John M. Cornwell

Department of Psychology

Campus Box 194

6363 St. Charles Avenue

Loyola University

New Orleans, LA 70118

cornwell@loyno.edu

School Office: (504) 865-3126 Cell Phone: (504) 236-1000

School Fax: (504) 865-3970

Presented at the Conference for the Society of Industrial-Organizational Psychology.

Toronto, Canada: April 12-14, 2002.

The research described in this paper was supported by an award and grant from the

Wayne F. Placek Fund of the American Psychological Foundation.

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, IT’S WHAT YOU DO:

THE IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES ON

HETEROSEXISM IN THE WORKPLACE

Abstract

Our study compared the effects of general and specific diversity policies and practices on reports of heterosexism in the workplace in a national sample of 534 gay and lesbian employees. When controlling for tenure, rank, organizational size, being out at work, and protective legislation, reports of sexual orientation discrimination were unrelated to general diversity practices, such as the use of diversity training or the presence of a formal policy on workplace diversity. Even specific formal policies aimed at gay employees had little impact on reports of sexual orientation discrimination. The most significant predictor of workplace heterosexism was the informal practice of welcoming same-sex partners to company social events. Gay employees in organizations that welcomed same-sex partners at social events reported significantly less discrimination than employees in organizations that did not welcome-same sex partners. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

IT’S NOT WHAT YOU SAY, IT’S WHAT YOU DO:

THE IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL POLICIES AND PRACTICES

ON HETEROSEXISM IN THE WORKPLACE

Although gay men and lesbians constitute 4-17% of the workforce (Gonsiorek & Weinrich, 1991), a larger proportion than many other minority groups, there has been little empirical research on their workplace experiences. We know that discrimination against employees who are gay, or simply appear to be gay, is legal in most workplaces (Button, Rienzo & Wald, 1997; van der Meide, 2000), and that between 25-66% of gay employees report that they have experienced sexual orientation discrimination at work (cf. Croteau, 1996). However, we know little about the factors that influence discrimination against gay employees.

Many companies are concerned about the workplace climate faced by their gay employees. Organizations that are in locales that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination are concerned with litigation, but even those who are not under such jurisdiction recognize that it is only a matter of time until national legislation prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination (i.e., ENDA) is passed (van der Meide, 2000). Many organizations are instituting various policies and practices in the attempt to reduce discrimination. Some use policies and practices that are aimed directly at protecting gay employees, such as developing policies that explicitly prohibit sexual orientation discrimination, offering gay support groups, providing domestic partner benefits to same-sex partners and welcoming them at company social events (Mickens, 1994; Friskopp & Silverstein, 1996). Others develop more general diversity policies and practices, and hope that these practices will have a positive impact on all groups.

Although a variety of policies and practices are being used, we know little about the relative effectiveness of these direct and indirect approaches for reducing heterosexism in the workplace. A key question that needs to be answered is which policy or practice is most effective for reducing heterosexism in the workplace. Should organizations implement specific policies aimed at reducing discrimination against gay employees or will general approaches, such as the development of general diversity training and policies, suffice? Another question is whether informal practices, such as welcoming partners at company social events, have a greater impact on discrimination than formal policies and practices, such as offering gay support groups, domestic partner benefits, or providing diversity training on sexual orientation issues. The purpose of this exploratory study is to answer these very important and practical questions by assessing the relative impact of different policies and practices on gay employees' reports of heterosexism in the workplace. This information can provide much needed guidance to organizations that seek to create a supportive workplace for their gay employees.

Method

Sampling Procedure

A national random sample of 2,919 members of three national gay rights organizations in the United States were sent surveys in August of 1997. Specifically, we sent surveys to 1,488 members of one of the largest gay civil rights organization in the nation. In addition, as part of a larger study of workplace diversity (Ragins & Cornwell, 2001), we sent an additional 681 surveys to members of a national gay Latino/a organization, and 750 surveys were sent to a national gay African-American organization. A stratified random sampling technique was used in which equal numbers of men and women were selected by geographic area. The surveys were completely anonymous; there was no identifying information on the surveys that would connect them to the respondents. Two reminder postcards and a reminder letter were sent to all respondents. A total of 334 surveys were returned unanswered for various reasons, the primary reason being undeliverable mail (283); 51 surveys were returned unanswered because respondents were retired, unemployed, self-employed, heterosexual or deceased. Completed surveys were returned by 768 respondents, yielding a response rate of 30%.

