Diversity Management: Bringing Equality, Equity, and Inclusion in the Workplace

Introduction

The increasing diversity of markets, customers and workforces is one of the main characteristics of global society¹. Factors such as demographic changes, international and national anti-discrimination measures, globalization, service-economy shifts, stakeholder pressures on organizational commitment to corporate social responsibility, and technological advances are heightening the international attention paid to the increase in people’s diversities, thereby fostering discussion on their management in organizations. Academics have defined “diversity” in rather different ways (Barak, 2008; Carnevale & Stone, 1994; Cox, 1994; Kandola & Fullerton, 1998; Kossek & Lobel, 1996; Milliken & Martins, 1996; Thomas, 1991; Zanoni & Janssens, 2004). Here, by “diversity” is meant the multiplicity of differences and similarities that exist among people (Kreitner & Kinicki, 2004) and which, combined together, create each person’s multiple and intersecting identities. These identities define a person’s uniqueness, which is expressed in how s/he lives with, sees, and relates to other people and to the world in general. Kossek and Lobel (1996) emphasize that each of these potentially overlapping identity group memberships can affect an employee’s attitudes and behaviors in the workplace, as well as influence his or her ability to work well with other organizational members (p. 2). According to Thomas’s idea that diversity is inherently neither good nor bad, but rather a reality (2004, p. 10), companies have to gain a sense of how to plan and implement organizational systems and practices to manage people so that the potential advantages of diversity are maximized while its potential disadvantages are minimized (Cox, 1993, p. 11). This induces organizations to shift from a management undifferentiated in terms of strategy, policy, solutions and tools to a “conscious” diversity management (Thomas, 1990; Worman, Bland & Chase, 2005). Even though since the beginning of the 1990s professionals and academics have been trying to find efficient, effective and equitable ways to manage people’s diversities in organizations they have produced neither a shared definition of diversity management nor a generally accepted evaluationt, be it positive or negative, of the outcomes that diversity management can deliver to organizations and persons (Curtis & Dreachslin, 2008; Janssens & Zanoni, 2014; Kirton & Greene, 2005; Shen, Chanda, D’Netto & Monga, 2009; Theodorakopoulos & Budhwar, 2015; Zanoni & Janssens, 2004). Therefore, academics are divided into two main groups: those who support diversity management on the basis of the so-called “business case”, and those who adopt a more critical approach to the issue.

In order to systematize the concept of diversity management using the new human relations framework revolving around McGregor’s thought (2006), this chapter proposes a definition of diversity management and explains it in depth. The proposed definition shows that diversity management brings equality, equity and inclusion in the workplace. Moreover, it allows us to revise three causes of criticism which are often ascribed to diversity management, namely, the lack of theoretical foundation, the vagueness of the concept and the reduced anti-discrimination force compared to equal employment opportunities.