U.S. companies are helping spread fair hiring practices across the world as they set up shop in developing nations, according to a new study of gender and age discrimination co-written by a University of Illinois labor expert.

Women who alert authorities to their organizations’ wrongdoing perceive that they suffer more retaliation than do men, reports an initial study published in the current issue of Organization Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS).

Deciding how to respond to culturally accepted inequalities, such as gender disparities, is a challenge for marriage and family therapists. While therapists wish to remain respectful of their patients’ cultural values, at the same time they try to promote the idea of gender equality.