Respondents. Because this study investigated workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian, and bisexual employees, surveys returned from the following groups were not used in the analyses: those indicating they were heterosexual (20) or unsure of their sexual orientation (3), those who were self-employed (99) or employed by a gay, lesbian, or bisexual organization (51), and those who were not employed in paid positions (i.e., retired, unemployed or volunteers) (61).

The final sample, therefore, consisted of 534 respondents. The sample consisted of 168 women and 363 men; 3 did not report their gender. The majority of the respondents considered themselves to be gay or lesbian (92.9%), as compared to bisexual (7.1%). The racial and ethnic background of the respondents was 69% white (n=361), 15.5% black (n=81), 12.4% latino/ hispanic (n=65), 0.8% Asian (n=4), 1.1% multiracial (n=6) and 1.1% other (n=6). The average age of the respondents was 41 years. The respondents were highly educated, the majority held bachelor's degrees (38.6%), and many had master's (28.2%) and doctoral (17.9%) degrees. Forty-one percent of the sample earned between $26,000 and $50,000 a year, and 24% earned between $51,000 and $75,000 a year. The average tenure in their current organization was 9.3 years, and the average tenure in their current position was 6.1 years. Respondents in this national sample represented a relatively wide range of job classifications, industries and organizations.

Measures

The survey was developed and pre-tested on an opportunity sample of 28 gay respondents who were employed at gay advocacy and educational institutions across the nation. The pretest was used to ensure clarity, refine instruments and select items. The staff from the gay rights organizations that provided the mailing lists also critiqued and approved the pretest and final surveys.

General diversity policies and practices. Two items were used to assess general diversity policies and practices. In particular, we asked whether the employee’s organization had a formal policy regarding diversity and whether the organization offered diversity training.

Specific policies directed at gay employees. Six items were used to assess whether the employee’s organization had policies and practices aimed specifically at improving the climate for gay employees. Five of these items addressed specific formal policies and practices. We asked whether the organization has a written policy that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, includes sexual orientation in the definition of diversity, includes gay and lesbian issues in diversity training, offers same-sex domestic partner benefits, and offers gay and lesbian resource/support groups. In addition, we had an additional item that tapped a more informal practice aimed at supporting gay employees. Specifically, we asked whether same-sex partners were welcome at company social events. These policies and practices have been identified as indicators of organizational cultures that are supportive of gay employees (Friskopp & Silverstein, 1996; Mickens, 1994; Woods, 1994).

All of the organizational policy and practice items were coded so that the presence of the policy or practice was coded as 1, the absence was coded as 0, and “don’t know” responses were coded as missing. Higher values, therefore, represented the presence of the practice.

Perceived workplace discrimination. A review of the literature revealed no psychometrically established measures of workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. A modified version of the Workplace Prejudice/Discrimination Inventory was therefore used to test the hypotheses and research questions (James, Lovato & Cropanzano, 1994). The 15-item, single-factor instrument has established reliability and validity (James, Lovato & Cropanzano, 1994). The inventory measures perceptions of race discrimination in the workplace, thus, terms relating to race were replaced with terms relating to sexual orientation. The instrument is very suited for measuring perceived heterosexism in the workplace as it taps both experienced and observed workplace discrimination; this is particularly important for gay employees who may not have directly experienced discrimination because no one knows that they are gay, but still experience indirect forms of discrimination through a heterosexist environment. Sample inventory items include: "Prejudice against gays and lesbians exists where I work," "At work I am treated poorly because of my sexual orientation," and "Supervisors scrutinize the work of gay and lesbian employees more than the work of heterosexual employees." While the self-report instrument measures both experienced and observed workplace discrimination, prior studies found that the instrument represents a single factor (James, Lovato & Cropanzano, 1994), and a principal components factor analysis conducted on the present sample also yielded a single factor with an eigenvalue of 7.49 accounting for 53.6% of the variance. The instrument uses a 7-point Likert scale, with responses ranging from completely agree (7) to completely disagree (1). Higher values therefore indicate greater perceived workplace discrimination. The coefficient alpha found in the present study for this instrument was .94.

