Barbara Sieben

Diversity Strategies and Business Logic Why Do Companies Employ Ethnic Minorities

Firms have many reasons to employ ethnic minorities or refrain from employing them. Management scholars focusing on workplace diversity have made several attempts to describe these reasons, but a theoretically grounded framework is still missing. This article outlines a novel approach to this topic based on resource dependence theory. We propose a typology of diversity strategies defined by the kind of critical resources that ethnic minorities provide to organizations. Focusing on business logic, the typology offers many applications for future research on antecedents and consequences of the strategies, a diverse competence pool, and power relations. We suggest resource dependence theory as a fruitful explanatory approach to diversity and describe practical implications for different actors.

Diversity strategies focused on employees with a migration background: An empirical investigation based on resource dependence theory

* * * In our paper, we develop a typology of diversity strategies through combining elements of strategy research, diversity research, and resource dependence theory. We focus on the question why people with a migration background are (not) employed by organizations. We argue that employment decisions are based on the evaluation of critical resources and the quest to secure their accrual. We identify six diversity strategies, designate each by the importance of respective resources, and derive propositions regarding their relation to competitive strategies. We confront these propositions with empirical data stemming from 500 companies. Correspondence analyses reveal various relationships between diversity and competitive strategies and moderating effects of the company size and the industrial sector. In addition, the robustness of our typology is demonstrated.

Themed article: Doing research on emotion and virtual work: A compass to assist orientation

The aim of this article is to offer a structuring device for research on emotion and virtual work. I refer to this structuring device as a compass. It embraces the different perspectives organizational researchers may adopt to address emotion and virtuality and illustrates the questions and findings that arise out of these perspectives. As such, the compass is a guide to the possibilities and limits of research on emotion, virtual work, and their interplay, and a tool for developing and combining research questions from multiple perspectives.

The making of inclusion as structuration: empirical evidence of a multinational company

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to theoretically and empirically analyse the question how organizations become inclusive – with special regard to migrants – and the potential limits to inclusion. Design/methodology/approach – The paper develops a theoretical framework based on Giddens’ structuration theory. By a firm-level case study, the paper empirically examines the theoretical propositions. Findings – The paper proposes that inclusion bears specific kinds of the structural dimensions signification, domination and legitimation on which organizational actors draw to reproduce the inclusive organization. The empirical case reveals three areas of organizational practices – personnel recruitment and selection; training and development; meals and parties – in the making of inclusion. But the interplay of specific rules and resources also contains social practices of differentiation and hierarchization that limit inclusion. Research limitations/implications – Future studies would benefit from consider...

Emotionalizing Organizations and Organizing Emotions — Our Research Agenda

Organizations and organizing constitute a field of research where sociologists and social scientists from business and management schools typically meet for a fruitful exchange (e.g. Clegg et al. 2006; Adler 2009). This observation may be echoed for the study of emotion in organizations, and has inspired the conception of this volume.

Migrant employees in Germany: personnel structures and practices

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the representation of migrant employees in German organizations and to demonstrate that their employment opportunities are outcomes of diversity strategies – i.e. patterns of personnel practices and the reasons that cause them or are alleged to do so.Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a typology of diversity strategies where elements of strategy and diversity research are combined with resource dependence theory. Propositions on the strategies’ relation to personnel structures and practices are examined through empirical data stemming from telephone interviews conducted with HR managers of 500 German companies.Findings – Empirical analyses revealed that diversity strategies are tightly related to personnel structures and practices. The best employment opportunities and career prospects for skilled migrants are offered by companies pursuing a diversity strategy labelled learning. In addition, the findings demonstrate the robustness of this ...

Age work in organizations: maintaining and disrupting institutionalized understandings of higher age

Age diversity research calls for new approaches in explaining the persistence of age inequalities, which integrate different levels of analysis and display greater context sensitivity. Concurrently, neoinstitutionalist research interested in social inequalities calls for merging institutional theory with critical perspectives and to account for issues of power. In this study, we address the calls of both research streams through developing the concept of ‘age work’: the institutional work actors undertake on age as a social institution. Applying our novel concept to a multi-actor study of four German organizations known for their age management, we come across a counterintuitive insight regarding actors’ age work: maintaining stereotypical age images can serve to counter age inequalities, whereas deconstructing age images can reinforce age inequalities. The multi-actor perspective of our study allows us to categorize different forms of power-laden and interest-driven age work and to portray the reproduction of age inequalities as a result of actors’ age work, embedded in different contexts and complex power relations. Comparing employees’ forms of age work across sectors and organizations, we detail how notions of masculinity as well as income and job security shaped the categorized forms of age work.

Der linguistic turn in der Managementforschung

In Philosophie und Erkenntnistheorie ist der linguistic turn langst vollzogen. Dass wir Dinge mit Worten tun, dass Sprache konstitutiv ist fur die Erkenntnis des Wirklichen und Wahren (und dies gar selbst mit produziert), scheint danach selbstverstandlich. In den Einzelwissenschaften findet diese Wende jedoch nur in begrenztem Umfang statt und ist zum Teil heftig umstritten (vgl. z.B. fur die Geschichtswissenschaft Sarasin 2003). Dies gilt ebenso fur die Managementforschung (vgl. Deetz 2003; Ortmann 2004: 46ff).

River Rafting, Polonaise oder Bowling: Betriebsfeiern und ähnliche Events als Medien organisationskultureller (Re-)Produktion von Geschlechterverhältnissen

Stellen Sie sich folgendes Szenario vor (beschrieben von van Maanen und Kunda 1989, S. 44): An einem malerischen, ublicherweise ruhigen Strand auf Hawaii versammeln sich zwei- bis dreihundert Frauen und Manner im einheitlichen, weisen Sportdress, auf dem Unternehmensinsignien prangen. Uniformierte Kellner servieren Erfrischungsgetranke. Manner im roten Sportdress organisieren Teamspiele wie Eierlaufen, Sackhupfen und Wetttrinken. Drei Stunden lang wird lauthals gesungen und gespielt. Trophaen werden verteilt und in Empfang genommen. Dann lost sich die Menschenmasse ebenso wohlgeordnet und zugig wieder auf, wie sie sich formiert hat. Der Spuk ist voruber. Ein neugieriger Tourist fragt einen der Beteiligten, was hier geschieht. Er erhalt die Antwort: „Oh, we’re just working on our culture“.

Frauen mit Migrationshintergrund: Zwei soziale Kategorien im Fokus der Personalforschung und -praxis

Fur eine betriebliche Personalpolitik, die auf die Chancengleichheit von Frauen und Mannern zielt, ist die Berucksichtigung weiterer sozialer Kategorien neben Geschlecht hochst relevant. Darauf wird seitens der internationalen Frauen- und Geschlechterforschung mit dem Konzept der Intersektionalitat (vgl. Knapp in diesem Band) aufmerksam gemacht, und dies ist auch bedeutsam fur gleichstellungspolitische Konzepte wie Gender Mainstreaming und Diversity Management (vgl. Krell/Muckenberger/Tondorf sowie Krell/Sieben in diesem Band und Sieben/Bornheim 2011): Die Verschrankung von Geschlecht mit weiteren Kategorien wie ethnische Herkunft, Nationalitat, Alter, soziale Schicht oder sexuelle Orientierung ist fur die individuellen Chancen und Lebensentwurfe bedeutsam, kann (Mehrfach)benachteiligungen bedingen und stellt eine Herausforderung fur die gleichstellungspolitische Praxis dar.