rsity is becoming an important issue for American corporations (Davis, 1994, pp. 127 130). Affirmative action is a major contributor to the development of this conflict (Barenholtz, 1994, pp. 131 136).
Affirmative action generally requires a firm to focus on legal requirements associated with recruitment, hiring, promotion, and dismissal (Jenner, 1994, p. 11). Affirmative action legislation in the United States at both the federal and state levels of government establish guidelines for the development and implementation of social policy with respect to equal employment opportunities and with respect to the rectification of past acts of employment discrimination against selected population groups (Pendleton and Huron, 1991, pp. 7 17). Providing equal opportunity to minority groups within a society is more a social issue than it is a legal issue. Requirements for equality may be legislated and those requirements may be enforced with some degree of effectiveness. Real equality of opportunity will not occur, however, until such time as the great majority of individuals and organizations within a society voluntarily behave in a socially responsible manner. Within the Marxist interpretation, the inequalities and the conflict will continue as long as one group attempts to maintain an inequitable balance in employment.
Income distribution objectives, laws prohibiting social discrimination, and, in some instances, policies intended to rectify the effects of past discrimination affirmative action goals have all become a part of "the rules of the game" for American business. Equal opportunity and fair employment practices legislation has been enacted and enforced (with varying degrees of vigor, depending upon the philosophical stance of the administration in power) since the early 1960s. The concept of equal opportunity, however, often appears to defy precise definition d
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