Results

The policies and practices offered by the sample’s employers are listed in Table 1. In terms of general diversity policies, the majority of the sample worked in organizations that had formal diversity policies (66%) and offered diversity training (45%). It is interesting to note that although this sample worked in organizations that offered gay-friendly policies, these policies were somewhat less common than the more general diversity policies cited above. For example, only 22% of the sample worked in organizations that offered gay support groups and only 20% received same-sex domestic partner benefits. A much larger proportion, 54% of the respondents, reported that their employer had a written non-discrimination policy that explicitly included sexual orientation, and 51% of the sample reported that sexual orientation was included in their employer’s definition of diversity. Although general diversity training was offered by 45% of the employers, only 31% of the sample reported that their diversity training included awareness of gay and lesbian issues. Another interesting finding was that a full 52% of our sample reported working in organizations that welcomed same-sex partners at company social events.

Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations and listwise intercorrelations among the 14 variables included in this study. The two general policy variables were not significantly correlated with perceived workplace discrimination. Moderate correlations were found between workplace discrimination and five of the specific policy variables. The formal policy of offering gay and lesbian support groups was unrelated to reported discrimination. In contrast, the informal practice of welcoming partners at social events was highly correlated (r= -.53, p<.001) with reported workplace discrimination.

We used hierarchical regression analyses to examine which policies and practices had the greatest impact on reports of workplace discrimination. This also allowed us to control for a number of potential demographic and organizational confounds that may affect sexual orientation discrimination. Specifically, respondents' reports of discrimination may be related to whether their employer is in a locale governed by protective legislation that prohibits workplace discrimination. Reports of sexual orientation discrimination may also be affected by whether the gay employee had disclosed her or his sexual identity to others in the workplace. We also controlled for other demographic and organizational variables that may be related to heterosexism in the workplace, such as the size of the organization, the respondent’s rank and her or his tenure in the organization. These five control variables were entered in the first step of our hierarchical analyses. We entered the general approaches of diversity policy and diversity training in the second step, the five formal direct policies in the third step, followed by the informal policy of welcoming partners at social events in the last step.

As indicated in Table 3, general diversity policies and diversity training were not significantly related to reports of discrimination (R²change = .02, p=.13). In fact, after controlling for the demographic and organizational variables, only one formal policy aimed at gay employees affected their reports of workplace discrimination. Gay employees in organizations that included sexual orientation in diversity training reported significantly less workplace discrimination than those who did not (beta = -.32, p=.004). In marked contrast, the presence of a formal policy prohibiting sexual orientation discrimination, the explicit inclusion of sexual orientation in the organization’s definition of diversity, the presence of gay and lesbian network and support groups, and the use of same-sex domestic partner benefits had no significant impact on gay employees reports of sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. The informal practice of inviting partners to social events (beta = -.40, p=.000) resulted in a significant improvement in predicting workplace discrimination (R²change = .10, p<.001). In fact, a review of the betas indicates that the informal practice of inviting same-sex partners to company social events was the single most important predictor of reported workplace discrimination among gay employees.

Discussion

Our study found that reports of workplace discrimination were unaffected by general diversity policies. General diversity training and workplace policies espousing the value of diversity had little impact on gay employees’ experiences of workplace discrimination. Although these findings are not terribly surprising, what is surprising was that even specific policies aimed at improving the climate for gay employees apparently were ineffective for reducing heterosexism in the workplace once we controlled for potential demographic and organizational confounds. For example, after controlling for potential confounds, organizational policies that specifically prohibited sexual orientation discrimination had no effect on reported discrimination. Organizations that included sexual orientation in the definition of diversity apparently did not have an advantage over organizations that took a more generic approach to diversity. Although these policies could be dismissed under a “talk is cheap” explanation, even employees in organizations that offered such progressive practices as gay and lesbian support groups and same-sex domestic partner benefits did not report less discrimination than those in companies that did not offer these progressive practices.

