Deadline: Monday 18th May 2015.
LGBT employees in the 21st Centry UK workplace
Dr Pierre de Gioia-Carabellese (Associate Professor in Business Law) and Dr Kate Sang (Associate Professor in Management)
Within the UK legal protections for employees on the grounds of sexuality and gender identity have undergone significant advances within recent years. Subsequent to the introduction of the 2010 Equality Act, further legal advances have been made in terms of marriage, specifically same sex marriage and further provisions related to gender identity. However, the human resource management literature demonstrates that LGBT employees face significant discrimination in the workplace, including harassment and exclusion from informal networks. These effects are gendered, with lesbian women reporting further discriminatory treatment and bisexual employees largely absent from the literature. Alongside this, work-life balance policies are disproportionately utilised by women with small children. This project would examine the experiences of LGBT employees in the workplace in the UK, in light of the efficacy of the legal protections. Projects may examine work-life balance policies, experiences of discrimination and harassment or other aspects of people’s experience of work. The project will bring together perspectives from sociology and human resource management with business law. It is likely to combine legal methods, including doctrinal analysis of relevant legal frameworks, with qualitative examinations of the workplace. In addition, projects may wish to take an intersectional perspective, drawing together gender with sexuality/gender identity.
Heriot-Watt University is a research-university based in Edinburgh, Scotland (United Kingdom). The Department of Business Management, in the School of Management and Languages, is now offering eight PhD scholarships - five Business Management scholarships and three James Watt scholarships. The term of each scholarship is three years. Successful candidates will be expected to make a contribution to activities in the Department in return for a fee-waiver, a maintenance allowance of £13,863 per annum and a research support allowance of £2,250 over the registered period of study.