ABSTRACT
This chapter examines at-will employment in Texas state government. Texas has received considerable attention in the literature because of its early acceptance of civil service reforms like decentralization, deregulation, and at-will employment. Such status led one observer to refer to Texas as the "grandfather of civil-service-free states". Given this, Texas employees, managers, and HR professionals have worked for some time under employment provisions only recently being adopted or considered by other state governments. This makes the state a prime candidate for case study investigation of at-will employment. The chapter provides context for human resource in Texas by briefly describing the state's status as an at-will employer. It describes the methodology for a survey used to gather data from Texas's state agency HR directors. The chapter reports findings and analyzes their importance. Finally, it concludes with a discussion of the findings' implications.