Another interesting finding of our study was that while general diversity training was unrelated to discrimination, training that specifically included sexual orientation was significantly related to reduced reports of discrimination. One straightforward explanation for this is that diversity training that includes sexual orientation may be effective for changing heterosexist attitudes. An alternative explanation is that diversity training that includes sexual orientation may be more comprehensive and more effective in general than training that excludes this form of diversity. A final explanation is that organizations that include sexual orientation in diversity training may also have a more gay-friendly culture than organizations that exclude sexual orientation from diversity training. In support of this later explanation, the informal practice of welcoming same-sex partners at company social events was by far the leading predictor of reduced reports of discrimination. Taken together, these results suggest that policies and practices will be ineffective for reducing workplace discrimination unless they are accompanied by a culture that actively supports gay employees.

A key question that comes to mind when viewing these results is: What policies and practices reflect a gay-friendly organizational culture? The policies and practices we selected in this study were identified in qualitative and anecdotal reports as indicators of gay-friendly corporate cultures (Friskopp & Silverstein, 1996; Mickens, 1994; Woods, 1994). However, even such policies as offering gay and lesbian support groups and same-sex domestic partner benefits were unrelated to reports of heterosexism in the workplace. This study revealed that a key indicator of a gay-friendly organizational culture is the informal practice of welcoming same-sex partners to company social events. This practice reflects more than just a “paper and pencil” approach to “valuing diversity in the workplace.” Unlike other policies and procedures that keep social interaction with gay employees at arms length, the practice of welcoming partners of gay co-workers to company social events represents an “up close and personal” behaviorally-based indicator of corporate culture. For heterosexual employees, socializing with gay employees and their partners reflects a certain level of emotional comfort with gay men and lesbians. In addition, the very recognition of gay partners at these events indicates an acceptance of sexual identity and a validation of committed gay relationships. This dispels a double standard in the workplace, in which heterosexual employees can freely talk about their romantic and committed relationships, but similar discussions from gay employees results in the accusation that they are “flaunting their sexuality.” The essential message here is that they can be “out at work” but still need to keep their relationships and feelings “in the closet.” It appears that welcoming same-sex partners to social events may be a litmus test for gay-friendly corporate cultures.

Future research needs to more closely examine the construct of gay-friendly corporate cultures. What constitutes a gay-friendly corporate culture? How do these cultures emerge and what factors predict their emergence? Are gay-friendly corporate cultures simply a subset of cultures that value diversity, or are these cultures unique? Finally, future research could examine other work-related outcomes associated with employment in a gay-friendly organization, for both gay and heterosexual employees.

Although we found that reported workplace discrimination was unrelated to formal policies and practices aimed at valuing diversity and supporting gay employees, these policies and practices are still very important. Organizations should offer domestic-partner benefits, diversity training, and gay and lesbian support groups. It is critical for organizations to have inclusive diversity policies as well as formal policies that prohibit sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. The absence of these policies sends a message, and the presence of these policies may have a positive impact on gay employees’ job attitudes and perceptions of workplace justice. However, the present study suggests that these policies and practices are not strong enough to change heterosexist attitudes and discriminatory behaviors in the workplace. Policies are only effective to the extent that they are enforced, and corporate culture may not be changed simply by instituting a well-meaning policy or practice.

Some limitations of our study need to be addressed. First, our study examined gay employees' reports or perceptions of workplace discrimination, which may or may not reflect actual patterns and practices of discrimination. Reported discrimination may under or over-estimate objective discrimination; individuals may not report workplace discrimination if they are unaware of discriminatory actions used against them, or they may perceive actions intended to be benign as discriminatory.

The use of a cross-sectional research design also limits this study. We assessed the relationship between current perceptions of workplace discrimination and the current presence of a host of organizational policies and practices. We were unable to examine how long these policies or practices had been in effect. It is possible that some of these practices were instituted relatively recently, leaving insufficient time for attitudinal and organizational change to occur. Future research could longitudinally examine changes in reports of discrimination before and after an organization implements protective and supportive policies and procedures.

Other relationships between variables are also open to question. For example, we found that gay employees who worked in organizations that welcomed same-sex partners to social events reported less discrimination than employees in organizations that did not welcome same-sex partners. However, employees in organizations that lack this supportive practice may feel more vulnerable; and thus, the absence of this policy alone leads to heightened perceptions of discrimination. Future research could examine this explanation using qualitative analyses.

