McFadden's systematic review of LGBT workplace experiences and research trends

LGBT

McFadden (2015) provides a systematic review of 30 years of literature on how LGBT workers are impacted by their workplace experiences. As McFadden notes, in the various studies conducted over the course of the three decades, there have been various voices and experiences that have touched on distinct themes, such as "identity, sexual orientation discrimination, career/identity overlap, and social issues" (McFadden, 2015, p. 125). What McFadden finds in his analysis of the literature on LGBT in the workplace is that over this period there is insufficient research into the topic -- but that more interest is beginning to show, as LGBT become more mainstream and accepted in society (mainly as a result of positive appearances and portrayals in popular and mainstream media). Thus, because of this trend in popular culture, academics are analyzing with more focus the actual reality that LGBTs experience in the workplace.

McFadden essentially gives an overview of the history of research conducted during the past 30 years and shows which "unique experiences and factors affect an LGBT person's career and workplace experiences" as well as how research has been conducted on this topic over the same period of time (p. 126). The subject of LGBT in the workplace is therefore examined by the researcher from the standpoint of HR development, HR management, gender/sexuality, sociology, psychology, etc. -- which is a much more encompassing study compared to other studies that "focus on only one or two disciplines" (McFadden, 2015, p. 127). McFadden thus takes a multi-disciplinary approach to the subject and discovers, by using a filtration system (for selecting and examining articles), that major themes could be distilled from the literature of the timeframe and used to better understand the issues that LGBTs have faced in the workplace over the past 30 years. McFadden's filtration system consisted of an 84 article "initial study" followed by a 179 article "pilot study," a 145 remaining article "categorization" process, and finally the literature review. The initial study was composed of a broad keyword search, using filters and noting synonyms for streamlining the search string; the pilot study utilized the search string and altered it to grow results; the remaining articles were then categorized according to form criteria, relevance, and quality; and finally a literature review was conducted by identifying main themes, extant research, research gaps, and features of the literature. Of the 263 articles identified in the initial and pilot stages of the systematic review, 18% of the articles appeared in psychology-based scholarly journals, 17% in gender and sexuality-based scholarly journals, 16% in careers journals, 12% in HRM journals, 8% in sociology journals, and 4% in economics journals (McFadden, 2015, p. 133). Likewise, the number of publications spiked post-2000 and peaked at 31 in 2010, showing a significant increase of attention given to the subject of LGBT in the workplace in the years 2005 to present (McFadden, 2015, p. 134).

The field study by Hebl, Foster, Mannix and Dovidio (2002) tested the ways in which individuals who portray themselves as homosexual experience formal bias (for example, a job not being offered), interpersonal behavior (how long interviews or communications were conducted once the sexual persuasion became clear), and the manner in which bias was perceived. The study used participants who projected themselves as homosexual and control participants who did not and compared the results of the two groups.

Herbl et al. (2002) used 16 applicants, each of whom applied to six stores. Findings based on measurements of formal discrimination were "weaker" than "interpersonal measures" (p. 823) mainly because the subjective experience was the only real indicator of whether discrimination was taking place, and the concept of formal discrimination was not readily or easily identified in cases where the job was not offered (as there may have been more than one variable impacting the decision and not just discrimination). The overall finding that the study noted was that "employers were perceived to be more standoffish, nervous, and hostile and less interested and helpful with stigmatized than nonstigmatized applicants" (p. 822). The anxiety of knowing that they were dealing with a potential socially "explosive" situation, however, may have contributed to these feelings, and their evidence may not necessarily be indicative of actual bias (only perceived).