. On one hand, the corporates are resisting any legislation which would forcefully push them towards affirmative action; but on the other hand no such initiative has been taken up by them to stop the government from doing so.

Any sort of field study was impracticable.

At the time of writing, the government's mood is swinging towards passing legislation to‐persuade the corporate sector to participate in providing affirmative action to the lower strata of the society.

This is one of the first researches in this area and not many people have actually written about CSR and affirmative action put together.

There is a widely held belief that recent Supreme Court decisions in the United States have seriously damaged — or at least set back — the prospects and scope for affirmative action. Certainly, the record for 1989 would seem strongly to support this assumption. Five affirmative action cases were decided in that term and all five decisions were, in different respects, antagonistic to affirmative action. But to say that either individually, or collectively, they represented a serious set — back to affirmative action is unduly pessimistic. Affirmative action in employment in the US is not the fragile desert flower it is in Britain. It is very widely practised (mandatory for federal contractors), aggressively pursued (to the level of preferential treatment) and has gathered a momentum which even the presently constituted Supreme Court would find it difficult to hinder.