Although the 30% response rate for the present study was adequate, particularly given the topic of the investigation and the length of the survey (17 pages), this study may be susceptible to nonresponse bias. In order to assess nonresponse bias, we conducted a wave analysis (Leslie, 1972) in which we compared responses from those who returned their surveys early in the response period with responses from those who returned their surveys after receiving multiple reminder letters. This procedure assumes that those who return their surveys near the end of the response period approximate nonrespondents (Leslie, 1972). Early and late respondents were compared on all of the independent and dependent variables used in the study, and no significant differences were found between early and late respondents on any of the variables studied. These results suggest that nonresponse bias is not a grave concern for the present study, and are in line with Leslie's (1972) finding that response bias is reduced when surveys are made of homogeneous populations involving individuals with a strong group identity.

Another limitation was the effect of missing values being present on one or more of the fourteen variables analyzed. The listwise procedures for calculating correlations and the regression resulted in a sample size of 163. In order to get a sense of the effect of this reduced sample due to missing values, the correlations and hierarchical regression were also calculated with mean substitution for missing values. The pattern and magnitude of the results for the means, standard deviations, intercorrelations, betas, and R change was essentially the same as the results reported in Tables 2 and 3.

There are a number of factors that may limit the generalizability of the findings of this study. A key factor is that we used a sample of members of national gay rights organizations. Members of these organizations may be more sensitive to workplace discrimination, and they may be more likely to choose organizations that are supportive of gay workers. Although the sampling of members of gay rights groups entails limitations, the alternative and routine practice of surveying members of an organization and gathering performance-based data involves even more limitations. One limitation with traditional organizational surveys is that individuals who have not disclosed their sexual orientation at work may not return the survey, or may report that they are heterosexual and therefore jeopardizes key variables in the study. In addition to introducing unknown error variance, this method may also create a response bias; individuals may be more likely to return surveys if they are out to some degree at work. In addition, surveys inquiring about an employees' sexual orientation that are administered by the employer or at the workplace may be stressful for gay employees, particularly if they have not disclosed their sexual orientation to others at work. Since the majority of gay employees conceal their sexual orientation to various degrees, the common procedure of gathering performance data may create anxiety, and violate issues relating to confidentiality and privacy. Another problem with using organizational surveys is that the size of the gay and lesbian population makes it difficult to obtain adequate sample sizes. It is particularly difficult to obtain a sample that represents gay people of color. In short, the use of members of gay rights group as a sample has important limitations, but may be the best alternative in studying this population.

Another limitation is that our survey asked respondents whether they were heterosexual, gay/lesbian, bisexual, or unsure of their orientation, but did not allow respondents to indicate whether they were transgendered. Transgendered individuals may self-identify as heterosexual, and since we excluded self-identified heterosexuals (n=20) from our analyses, we may have also excluded transgendered respondents.

In conclusion, it is clear that in order to reduce heterosexism in the workplace, organizations need to do more than simply conduct diversity training, develop a written policy that prohibits sexual orientation discrimination, or expand the definition of diversity to include sexual orientation. However, the adoption of policies or practices without a consideration of corporate culture could backfire (consider the scenario of the military inviting same-sex gay partners to military social events!) Instead of blindly applying various policies and practices, companies need to first conduct a critical analysis of the organizational climate faced by their gay employees: How many gay employees are out at work? Although gay employees are likely to be found at all ranks in organizations, are gay managers as likely to disclose their sexual identity as gay front-line employees? What are the perceived consequences of disclosure in the workplace? Does the organization have a lavender ceiling? What are the subtle and overt barriers faced by gay employees? Critical analyses of these questions will help organizations develop a workplace that accepts all of its employees.

References

Button, J. W., Rienzo, B. A., & Wald, K.D. (1997). Private lives, public conflicts: Battles over gay rights in American communities. Washington, DC: CQ Press.

Croteau, J. M. (1996). Research on the work experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual people: An integrative review of methodology and findings. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 48, 195-209.

Friskopp, A. & Silverstein, S. (1996). Straight jobs, gay lives: Gay and lesbian professionals, the Harvard Business School, and the American workplace. New York: Touchstone/ Simon & Schuster.

Gonsiorek, J. C. & Weinrich, J. D. (1991). The definition and scope of sexual orientation. In J. C. Gonsiorek and J. D. Weinrich (Eds.) Homosexuality: Research implications for public policy. (pp. 1-12). Newbury Park: Sage.

