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Cracking the Corporate Closet by Daniel B. Baker,Sean O'Brien Strub,Bill Henning β€” book cover

Cracking the Corporate Closet

by Daniel B. Baker, Sean O'Brien Strub, Bill Henning
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Overview

Corporate America is in the throes of a major upheaval more radical than reengineering, more powerful and pervasive than reorganization. The issue is gay and lesbian rights, and its effects extend to every area of modern-day business, including corporate marketing, advertising, hiring, promotion, benefits, and political and charitable giving. The New York Times called gay issues in corporate environments "the workplace issue of the '90s." Cracking the Corporate Closet provides the first comprehensive examination of 240 major corporations' track records on these issues. From the reception desk to the highest executive suites, from lobbying activities on Capitol Hill to advertising strategies in mainstream media, it exposes the attitudes, policies, and behaviors that reflect the greater changes of the current movement for social justice.

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Editorials

Library Journal

In association with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the authors have surveyed over 200 top U.S. corporations regarding their policies toward gays and lesbians to examine how these corporations deal with sexual orientation and antidiscrimination efforts, whether they offer domestic partnership benefits, and whether they took the gay/lesbian community seriously enough to market services/goods to them directly. The authors indicate which companies merit an "authors' choice" designation for being truly gay/lesbian-friendly and also list companies that declined to participate or simply didn't respond. Some results are not surprising; computer and software companies like Apple and Lotus received high ratings, while more conservative companies like Ford and Chrysler did not. Much of this terrain has been covered previously in Ed Mickens's 100 Best Companies for Gay Men and Lesbians (LJ 6/15/94), but the current work backs up its claims with more factual evidence. Recommended for all larger nonfiction collections in public libraries and all gay/ lesbian collections.-Richard Drezen, Washington Post News Research Ctr., Washington, D.C.

Barbara Jacobs

The authors eschew charts for a narrative approach as they examine the best and worst companies in terms of gay employment, from accounting to utilities. Their findings? That such centers as Boston, New York, and San Francisco unsurprisingly harbor those corporations most nondiscriminatory toward homosexuals in policies, benefits, and marketing. Apple, Ben & Jerry's, Time-Warner divisions, and Ziff-David, among others, are praised, whereas Abbott Labs, GE, and Milliken, to name a few, are viewed with scorn. Based on surveys, questionnaires, and follow-up telephone conversations, this book begs to be updated yearly.

Book Details

Published
April 1, 1995
Publisher
New York : HarperBusiness, c1995.
Pages
256
Format
Hardcover
ISBN
9780887306914

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