Human Resource Management in the Pornography Industry

Business Practices in a Stigmatized Trade

David M. Kopp

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9783030376581
• eBook ISBN: 9783030376598
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

While pornography is stigmatized as "dirty work, " it faces many of the same operational considerations as traditional industries. From increasing competition, new technology that impacts services, to health and workplace safety issues, the pornography industry also utilizes and applies HRM strategies that include recruiting, selecting and retaining the best (sex) workers. As a follow up to his last book on the social history of training and development (2018), Kopp writes this final installment of a system contained within an unconventional setting as he reflects and distills the facets of human resource management found in the pornography industry.

Specifically, this book explores traditional human resource management processes and practices, and examines how common HRM systems are contextualized in an "organization-as-pariah" venue. Topics covered include recruiting, career development, performance management and workforce diversity, offering readers a value-neutral, analytical assessment of the HR practices in the unconventional industry and stigmatized trade that is pornography.

© The Author(s) 2020

D. M. KoppHuman Resource Management in the Pornography Industryhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37659-8_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: Counterintuitive Juxtapositions

David M. Kopp¹

(1)

Associate Vice Provost of Extended Learning and Professor of Human Resource Development, Barry University, Miami Shores, FL, USA

David M. Kopp

Email: [email protected]

Abstract

In this introductory chapter, the author establishes the context by first providing an overview of the ubiquitous pornography industry, including a modern history, definitions (e.g., Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, “I know it when I see it.”), as well as, describing the traditional business operation, which will introduce the reader to the human resource management (HRM) practices and how these traditional HR practices are utilized within this non-traditional industry. The chapter will also introduce the reader to the construct of so-called “dirty work” and the organization-as-pariah. This chapter will also give the reader an overview of the discipline of Human Resource Management.

Keywords

Human Resource Management (HRM)PornographyNormativeConsentCapitalism

End Abstract

Evolution of a Book Idea

My interests gravitate toward how the typical existed against the background of the atypical. Whether learning that Hitler had one testicle (Fuchs, 1990),¹ Chairman Mao suffered from chronic constipation (Zhi-Sui, 2011), or Abraham Lincoln was a champion wrestler (Chapman, 2003), I always found myself just as captivated by the tangential endnotes and footnoted backstories within a book as much as the raison d’être of the book itself. In sum, I hold a fascination in how the ordinary is housed within extraordinary.²

During research for my second book, Famous (and Infamous) Training: A Social History of Training and Development (Kopp, 2018), I happened upon a new worker orientation video produced by the organization APAC. The 14-minute-plus video not only detailed what a newly hired worker could expect on the job, but also offered advice on such topics as job safety, performance improvement, and managing finances. As a human resources (HR) professional and academician, I thought it was a well-done, first-rate asynchronous job orientation video; however, what made it notable to me was not the information or advice given, but the context of this orientation video: APAC is the acronym for the Adult Performers Advocacy Council and their video is entitled, Porn 101.³

That the pornography industry had even produced a new worker orientation video is an example of the counterintuitive juxtapositions that this book takes on; that is, how human resource management (HRM) practices operationalize within the pornography industry.

Exploring HRM practices in situ within the pornography industry may be an especially constructive academic endeavor. In fact, the pornography industry faces much of the same operational considerations as traditional, for-profit industries. From increasing competition that threatens market share, new technology that impacts products and services, to health and workplace safety issues (Berg, 2015), the pornography industry, too, utilizes and applies many of the same human resource management (HRM) strategies that aim to recruit, select, and retain the best (sex) workers.

There is currently a dearth of research in the business studies literature vis-à-vis pornography (McKee, 2016; Rose, 2013). Voss (2012) pointed out that,

…much [of pornography research] focuses on individuals who are directly bodily involved in the production of sexually explicit material through their roles as actors and models rather than on those who are involved in the more business-related aspects including managers, accountants, and technicians. (p. 393)

And, while this book is not the first to explore the non-sex side of pornography (e.g., Berg, 2015; Bruckert & Parent, 2018; McKee, 2016; Tarrant, 2016⁴)—many pornography company heads agree that they operate “like normal businesses” (Voss, 2012, p. 394)—it is sui generis in exploring how traditional human resource management systems are explicitly contextualized within the pornography industry.

Former porn actor and author Jiz Lee described how pornography research has “long trained its focus mostly on the sex side of the equation; however, like traditional workers, porn workers, too, share the goals of self-determination, autonomy, dignity, respect, and fair compensation” (Lee & Sullivan, 2016, p. 104)—an observation certainly worth acting upon. Additionally, from the perspective of human resource management itself, Klikauer (2014) puts forth that the moral philosophy of universalism dictates that the field of HRM considers human rights, especially as it relates to the most vulnerable and stigmatized in society—this presumably includes the sex workers in pornography, as well.

HRM—Overview and Placement Within

Nascent forms of human resource management (HRM) have existed throughout the history of collective living in civilization (Sims & Sauser, 2014; Tubey, Rotich, & Kurgat, 2015). During pre-historic times, for example, there were methods created for selection of tribal leaders, as well as the practice of safety and health while hunting was passed on from generation to generation (Tubey et al., 2015). The ancient Chinese dynasties used employee screening techniques, and in Babylonia training processes between artisan and apprentice were codified so that artisans could teach their crafts to the next generation so to ensure an adequate number of craftsmen (Kopp, 2014; Usher, 1920).

In the modern day, the field of HRM encompasses the oversight and administration of human capital within the organizational operation, including the functions of recruitment, staffing, compensation, workplace safety, workforce diversity and labor relations (Fig. 1.1). HRM is interdisciplinary, drawing up the social sciences of sociology, psychology, and economics.

Fig. 1.1

The “slices” to the HRM pie

(Source Author’s rendition)

In practice, HRM is carried out via the worldview of the practitioner; that is, philosophical perspectives to HRM vary within a soft-hard or transformational-transactional dichotomy (Bolton, 2010). Transformational HRM practice is patterned after the so-called Harvard Model (Beer, Spector, Lawrence, Mills, & Walton, 1984) where HRM is process-based, developmental and relationship-focused, what Management Professor Douglas McGregor called Theory Y (McGregor, 1960). Transactional HRM is modeled after the Michigan School (Fombrun, Tichy, & Devanna, 1984); here HRM is consequentialist, task-driven and focused on the economics and return on investment (ROI) of th...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: Counterintuitive Juxtapositions
• 2. Recruiting, Selecting, and Retaining Talent
• 3. Managing Performance
• 4. Career Development
• 5. Workforce Diversity
• 6. Compensation and Benefits
• 7. Workplace Health and Safety
• 8. Porn and HRM: Axiological Issues
• Back Matter