Critical perspectives in diversity and equality ...

Gender in Management: An International Journal Critical perspectives in diversity and equality management Beverly D. Metcalfe Carol Woodhams

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Article information: To cite this document: Beverly D. Metcalfe Carol Woodhams, (2008),"Critical perspectives in diversity and equality management", Gender in Management: An International Journal, Vol. 23 Iss 6 pp. 377 - 381 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17542410810897508 Downloaded on: 02 February 2017, At: 03:40 (PT) References: this document contains references to 13 other documents. To copy this document: [email protected] The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 4184 times since 2008*

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GUEST EDITORIAL

Guest editorial

Critical perspectives in diversity and equality management Beverly D. Metcalfe

377

Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK, and

Carol Woodhams Downloaded by American University of Beirut At 03:40 02 February 2017 (PT)

Plymouth Business School, Plymouth, UK Abstract Purpose – This paper aims to draw conceptual links between the papers in this special issue, arguing that diversity and equality research is located within varying socio-political, socio-demographic and geo-political contexts and should therefore be seen as fluid and subject to ongoing reformation. Design/methodology/approach – This paper provides a thematic and analytical review of six papers from the Gender, Diversity and Management track of the European Academy of Management Conference, held at HEC, Paris in May 2007. Findings – The paper draws out themes that transcend organisation and nation boundaries, showing how socio-cultural and political location has an important bearing on gender and diversity work identities, constructions and ultimately, organisation development priorities. Practical implications – The paper seeks to encapsulate contemporary thinking in the discipline of equality and diversity management with specific focus on its interaction with the externalities of region, power, politics and society. Originality/value – The paper contributes to the developing discourse of employment-based diversity research in the international arena. It highlights the limitations of a fixed perspective of identity and difference, stressing the need to account for positionality in scholarly research. Keywords Gender, Equal opportunities, Employment Paper type General review

The economics and politics of organization development, and the implications for management development systems and structures are important features that need to be critically evaluated as Europe moves towards greater democratization, liberalization and integration with global economies. Diversity initiatives are particularly relevant to an understanding of European management initiatives on account of the new enlarged Europe and Europe’s relationships and economic networks with the international economy. Within this enlargement debate, there is also a need to consider how the myriad of European feminism(s) and policy development initiatives in equality debates are translated and communicated within and across organizations and the global community. This special issue has been developed from the Gender, Diversity and Management track of the European Academy of Management Conference that was held in Paris at HEC in 2007. These papers were selected because they encapsulated the ethos of the conference and highlighted some of the key issues in the understanding of diversity and the implications for organisations in developing and implementing diversity initiatives. In particular, the papers selected offered new insights into the way gender and organization theory is imagined and constructed; introduced new methodological approaches to

Gender in Management: An International Journal Vol. 23 No. 6, 2008 pp. 377-381 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 1754-2413 DOI 10.1108/17542410810897508

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researching gender and organizations, as well as examine the cultural specifities of doing gender and doing diversity in different socio-cultural and geopolitical contexts, including Denmark, Portugal and China. Gender, and gendered and racialized power relations are defining characteristics of most organization relationships and management practices. Diversity and difference however, is culturally, socially and historically formed and reformed and needs to be explored within specific socio-political and geographic regions. Diversity management emerged as a research area in the 1990s following organizational practitioners’ growing need to manage cross-cultural and individual differences in an increasingly diverse demographic workforce (Nkomo and Cox, 1996; Walby, 2007). These managerial origins are rooted in feminist theory and critical race studies and have influenced the first generation of diversity scholars (Davis et al., 2006). Diversity commentators sought to unravel the socio-demographic, socio-cultural and geopolitical contexts of work and organization processes, or examine discriminatory practices such as wage differentials, occupational segregation and more subtle exclusionary practices such as the prevalence of gendered organizational cultures and the pre-eminence of hegemonic masculinity in many organization practices. Further, organizational diversity critiques paid attention to unveiling how organization demographics such as race, ethnicity or gender have tended to be glossed over in critical debates, and in particular categories of difference were viewed as fixed or stable and blurred within group differences. New developments in diversity theorizing stressed the value of the heterogeneity of group differences and challenged the view that difference was essentialist (Ely and Thomas, 2001). Diversity management focuses on a strategy corrected approach which recognizes worker individuality and believes in the benefits of diversity to organizations. It is not intended to guarantee the integration of minorities in a dominant culture, but to challenge managerial practices so that everyone can succeed by being true to him/herself. Under the diversity framework, the equality based on sameness is the equality based on difference (Liff, 1999; Walby, 2007). A great deal of US-based studies have largely been instrumentally driven and primarily focused on advocating the business case for diversity. There have also been frameworks designed to reveal how diversity is broadly managed ranging from resistance, discrimination and fairness, access and legitimacy and learning and effectiveness. In line with business case models, the more advanced approaches tend to treat employees as strategic assets in organizations as well as aligning diversity values with the organizations mission and business strategy (Ely and Thomas, 2001). Influenced by gender mainstreaming philosophies in EU institution and United Nations policy making and increased migration of immigrants across European borders European scholars however, have begun to question these business case strategies and approaches, particularly the assumptions about the nature of diversity and how diversity should be managed, and the performance paradigm that is universally capitalised upon (Walby, 2007). Within organisation studies especially, particular attention has sought to show how socio-demographic categories under investigation, such as race, ethnicity or gender represent a fixed essence. Relatedly, this perspective in marginalising differences of specific categories, such as women, pay little attention to individual or within group variation. Increasingly, scholars stress the fluidity of diverse identities in organizations and of the importance of social and organizational contexts and how they shape the dynamics of managing of diversity. Dominant discourses in specific socio-political and