James, K., Lovato, C., & Cropanzano, R. (1994). Correlational and know-group comparison validation of a workplace prejudice/discrimination inventory. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 24, 1573-1592.

Leslie, L. L. (1972) Are high response rates essential to valid surveys? Social Science Research, 1, 323-334.

Mickens, E. (1994). The 100 best companies for gay men and lesbians. New York: Pocket Books.

Ragins, B. R. & Cornwell, J. M. (2001) Pink triangles: Antecedents and consequences of perceived workplace discrimination against gay and lesbian employees. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 1244-1261.

Van der Meide, W. (2000) Legislating equality: A review of laws affecting gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people in the United States. New York, NY: The Policy Institute of NGLTF.

Woods, J. D. (1994). The corporate closet: The professional lives of gay men in America. New York: The Free Press.

Table 1

Summary of Sample's Organizational Policy and Practices

______________________________________________________________________________

POLICIES AND PRACTICES

General Policies and Practices:

Does your organization:

Have a formal policy regarding diversity?

Yes: 65.7% Don't know: 14.3% No: 20%

Offer diversity training?

Yes: 45% Don't know: 13% No: 40.6%

Specific Formal Policies and Practices Aimed at Gay Employees

Does your organization:

Have a written non-discrimination policy that includes sexual orientation?

Yes: 53.8% Don't know: 17% No: 29.2%

Include sexual orientation in the definition of diversity?

Yes: 50.7% Don't know: 18.4% No: 30.9%

Include awareness of gay/lesbian/bisexual issues in diversity training?

Yes: 31.5% Don't know: 22.1% No: 46.4%

Offer same-sex domestic partners benefits?

Yes: 20.5% Don't know: 9.1% No: 70.4%

Offer gay/lesbian/bisexual resource/support groups?

Yes: 21.8% Don't know: 11.6% No: 66.7%

Specific Informal Policy or Practice Aimed at Gay Employees

Does your organization:

Welcome same-sex partners at company social events?

Yes: 52.1% Don't know: 29.1% No: 18.8%

______________________________________________________________________________

Note: Based on n=534

Table 2.

Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations

Variables M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

1. Discrimination 45 21

2. Legislation .72 .45 -.14

3. Disclosure 3.0 .97 -.28*** .31***

4. Tenure 122 103 .22** -.06 -.10

5. Organization Size 5.2 2.4 .42*** -.04 -.18* .21**

6. Rank 2.9 2.0 .39*** -.08 .02 .11 .49***

7. Diversity Policy .73 .45 .01 .14 .08 -.01 .28*** .19*

8. Diversity Training .53 .50 -.02 .08 .10 .10 .30*** .21**

9. Sex. Orient. in Policy .58 .49 -.19* .27*** .37*** -.02 .11 .06

10. Non-discrim. Policy .60 .49 -.19* .26*** .30*** -.05 .12 .09

11. Sex. Orient. in Training .44 .50 -.25** .25** .25** .03 .10 .11

12. Same-Sex Benefits .24 .43 -.18** .16* .31*** .02 .01 -.00

13. Gay Support Groups .23 .42 -.06 .25** .22** .14 .25** .15

14. Partners at Social Events .73 .45 -.53*** .32*** .48*** -.23** -.17* -.15

Table 2. (continued)

Means, Standard Deviations, and Intercorrelations

Variables 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

8. Diversity Training .44***

9. Sex. Orient. in Policy .52*** .42***

10. Non-discrim.. Policy .34*** .37*** .80***

11. Sex. Orient. in Training .37*** .71*** .54*** .55***

12. Same-Sex Benefits .18* .17* .42*** .34*** .26***

13. Gay Support Grp .30*** .42*** .44*** .34*** .45*** .34***

14. Partners at Social Events .22** .22** .35*** .29*** .37*** .24** .27***

Note: n = 163. Two-tailed tests. Higher values represent protective legislation, supportive policies and practices, and more perceived workplace discrimination.

* p < .05

** p < .01

*** p < .001

Table 3

Results of Hierarchical Regression Analyses: Tests of Hypotheses

Perceived Workplace

Discrimination

&nbs