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Research Hypothesis

1. (HO): AI-enabled life-forms will not have the right to engage in decision making on an equal platform with their human colleges without resistance.

2. (H1): AI-enabled life-forms will face resistance to being included as equals to their human counterparts in regards to decision making.

Quasi-experimental Research Design

Since AI is still a relatively new subject, access to the latest technology is limited. A quasi-experimental design will consist of a test group that is not randomly assigned and interviews would be set up between the board of directors, department managers, and supervisors of the top three Forbes-listed companies. Information and first-hand experience may be a limiting factor in the participants’ attitudes so the group’s study will consist of informative lectures, reading materials, and access to limited AI technology. The group should be separated into participants that have extensive knowledge about AI and those who have heard limited conversation surrounding the topic. 

Conduct the Pre-Test:  The pre-test will be conducted after the group has been separated. The test would consist of the group’s current attitudes towards AI’s decision-making capabilities and modern technology advances. 

Apply the Treatment:  AI experts would be brought in to speak about the new capabilities of AI and future advancements, supplemental reading on the AI decision making capabilities and forecasting will be distributed to the participants.  

Post-Test:  After the materials are read another interview will be conducted one month later to analyze the attitudes of the group towards the AI decision making capabilities and how they feel it will affect their job positions. An additional question that will be raised is which types of controls and procedures should be implemented by IT and by HR to keep employee moral from falling and how AI is integrated into the company. These samples would be given to the participants and ranked as to importance.

Analyze the Data:  If the new information on AI capabilities affected the group’s attitudes toward the acceptance of AI workforce including the decision making, then the interviews will reflect the attitudes after the information is given.

Share the Results: 

1. After the materials have been given to the respondent and the results indicate that HO is rejected, therefore AI-enabled life-forms will have the right to engage in decision making on an equal platform with their human colleagues without resistance.

2. On the other hand, if HO is accepted then AI-enabled life-forms will not have the right to engage in decision making on an equal platform with their human colleagues without resistance.

Trans-Genders in the Workplace

The area of workplace diversity that needs additional research would be that of the Trans-Gender.  This Lifestyle Acceptance category has increased in awareness within the military in the past ten months.  As we understand it, the Trans-gender and their ability to do the work prescribed is not in question; however, the concern is over how they will be treated in the workplace.  It now becomes a matter of being accepted, treated with dignity and respect, and appreciated as a viable team member.  Finally, there could be concerns with current team members who are going to the Gender Transition Procedure.  Many questions will surface, as well as tenured/vested team members who become offended at the idea of a transition.  Managers will have to deal with a myriad of concerns facing this new category of lifestyle acceptance.

Research Question:

 1.  How will new HR “Trans-gender inclusion” policies impact current heterosexual employees and workplace moral within the next five years?

Hypothesis

(H0)  With HR’s new “Trans-gender inclusion” policies and training newly hired and “transitioning” Trans-genders will have no adverse impact on workplace morale.

(H1)  Even with HR’s new “Trans-gender inclusion” policies and training workplace Morale still will be negatively impacted when Trans-genders are hired.

Quasi-experimental research design:  Nonrandomized control group pretest–posttest design

The study would be laid out there considering there are eight (8) departments with a mix of ages, race, sex, national origin, white collar and blue collar workers.

Conduct the Pretest:  The pretest would be based upon their current attitude for bringing on new employees who were Trans-gender and current employees who were going through transition

Apply the treatment:  The HR “trans-gender inclusion” policies and training are provided to only two groups:  the transportation department and the fuels department. The remaining six departments will not receive the training.

Post-Test:  Six weeks later, we would look at current attitudes (from all eight departments again) for bringing on new employees who were Trans-gender and current employees who were going through transition.

Analyze the data:  If the training and new “Trans-gender Inclusion” policies were effective, then the perceived negative attitudes would be lower than the pre-test.  Additionally, those that did not receive the training should have the same scores.

Same Sex Marriage

When working at places comprised of diverse individuals, that often come from different cultures, with different customs and value systems, there is always the possibility of misunderstandings.  Since legal same sex marriage is still relatively new in our society, I feel that could be an area of workplace diversity that needs additional research to ensure acceptance and inclusion.

In a diverse workplace, a hundred people can see the same thing and hear the same message, but can interpret it one hundred different ways, and react according to their cultural and religious beliefs.  To ensure everyone understands the company’s policy on inclusion, it would be beneficial to see if there is in fact an issue regarding same sex marriage within the workforce, and provide positive, fact based training outlining what is expected of the all employees rather than being critical, condescending, or singling out those that disagree.

My research question would be:  Do briefings on same sex marriage and the company’s policy regarding inclusion influence employees of all cultures to be more tolerant and accepting of colleagues involved in same sex marriages?

 My hypothesis would be:  Education should make people that have strong feelings against same sex marriages, become more informed and hopefully less disgusted with the idea.

 Two of the more common types are causal-comparative and ex post facto.  In causal-comparative research, an attempt is made to determine whether two or more preexisting groups exhibit significantly different values on a single variable.  In this method, groups with a certain degree of commonality are used (typically, gender, job title, pay level, etc.).  These variables cannot be manipulated by the researcher because there are characteristics and beliefs attributed to each group that already exist.  In my experiment, I would give the same questionnaire to all employees prior to the briefings asking how the feel about gay people and same sex marriage.  When all the questionnaires are collected, I would separate them into groups pertaining to the culture and ethnicity of the participants to determine each group’s feelings about the subject.  After the briefings I would repeat the same process with the questionnaires to see if there was any change.  The participants will not be informed their questionnaires were separated based on their culture or ethnicity, and if it is found one certain group has more disdain than the others, all groups will receive further training so no group is singled out.         

The ultimate goal of this experiment would be to see if education regarding a very controversial subject would help people of all cultures realize that all cultures may have endearing qualities a person can adopt to make themselves a better all-around person.   Beyond legal compliance, harnessing the positive aspects of diversity in the workplace is becoming more recognized as a business advantage and an important element in successful work team performance. Thus, it is clear that for reasons concerning ethical methodological protocol, legal compliance, and business advantages, diversity is an important issue in workplace research.