Diversity in Organizations

Citation

Tyler, M. (2006), "Diversity in Organizations", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 25 No. 5, pp. 412-414. https://doi.org/10.1108/02610150610706735

The back cover of Diversity in Organizations describes it as a “solid” book, and my reading of it would certainly concur with this. It is a comprehensive, accessible, practitioner‐orientated text that encourages a practical approach to managing diversity within organizations. Its main focus is on the business case for diversity, underpinned by a concern to emphasize the organizational benefits to be gained from recruiting and retaining a demographically diverse workforce and from treating customers fairly.

Structurally, it is divided into three parts. Section 1 includes the Introduction and two chapters on legislation and theories and thinking about diversity, respectively. The largest part of the book, section 2 (containing 12 of the 16 chapters), has a more thematic, and specifically US‐based focus, examining Black/African Americans, Latinos and Hispanics, Asian and Asian Americans, white and European Americans, American Indians and multiracial group members, sex and gender, religion, age, physical and mental ability, work and family, weight and appearance (a relatively neglected aspect of equality and diversity management), and sexual orientation. The emphasis throughout each of these chapters, as the section title suggests, is on “examining specific groups and categories”. The final section, entitled “Global vision” sounds more prescriptive than it is, focusing as is does on international diversity and future challenges. Most chapters also include an “International feature,” for example, “Asians in the UK”, “Maori: Native New Zealanders,” “B&Q hardware stores finds hiring older workers profitable”, (B&Q is a hardware store in the UK), “Australia's Age Discrimination Act”, and “Research translation of beauty, stature, and the labour market: a British cohort study”, among others.

The main strengths of the book overall are its comprehensiveness, particularly in terms of its consideration of the labour market position of non‐dominant groups in the USA, coverage of relevant research, and its accessibility. Despite its claim to fill a void for “undergraduate and graduate students in every discipline” (page xiii, emphasis added), I would suggest that the book is probably most useful for students (on undergraduate, postgraduate, or post‐experience courses) who are encountering these kind of issues for the first time, and who are looking for an introductory approach concerned primarily with organizational policies and practices, and from a largely performance‐orientated perspective.

Its strength for a US audience is perhaps inevitably the book's main limitation, for the non‐US readers. Considerable word length is dedicated in Diversity in Organizations to describing in detail relevant legislation and policy initiatives that have shaped the diversity agenda in the contemporary USA. “The stimulus” in Chapter 1, for instance is Workforce 2000 (a US‐based study of changing labour force demographics) and relatively limited connections are made with other societies, or with the broader economic, political, and historical factors shaping contemporary diversity imperatives and strategies in US organizations. Although sufficient consideration is given to the civil rights movement, including the roles of Blacks, Mexican‐Americans, and Asian Americans, relatively limited consideration is given to the impact of feminist theory and politics, or to the gay rights and disability movements. Also, limited consideration is given to organizational, or rather labour market imperatives, such as the effects of the so‐called “shift to service”, and the increasing demand for the performance of embodied and emotional forms of labour in what has been described as the “aesthetic economy” (Böhme, 2003).

Stylistically, each chapter begins with “Key facts” that introduce ideas discussed further in each chapter. Many of the facts are statistically‐based, drawn from the US Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labour Statistics. One such statistical fact is “According to the U.S. Census Bureau categories, Hispanics can be White, Black, Asian, American Indian, or other races” (p. 127) and “the mean income of female college graduates is about $23,000 less than the mean for male college graduates” (p. 249). Other facts are drawn from research cited in the chapter, for example, “Both parents and nonparents are more attached to family‐friendly organizations” is (p. 367) drawn from an empirical article in the journal Personnel Psychology. Students should be encouraged to contest and critique facts that are based on conceptual arguments, such as Cox and Blake's (1991) claim that “if an organizational develops a reputation for valuing all types of employees, it will become known as an employer of choice, increasing its ability to attract and retain workers from a variety of backgrounds” (p. 3). Each chapter also includes a list of learning outcomes, several case studies, class exercises, and reflective questions.

One concern I have with the book lies in its focus on the relationship between diversity and organizational competitiveness. While engaging students in a critical evaluation of the business case for managing diversity is important, in terms of encouraging critical and reflexive practice, we might argue, by far the main thrust of Diversity in Organizations is a concern with managing diversity in the interests of enhanced organizational efficiency and effectiveness. A much broader approach, evoking a more humanist, collectivist justification for effective equality and diversity management is put forward by Kirton and Greene (2005), whose critical perspective draws attention to the dynamics, and not simply the performative benefits, associated with organizational diversity. A minor (but nevertheless related point) is that the “organizational performance” case that is put forward by Bell is somewhat reliant on Cox and Blake's (1991) oft‐cited article.

Diversity in Organizations in an accessible, detailed description of relevant legislation and of the labour market position of a range of social groups, particularly non‐dominant groups, in the contemporary USA. It can be used as source for considerable information on published research relevant to the employment experiences of those non‐dominant groups. It is a sustained consideration of the business case for managing diversity effectively, including employee and customer perspectives. It also gives some consideration (although this is limited largely to the closing chapter) to the increasingly significant global context of organizational diversity. A key strength of Diversity in Organizations is that “because diversity issues are related to each other, an important feature of the book is cross‐references and discussion of relevant interrelationships between topics” (p. 25). Overall, then, Diversity in Organizations is a book that is rich in descriptive detail, is comprehensive and accessible, and practical in its applicability, but which is not as critically engaging as other texts available to students, scholars, and practitioners of equality and diversity management.