geographic regions are also noted as influencing the formation of diversity themes and meanings. Advancing debates from the EURAM 2006 special edition European perspectives on diversity management (Metcalfe and Fielden, 2007), the papers in this special issue encapsulate the need to unravel diversity organization demographics in more critical ways. Following critical scholars concerns to question and challenge dominant gender and diversity theorising we want to argue that while diversity can incorporate within group characteristics, associated with groups such as gender, race, sexuality and class, diversity also needs to be examined within existing intersecting power structures and relations, and in different social constructions of diversity values and priorities. The implication of this analysis is that diversity and equality research will be highly variable and subject to ongoing reformation (Nkomo and Cox, 1996). Bendl, Fleischmann and Walenta’s paper provides an innovative critique of diversity management through the lens of queer theory. In so doing, they untangle the binary representation of male and female identities and offer new possibilities for re-imaging diversity management programs and strategies. Drawing on Butler’s notion of performativity associated with the stylized repetition of acts, they avert the value of exploring the formation of agency positions through discursive positioning. This is a movement forward as in essence they want to interrogate the reproduction of binary modalities based on herernormativity. In disentangling these social and sexual structures of diversity management, they show queer perspectives, an alternative discourse, allow organization relations to be a “becoming process” not “a being” one. To show this “becoming” and transition moment they use Loden and Rosen frames of capturing marginal identity positions. This four-layer model captures the multi-dimensional and intersecting dynamics of identity position, yet it also makes the diversity label seemingly nameless and empty. Applying a queer perspective begins to mark and name categories of difference that has tended to be blurred by a dominant all embracing diversity discourse is one way of opening up possibilities and naming difference. The second paper by La¨msa¨ and Hiillos explores women’s career counseling of 22 women who had completed an MBA using an innovative autobiographical approach. Challenging the notion that traditional career trajectories are based on male working norms they argue an autobiographical approach as a mode of inquiry empowers women to narrate meaningful career stories. Adopting a social constructionist perspective that examined how career counseling as autobiography can help draw out significant themes in women’s careers in so that they capture career narrative and action. A key advantage of this mode is that it moves from being a static to dynamic process of research collection. This is shown by the way in which participants are playing three roles as the main manager character, story teller, and reflector of her biography. The approach allows us to capture the subtleties and nuances of mid life career experiences and work-family conflicts and moves away from. In the third paper, the authors Xian and Woodhams also examine career concept in more critical terms. Generally, there are a growing number of scholars opposing universalistic explanation has been emerging within theoretical explanations of career. For many years now, authors have developed alternative explanations of women’s career (Astin, 1984; Larwood and Gutek, 1987) but these may be insufficiently nuanced to shed light on the socio-cultural context of Chinese women that have achieved career success. The article from Xian and Woodhams seeks to explore how far Western theories may be

