Information on sociological and research methods
Introduction
The research is a concern with the increasing rate of discrimination at the working place. It’s evidenced that the perception complains at the workplace has increased at a high standard. Most of the complaints on discrimination are based on religious groups where some religious groups are preferred most than the others. The researchers found that despite people being aware of the bias in the workplace very little attention, it has been given. Thus, very few researchers are a concern to find out what are the causes and how the issues can be handled. The research about Religious Affiliation and Hiring Discrimination in the American South; the researchers are investigating whether the employees are discriminating people against their religion during the hiring process. The research involves people from different seven religious group that are atheist, Catholic, Evangelical Christians, Jewish, Pagans, Muslims and Fictitious religious group. They determine whether the employees will respond to applications according to the religious group or not.
The research methods used by researchers
The researchers use the Internet-Based Field Experiment (IBFE) method to carry out their study. Where they contact their subjects through the internet, they use the popular online websites of Southern United State to issue online job applications. The IBFE method allows the traditional way where the applicant is supposed to send their application forms to the open job adverts. The technique encourages non-face to face interaction with employers.
The researchers prefer using the online internet method because it’s the platform that most people uses to apply for their jobs. Internet application also provides new opportunities for subtle forms of discriminatory treatment of employees. It’s difficult to identify discrimination online since the employer may decide not to respond to the applicant based on their characteristics. Therefore, through the use of IBFE will help the researchers to reveal all forms of online discrimination despite being difficult. Since most of the people are applying for a job online, it creates an excellent platform for researchers to reach many people to participate in their study.
The experimental design is conducted between March and May of 2010 at the Southern United State. Where they submit 3200 resumes for 800 jobs within 150 miles in the significant website groups of Southern. Where in every job they send four applications which contain different biographical information but with the same job qualifications. They also include in every resume the identification of the seven different religious groups.
The internet-based field experiment methods allow the researcher to reach a large sample size and broader geographical scope. In this method, the applicant can represent themselves in any way they feel its worthy than in a similar manner that has a control on how the respondent controls themselves (Parks, 2018). Hence, it increases the experimental conditions as well as maintaining statistical power. Besides,, the method does not allow the manipulation of the information provided by the applicant.
The results or findings of the researcher
The findings under the first hypothesis that employers will respond less to resumes that mention religious affiliation than that do not. From panel A the researcher finds that the employees will penalize those who openly indicate their religion background information. While in panel B, the researcher identifies that the employees favour those who do not recognize their religion.
While in hypothesis, 2a through 2c expresses about the different expectations on which group receives more discrimination treatment from the employees. The researchers use a table that evaluates the percentage of each group that receives responses from their employees either through phone calls or emails. They find that the results are expressing a durable religious discriminatory treatment by employees. In most of the researches conducted, they find that Jews are more favoured than the other religious groups (O’Halloran, 2017). Jewish receives more solo response from their employers than the others, and the employers’ preference to them is also higher than that of the others. Therefore, the researchers identify that most of the Jewish are provided with the first opportunity or even are the one selected for employment only than the other groups. They are concluding that most of the employers are discriminating most of the employees, depending on their religion.
The solution to this social problem
Religious discrimination in the workplace will always affect the effectiveness of the organization because it leads to not hiring people who could be so productive to the organization simply because of their religion. Therefore, the employers should try not to discriminate their workers on religious or any other form but employee the qualified people despite their differences. It will help the employers to encourage diversity in the organization hence being so innovative in the company. The following are the methods in which the employers should implement o reduce discrimination on hiring employees. They include; where the employer should come up with written objective criteria that they will use to evaluate the candidate to hire and ensure that they apply those criteria regularly to every candidate despite their religion (Mathis, & Jackson, 2010). When the objectives are maintained, and people treated equally, it will help the employer to reduce the risk of religious discrimination but rather employing all the candidates who are qualified.
Conclusion
In conclusion, discrimination affects the performance of the organization as well as the economy of the country. As the research was conducted investigating the way the employers are discriminating people when hiring them because of their religion. When in the Southern, they find that the most preferred group is the Jewish group who are given the priority than the other people from different religious groups. The employer will not be performing well since they may employ someone just because it is a Jewish but cannot perform well in the organization. Therefore, the employer should implement a policy that outlines all the objective of the company and follow them strictly when hiring people. Thus will help them to overcome discrimination in the organization and offering equal chances to every person to be employed as long as they are qualified.
References
Mathis, R. L., & Jackson, J. (2010). Human Resource Management. Cengage Learning.
O’Halloran, K. (2017). Religious Discrimination and Cultural Context: A Common Law Perspective. Cambridge UP.
Parks, P. (2018). Religious Discrimination. Discrimination in Soc.