Study: U.S. Exporting Fair Hiring Practices

• The Find: American firms have been found to follow U.S. anti-discrimination laws even when hiring in countries without regulations against bias in hiring, spreading American ideas of fair hiring practices across the world.
• The Source: A new study of gender and age discrimination co-written by a University of Illinois labor expert appearing in the Journal of International Business Studies.

John Lawler, a professor in the U of I Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations and business professors Cindy Wu of Baylor University and Xiang Yi of Western Illinois University looked at recruitment ads published by multinational corporations seeking management and professional workers in Taiwan and Thailand from 1993 to 1999, when neither country had laws against gender and age discrimination. Rather than allowing themselves or their local managers to relax into local norms, only 10 percent of US ads contained discriminatory language, compared with 24 percent for European-based firms and 47 percent for (mostly Japanese) Asian corporations. Most of the discriminatory language was in regard to gender.

For some American companies who have been dogged with accusations of exporting less progressive business practices (sweatshop labor, dodgy toxic waste disposal) to the countries where they set up shop, Lawler's praise may come as a nice change of pace:

"I think it speaks well of American companies in their international operations. They can be seen as a model, and that can have an impact on host nations as they become more economically developed."

(Image of made in the USA block by Randy Son of Robert, CC 2.0)
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