Equality Opportunities Practices and Enterprise Performance: a Comparative Investigation on Australian and British Data

By Virginie Pérotin, Andrew Robinson and Joanne Loundes

Though generally more widespread than might have been expected, equal opportunities policies and practices are less common among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) than among larger firms,

especially when the policies are not mandatory, as in the UK or for the smallest firms in Australia. The authors' investigation does not suggest that more coercive legislation forces enterprises to adopt practices that negatively affect their performance. On the contrary, equal opportunities policies are associated with higher productivity in all groups except British SMEs.

(International Labour Review. Vol. 142, no. 4, 2003/4; pp471-505)