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suitable for guiding research in a non-Western context by using theories of career management to study women’s career experiences in the Chinese information technology industry. The issue was investigated during a small scale in-depth interview programme using personal narrative data. Findings suggest that Chinese women struggle to come to terms with their success within a socially-bound value system that serves to oppress the career activity of women, whilst also dealing with potential conflict within their own internal culturally-bound values. On the basis of this finding, the authors argue that factors relating to the Chinese context and particularly socially held values are not always sufficiently accounted for in Western theories of women’s career development. In the fourth paper, Risberg and S?derberg study how the concept of diversity is translated and adapted in the Danish social context. Analyzing 100 Danish organizations via survey they then conduct interviews as well provide a discourse analysis of diversity statements and policies on the web sites so as to uncover the way in which diversity is socially constituted in Denmark. They show that diversity has evolved in quite different ways to the dominant US and UK brand of diversity literature. In the interviews with HR managers overall they found that diversity was largely used as a rhetorical device and constituted as part of HR strategizing as away of promoting social and ethical responsibility. In contrast to the UK and USA, the terminology diversity is associated with the social category ethnicity and to lesser extent religion and gender. They argue that this reflects the migration labour movements in Denmark and that there is a steady influx of European nationalities. Significantly diversity was conceptualized as a potential “assett” for the companies to improve competitive advantage. The fifth paper is from Santos and Cabral-Cardosa which examines the processes of work-life balance and conflict in academic institutions and their gendered effects in Portugal. The increasing economic and managerial ethos which surrounds university life is prevalent across all European countries, so much so that they have become “greedy institutions.” This has led to work intensification, and has had profound gendered impacts in terms of work family conflict since institutions have established career programs premised on men’s development and those are very much normalized in the everyday work and organizational practices of universities. Santos and Cabral-Cardosa stress that much literature on work life conflict has examined the limitations of family-friendly policies, and of organization support systems to assist families in respect of flexi time. Overall, they argue both men and women report similar levels of work interference with family and family interference from work. In a Portuguese context however work conflict regimes are more complex. Identity, organizations, transformations The papers in this special issue have a uniting theme that transcends organization and nation boundaries, that is, one of understanding the socially located identity and subject positions of men and women doing diversity. In respect of gender and diversity, theorising capacities for reflecting on workplace injustices cannot be easily achieved through a binary logic and require intersecting differences to be articulated. As Adkins (2002, p. 26) has argued: The politics of identity are not only at the heart of workplace politics but also of the labour process and the organization of production.. The significance of issues of identity at work mean that a politics of deconstruction (for example of the hetero/homo binary) is now best suited to the task of addressing workplace struggles.


This is especially true in terms of Bendl et al’s arguments for injecting a queer lens into organization and management theorising. In respect of identity politics and place, commentators in this special issue have shown that exploring career histories and narratives of women and men in a particular socio-cultural and political location has an important bearing on gender and diversity work identities, constructions, an ultimately in organization development priorities. The case of Portugal and Denmark provide empirical evidence which shows how diversity theorising is a fluid and contested context, and shaped by intersecting power relations and organization processes, including individual identity position, organization cultural practices and the dynamics of diversity salient theme in particular countries. We would argue that positioning debates about diversity and difference and the politics of place and location are areas that need to taken up by gender and diversity scholars globally. References Adkins, L. (2002), Revision: Gender and Sexuality in Late Modernity, Open University Press, Buckingham. Astin, H.S. (1984), “The meaning of work in women’s lives: a socio-psychological model of career choice and work behaviour”, Counselling Psychologist, Vol. 12 No. 4, pp. 117-26. Davis, K., Evans, M. and Lorber, J. (2006), Handbook of Women’s and Gender Studies, Sage, London. Ely, R.J. and Thomas, D.A. (2001), “Cultural diversity at work”, Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 46 No. 2, pp. 229-73. Larwood, L. and Gutek, B.A. (1987), “Working towards a theory of women’s career development”, in Gutek, B.A. and Larwood, L. (Eds), Women’s Career Development, Sage, Newbury Park, CA, pp. 170-83. Liff, S. (1999), “Diversity and equal opportunities: room for a compromise?”, Human Resource Management Journal, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 65-75. Metcalfe, B.D. and Fielden, S. (2007), “European perspectives on diversity management (editorial)”, Women in Management Review, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 249-53. Nkomo, S. and Cox, T. (1996), “Diverse identities in organizations”, in Clegg, S.R., Hardy, C. and Nord, W.R. (Eds), Handbook of Organization Studies, Sage, London. Walby, S. (2007), Gender (In)Equality and the Future of Work, Equal Opportunities Commission, Manchester. Further reading Cox, T.H. and Blake, S. (1991), “Managing cultural diversity: implications for organizational competitiveness”, Academy of Management Executive, Vol. 5 No. 2, pp. 45-56. Ibarra, H. (1995), “Race, opportunity and social circles in managerial networks”, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 38 No. 3, pp. 673-703. Janssens, M. and Zanoni, P. (2005), “Many diversities for many services: theorising diversity (management) in service companies”, Human Relations, Vol. 58 No. 3, pp. 311-41. Marginson, S. (2000), “Rethinking academic work in the global arena”, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 23-35. Corresponding author Beverly D. Metcalfe can be contacted at: [email protected]; [email protected] To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected] Or visit our web site for further details: www.emeraldinsight.com/reprints

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