Joel Rudin

Keeping the Faith but Losing in Court: Legal Implications of Proselytizing in the Workplace

Proselytizing at work occurs when an employee tries to convince coworkers to change their religions. This presents an interesting set of legal issues, because some employees feel that proselytizing is a requirement of their religion. Therefore, they could perceive a prohibition on proselytizing at work as a discriminatory act against members of their religion. On the other hand, other employees may be offended by attempts to change their religious practices. These employees could perceive workplace proselytizing as religious harassment. Therefore, American employers have to adopt religious harassment policies that are much more complex than their sexual harassment policies. In this paper, we outline the components of a legally compliant religious harassment policy which balances the competing rights of proselytizers and their intended targets.

E-Government Versus E-Business: A Comparison of Online Recruitment in the Public and Private Sectors

In this study, the authors assessed the usability of e-recruitment websites in the 50 states and the 50 largest American businesses. It is found that states were much less likely than businesses to accept online job applications. For example, it is impossible to apply online for a state government position in the three largest states. When it was possible to apply online for a state government job, the websites tended to be less user-friendly and informative than their private-sector counterparts. The major exception to this pattern was that the state government websites tended to be less secretive about pay rates. Because of the digital divide, state governments cannot rely exclusively on online applications. However, state governments should be able to offer a more advanced online job application process. The authors conclude by discussing implications for e-democracy, offering suggestions for research and practice, and identifying the two states with the least advanced recruitment practices.

Hostile territory: employers’ unwillingness to accommodate transgender employees

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of employers’ responses to the restroom requests of transgender employees, and to assess the ability as educators to reduce transphobia in the students. Design/methodology/approach – Subjects were 194 undergraduate business students at a medium-sized public university in the northeastern USA who were enrolled in an undergraduate course in organizational behavior. During class, they read a brief case which asked the students to play the role of a CEO in Little Rock, Arkansas, receiving a complaint from a female employee about using the same restroom as a coworker who is transitioning from male to female. Findings – The most inclusive response was also the rarest, with only 27 percent of students recommending unisex bathrooms. Hostile actions, forcing the transitioning employee to use the mens restroom, were recommended by 38 percent of those who correctly realized that an employee would be unprotected by sexual orientation discrimination ...

Transforming Attitudes about Transgender Employee Rights.

Transgender employees may suffer from discrimination due to transphobia. This article evaluates a pedagogical intervention designed to reduce the transphobia of North American undergraduate business students. Participants were enrolled in an organizational behavior course. They resolved a simulated dispute between coworkers over accommodating the bathroom choices of a transgender employee. Answers were classified as demonstrating inclusion, compliance, or hostility with the inclusive response being the establishment of gender-neutral restrooms and the hostile response being refusal to accept the transgender employee’s bathroom choice. In the first year, 194 students completed the exercise with no advance preparation, while in the second year, 221 students performed the same task after reading a brief article about transgender employees. Results suggest that the intervention was effective as the inclusive response was most popular in the second year even though it had been least popular in the first year. Complete success was not attained, as one sixth of the students in the second year chose hostile responses. Implications for research, teaching, and practice are discussed.

The Collapse of Barings Bank

Abstract Types of international business cases that have been discussed in the Journal of Teaching in International Businessinclude “living cases,” “learner-generated cases,” and “documentary cases.” This paper assesses “archival cases,” which can be reconstructed entirely from publicly-available documents. The collapse of Barings Bank presents an excellent example of an archival case. This paper sketches a brief outline of the facts of the case, then reviews extant archival material pertaining to the Barings affair. The archival material includes three web-sites, four books, and even a video dramatizing the case. The paper concludes with suggestions for integrating this case into an International Management course.

Predictors of Student Withdrawal from a Self-Paced Degree Program

Abstract Self-paced post-secondary studies are expected to become much more common in the near future, yet little is known about the causes of student withdrawal from such programs. This paper studies student withdrawal from an entire degree program rather than a particular course, examining both qualitative and quantitative data. We find that staff behaviors and perceived educational quality are related to the likelihood of withdrawal. Demographic characteristics (gender, full-time employment, and marital status) are unrelated to the likelihood of withdrawal. Implications for research and practice are also discussed.

Penis panic in the workplace: Differential responses to MTF and FTM transgender employees

Transgender individuals can be defined as all who cross gender barriers. Most may be classified as female-to-male (FTM) or male-to-female (MTF) where the first gender listed is the one assigned at birth. Transgender employees are not always legally protected from discrimination in the United States, but research suggests that FTM transgender employees enjoy greater organizational acceptance and superior economic outcomes compared to MTF transgender employees. This poses challenges for our understanding of transphobia which is typically defined as fear of those who transgress dominant standards of gender identity. It would seem that FTM transgender employees are just as transgressive as MTF transgender employees, so why should they trigger less transphobia? In this paper, we review the theoretical rationales that have been developed to explain the phenomenon of greater organizational acceptance of FTM than MTF transgender employees: bigenderism, passing problems, and penis panic. We then share the results ...

Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) Legislation and Small Businesses: Real Hazard or Red Herring?

Abstract This paper examines the impact of state Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) legislation on the mortality rates of small businesses in 19 U.S. industries, using a database maintained by the U.S. Small Business Administration. Extant strategic human resource management literature tends explicitly or implicitly to discount the relative importance of EEO compliance as a function of Human Resource Management responsibilities. However, our cross-sectional regression analysis finds a positive impact of state EEO legislation on the likelihood of organizational survival. State EEO legislation may require small businesses to engage in fair employment practices that increase their vitality. Alternatively, state EEO legislation may be one part of a package of state policies that have the net effect of reducing small business mortality rates.

Continuous Dependent Variables and Organizational Ecology: Toward a more Perfect Union

In this paper, I review all previously published organizational ecology research which utilizes continuous dependent variables. I unearth twenty-one such studies, half of which were published within the past four years. The broadening array of dependent variables in this field is a most welcome development. However, each of these papers has at least one methodological limitation, in specification of cross-unit effects and/or controls for autocorrelation. Perhaps the most serious problem is the assertion that the fixed effects research design solves the problem of autocorrelation. I demonstrate that this assertion is untrue. I conclude with advice on the proper way to model continuous dependent variables in organizational ecology research, as follows: (1) Consider omitting all organizations which do not exist for more time periods than the number of independent variables. (2) Test for autocorrelation, report the results, and correct for autocorrelation if the test indicates that it is a problem. (3) Use a fixed effects model, and justify it based on the nonrandomness of the data.