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1 – 10 of 425Let there be two individuals: “rich,” and “poor.” Due to inefficiency of the income redistribution policy, if a social planner were to tax the rich in order to transfer to the…
Abstract
Let there be two individuals: “rich,” and “poor.” Due to inefficiency of the income redistribution policy, if a social planner were to tax the rich in order to transfer to the poor, only a fraction of the taxed income would be given to the poor. Under such inefficiency and a standard utility specification, a Rawlsian social planner who seeks to maximize the utility of the worst-off individual will select a different allocation of incomes than a utilitarian social planner who seeks to maximize the sum of the individuals’ utilities. However, when individuals prefer not only to have more income but also not to have low status conceptualized as low relative income, and when this distaste is incorporated in the individuals’ utility functions with a weight that is greater than a specified critical level, then a utilitarian social planner will select the very same income distribution as a Rawlsian social planner.
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Justin Williams and Ramudu Bhanugopan
This study examines the interactive effects of work values and organisational commitment on localisation.
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines the interactive effects of work values and organisational commitment on localisation.
Methodology/approach
This study draws on human capital theory, and reports on a survey of 200 expatriate managers working in Qatar.
Findings
We find that localisation is negatively associated with work values and positively associated with organisational commitment. Furthermore, work values appear to influence organisational commitment.
Originality/value
Despite a surfeit of literature on localisation of human resources, few studies previously have explored its relationship with work values and organisational commitment. This chapter presents empirical research on the issue from Qatar, a country in a region which remains under-researched in the literature.
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Justin Williams, Ramudu Bhanugopan and Alan Fish
This paper seeks to provide an overview of the concept of “localization” of human resources in Qatar. Relative to the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCCCs)…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper seeks to provide an overview of the concept of “localization” of human resources in Qatar. Relative to the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCCCs), economic development began late in Qatar due to political and economic factors such as the influx of an immigrant labour force and changes in the education system. Now, with one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and the highest per capita income, Qatar has vigorously embraced rapid economic expansion. However, in a small country awash with natural resources, and with a population engulfed by expatriates, the issue of “localization” is a pressing economic and social issue.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews the national human resource situation in this atypical context, and seeks to determine the factors that impact on “localization” in this small, yet important Gulf nation.
Findings
There are some common barriers to “localization” throughout the GCCCs. These can be summarized as: an inefficient quota system; a culture that is focused more on prestige than performance; strict cultural practices concerning women in the workforce; education systems that are not market driven; and an inequitable social contract and distribution of oil and natural gas wealth in the GCCCs.
Originality/value
While much attention has been directed to the concept of “localization” in developing countries, “Qatarization” has received no attention in the scholarly literature, despite the resounding political and economic role that Qatar has in the GCCCs.
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Sexual orientation and employment bias is examined in Cyprus by implementing an experiment for the period 2010-2011. The design is aimed at answering three main questions. Do gay…
Abstract
Purpose
Sexual orientation and employment bias is examined in Cyprus by implementing an experiment for the period 2010-2011. The design is aimed at answering three main questions. Do gay males and lesbians face occupational access constraints and entry wage bias than comparable heterosexuals? Do gay males and lesbians benefit from providing more job-related information? Does the differential treatment between gay male/lesbian and heterosexual applicants disappear as the information of the applicants increases? The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
The author sent applications to advertised vacancies and experimented with two information sets the “sexual orientation” and “information” of the potential applicants.
Findings
The estimations suggest that gay male and lesbian applicants face significant bias than heterosexual applicants. Moreover, both heterosexual and gay male/lesbian applicants gain by providing more job-related information. However, the estimations suggest that the informational premium for sexual orientation minorities could not reduce the discriminatory patterns.
Practical implications
The current results indicate that discrimination against sexual orientation minorities in the Cypriot labour market is a matter of preference, not the result of limited information. One strategy the Cypriot government may employ is to try to affect public opinion and people's attitudes towards sexual orientation minorities.
Originality/value
This is the first nationwide field experiment in the Cypriot labour market and contributes to the literature as it is the first field study on sexual orientation which tries to disentangle statistical from taste-based discrimination in the labour market.
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Elizabeth Mamali and Peter Nuttall
Focusing on a community organisation, the purpose of this paper is to unravel the process through which infringing contested practices that threaten or compromise the community’s…
Abstract
Purpose
Focusing on a community organisation, the purpose of this paper is to unravel the process through which infringing contested practices that threaten or compromise the community’s sense of distinction are transformed into acceptable symbolic markers.
Design/methodology/approach
An ethnographic study comprising participant observation, in-depth interviews and secondary data was conducted in the context of a non-profit community cinema.
Findings
Taking a longitudinal approach and drawing from practice theory, this paper outlines how member-driven, customer-driven and necessity-imposed infringing practices settle in new contexts. Further, this paper demonstrates that such practices are filtered in terms of their ideological “fit” with the organisation and are, as a result, rejected, recontextualised or replaced with do-it-yourself alternatives. In this process, authority shifts from the contested practice to community members and eventually to the space as a whole, ensuring the singularisation of the cinema-going experience.
Practical implications
This paper addresses how the integration of hegemonic practices to an off-the-mainstream experience can provide a differentiation tool, aiding resisting organisations to compensate for their lack of resources.
Originality/value
While the appropriation practices that communities use to ensure distinction are well documented, there is little understanding of the journey that negatively contested practices undergo in their purification to more community-friendly forms. This paper theorises this journey by outlining how the objects, meanings and doings that comprise hegemonic practices are transformed by and transforming of resisting organisations.
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Hannah Van Borm and Stijn Baert
The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanisms underlying hiring discrimination against transgender women.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the mechanisms underlying hiring discrimination against transgender women.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conduct a scenario experiment in which fictitious hiring decisions are made about transgender or cisgender female job candidates. In addition, these candidates are scored on statements related to theoretical reasons for hiring discrimination given in the literature. The resulting data are analysed by means of a multiple mediation model.
Findings
The results suggest that prejudices with respect to the health of transgender individuals mediate unfavourable treatment of them. However, this mechanism is compensated by a beneficial perception concerning transgender women’s autonomy and assertiveness.
Social implications
Targeted policy measures are needed given the substantial labour market discrimination against transgender individuals measured in former studies. However, to combat this discrimination effectively, one needs to understand its underlying mechanisms. This study provides a first exploration of these mechanisms.
Originality/value
This study innovates in being the first to explore the relative empirical importance of dominant (theoretical) explanations for hiring discrimination against transgender women. Thereby, the authors take the logical next step in the literature on labour market discrimination against transgender individuals.
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Jomills Henry Braddock, Robert L. Crain, James M. McPartland and Russell L. Dawkins
Net of controls for educational credentials, recommendations, age, high school quality, employment sector, firm size and region, white personnel officers tend to assign black male…
Abstract
Net of controls for educational credentials, recommendations, age, high school quality, employment sector, firm size and region, white personnel officers tend to assign black male high school graduates to lower paying positions than those assigned to white male high school graduates in the USA. Similar patterns are observed for while female college graduates. The effect of job candidates' race on employers' job placement decisions is examined, using data gathered by the randomised vignette technique. These patterns of apparent bias in job placement are found to be offset to some degree in firms with affirmative action policies. The findings are discussed in the context of Thurow's (1975) theory of statistical discrimination. Further research is needed to investigate potential discrimination in job selection and to examine characteristics of firms and personnel officers with the greatest propensity to discriminate.
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