Robert H. Faley

The Americans with Disabilities Act

Purpose – Important Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)‐related issues that derive from the case law are described and analyzed with the aim of providing guidance both for those responsible for establishing organizational policies, procedures, and practices.Design/methodology/approach – A total of 50 influential court cases spanning the past ten years are reviewed and synthesized to better understand the current and future impact of the ADA.Findings – Better understanding of ADA can help employers both avoid costly litigation and take advantage of a segment of the US labor market that has not yet been fully utilized.Originality/value – This paper helps practitioner and researchers better understand the organizational implications of the ADA. Better understanding the current case law should lead to employer policies, procedures, and practices that facilitate the better utilization of the qualified disabled work force without compromising employer concerns related to productivity and other job‐related out...

ESTIMATING THE ORGANIZATIONAL COSTS OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT: THE CASE OF THE U.S. ARMY

A general model for estimating the organizational costs of sexual harassment in the workplace is proposed along with model-specific costing formulas. A partial implementation of the model is applied to sexual harassment incidence data for the Army gathered as part of a large-scale survey of the U.S. military services. Results indicate that the total annual cost of sexual harassment in the U.S. Army in 1988 was over

An Empirical Examination of Same- and Other-Gender Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

250,000,000. Organizational implications are discussed.

The Effects of Organizational Context on Occupational Gender-Stereotyping

This study examines sexual harassment (SH) whichinvolves members of the same gender, either male orfemale. Data are taken from the 1988 Department ofDefense Survey of Sex Roles in the Active Duty Military. Separate comparisons for male (38% White, 31%Black, and 31% ‘other’) and female (48%White, 27% Black, and 25% ‘other’) targetsare made between sameand other-gender SH related to fourmajor components of a conceptual model proposed by Fitzgerald,Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, & Magley (1997). Thesecomponents include sexual harassment behaviors, personalvulnerability, target response styles, and consequences of the SH for the target. The sexualorientation of targets and perpetrators is notconsidered because data were unavailable. Results reveala number of meaningful differences between sameandother-gender SH. The most striking result is that maletargets of same-gender SH experience consequences thatare significantly more pervasive and severe than thoseexperienced by male targets of other-gender SH.Organizational implications are discussed.

Leveraging the flexibility of your data warehouse

This study examined the effects oforganizational context and subject gender onoccupational gender-stereotyping. Subjects (153Caucasians, 10 African Americans, 3 Asians, 3 Latinos,2 Native Americans, and 11 unidentified) rated 8 gender-neutraloccupations on a 7-point bi-polar scale representing thedegree to which they felt the occupations were“masculine,” “feminine,” or“neither masculine nor feminine.” One experimentalgroup read a masculine-typed organizational descriptionprior to rating the occupations and the secondexperimental group read a feminine-typed organizational description. The control group read noorganizational description. A two-way ANCOVA (2 genders× 3 organizational contexts) was used to test thehypotheses. A significant main effect for organizationalcontext was found, but the interaction effect was notsignificant.

DRUG TESTING IN THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE-SECTOR WORKPLACES: TECHNICAL AND LEGAL ISSUES

How data warehouse flexibility affects its use.

Performance Evaluation: A Case for the Use of Consensus Ratings

This paper examines the technical and legal issues surrounding the implementation of drug testing programs in the public and private-sector workplaces. In Part I of the paper, technical issues important to an understanding of urinalysis drug testing methods are examined. In Part II, recent federal case law is reviewed in order to identify the different legal parameters associated with drug testing in the public and private sectors. Part III presents guidelines for employers who already have or are about to implement a drug testing program within their organizations.

The Impact of Gender and Experience on the Strength of the Relationships Between Perceived Data Warehouse Flexibility, Ease-of-Use, and Usefulness

Data from a sample of government research scientists were used to compare the psychometric properties of pooled and consensus ratings of job performance. It was hypothesized that consensus ratings would possess less halo and leniency error and greater validity than would pooled ratings. The findings supported the halo hypothesis and partially supported the validity hypothesis. Given the severity of the “criterion problem” in validation research, further research was recommended to extend the generalizability of these findings to other performance appraisal settings.

How Experience and Expertise Affect the Use of a Complex Technology

Experienced end-users are more likely to leverage the flexibility embedded within an information system. System flexibility influences ease-of-use perceptions, which influence user perceptions of system usefulness. Because men tend to have more experience with information systems and possess less computer anxiety than women, the strength of the relationship between user perceptions of system flexibility and ease of use should be significantly stronger for men. Although the authors found that the strength of this relationship was significant for men and women, the relationship was significantly stronger for women. No significant differences were found based on user differences in the length of their experience with a data warehouse. These findings challenge the conventional wisdom about the effect of gender and experience on system use, and have ramifications for both researchers and practitioners interested in optimizing data warehouse usage.

Legal Issues concerning Polygraph Testing in the Public Sector

As end-users work with increasingly complex technologies, it is important that these technologies be used to the fullest extent possible. Time is needed to learn how to use these new technologies and fit them to user tasks, but the fact that a user has gained experience does not mean that expertise has also been gained. Using survey data collected from 187 data warehouse end-users, we found that experience and expertise have a significant positive correlation (r = 0.35, p < 0.001), but expertise has a significantly greater effect on ease-of-use perceptions (t=10.2, p < 0.0001) and the use of a technology (t=21.08, p < 0.0001) than experience. Therefore, it is critical that researchers properly delineate which construct – end-user expertise or experience – is being assessed, when measuring the effect that individual differences have on the perceptions and use of technology.