Lotte Holck

Identity, diversity and diversity management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the identity and diversity literatures and discuss how a better understanding of the theoretical connections between the two informs both diversity research and diversity management practices. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review followed by a discussion of the theoretical and practical consequences of connecting the identity and diversity literatures. Findings – The authors inform future research in three ways. First, by showing how definitions of identity influence diversity theorizing in specific ways. Second, the authors explore how such definitions entail distinct foci regarding how diversity should be analyzed and interventions actioned. Third, the authors discuss how theoretical coherence between definitions of identity and diversity perspectives – as well as knowledge about a perspective’s advantages and limitations – is crucial for successful diversity management research and practice. Research limitations/impli...

Unequal by Structure: Exploring the Structural Embeddedness of Organizational Diversity

This article applies classical concepts of organizational structure and extends them to contemporary challenges of diversity to explore why unequal opportunity structures persist in an organization despite its commitment to diversity and employing highly skilled ethnic minority employees. Based on a study of the team-based municipal center CityBiz, the article inquires as to how inequality is embedded in two structural features: first, the differentiation of roles accelerates in response to continuous change, which results in similar workers being attracted to collaborating with one another, which generates inequality. Second, inequality is sustained by inadequate integration methods that merge a formal–informal hierarchy, which results in peer competition and majority elites. The structural approach to organizational diversity developed in this article nuances the current research on diversity that is predominantly concerned with employee experiences of inequality in an organizational structural landscape perceived as fixed and stable. This study offers a dynamic view of organizational structure based on how it is experienced, navigated, and reshaped by employees of different ethnicities. Linking micro-interactions to structural triggers and outcomes points to situated caveats about inequalities ingrained in the organizational structural set-up. Tapping into employees’ sentiments and interactions furthermore gives the possibility to mobilize collective change in favor of equal opportunities.

Diversity Management and the Scandinavian Model: Illustrations from Denmark and Sweden

Abstract This chapter presents the principal interpretations that took place in Denmark and Sweden regarding the discourse on ‘Diversity Management’. We organise our presentation around three major themes that are central to the local Scandinavian context: gender equality, migration and moral grounds. This chapter shows the important role of gender equality work practices and how these practices now tend to be progressively incorporated in a broad Diversity Management construct, possibly leading to a less radical stance. Moreover, the comparison between Denmark and Sweden reveals the political associations with Diversity Management and migration in Denmark, but not in Sweden. Our third contribution unveils the tensions between the value of equality, which remains strong in the Scandinavian welfare state model, and the actual practices of Diversity Management.

Spatially embedded inequality

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to apply a spatial approach to organizational inequality to explore why unequal opportunity structures persist in an organization despite its commitment to diversity and employing highly skilled ethnic minority employees. Design/methodology/approach – The (re)production of inequality is explored by linking research on organizational space with HRM diversity management. Data from an ethnographic study undertaken in a Danish municipal center illustrates how a substructure of inequality is spatially upheld alongside a formal diversity policy. Archer’s distinction between structure and agency informs the analysis of how minority agency not only reproduces but also challenges organizational opportunity structures. Findings – The analysis demonstrates how substructures of inequality stabilize in spatial routines enacted in an ethnic zoning of the workplace and ethnification of job categories. However, the same spatial structures allows for a variety of opposition and conci...

Putting Diversity to Work: An Empirical Analysis of how Change Efforts Targeting Organizational Inequality Failed

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically explore why a diversity agenda in favor of equal opportunities failed despite apparent organizational support and commitment to diversity. Design/methodology/approach Drawing on data from a municipal center, this study inquire into how organizational dynamics of power and hierarchy influence change efforts to alter practices of inequality. The study is positioned within critical diversity research and structured around an analysis of the researcher’s fieldwork experiences. Findings The analysis examines into why change efforts failed despite organizational approval of a diversity agenda, open-mindedness toward change and legitimacy in regard to diversity. Paradoxically, change efforts designed to alter the status quo were, in practice, derailed and circumvented through power dynamics reproducing organizational inequality. Research limitations/implications A single case study in a particular type of organization constrains the generalizability but point to new directions for future research. Practical implications This study aims at sensitizing researchers and diversity practitioners alike to the organizational embeddedness of diversity initiatives. Accordingly, change efforts must necessarily address diversity in a situated perspective and as intersecting with key organizational power dynamics gaining impetus from macro discourses on diversity and difference. Originality/value Few critical diversity scholars engage with practitioners and reflect on the impact of their studies. In doing so, this paper contributes by developing diversity research, exploring the limitations and possibilities for increasing its relevance and impact.

Introduction: From Diversity to Identity and Back

This chapter serves as a short introduction to the topics of this book: identity and diversity. We also expose how these topics link with issues in the workplace and explain how we have organized our discussion in this book. Finally, we provide an overview of the different chapters.

Categorizing Diversity and Managing Identities

Social identity theory (SIT) is arguably the most influential identity theory today. The grounding idea in this theory is that individuals not only have ‘personal identities’ but also have ‘social identities’: that is, they feel an attachment to one or more groups with which they believe they share an attribute or value that is identity-defining. Group-based diversity management, especially when related to gender- or race-/ethnicity-based social identity, is linked and discussed with regard to SIT-inspired scholarship in its original and more recent developments. The chapter also offers some thoughts on the limitations of the theory to give a complete picture of how to address diversity and identity in the workplace.

Diversity Management: Invisible Identities

In this chapter, we expand on the links between diversity and identity and on the relevance of considering them jointly in the context of the workplace. The chapter provides the reader with a succinct historical background of diversity management and a reflection on categories and categorization. The chapter also examines how the management of diversity contrasts with how individuals attempt to make sense of their identities in the workplace, thus speaking to the broader intellectual conversation about structure and agency.

Post-identities: The Transgression of Diversity Categories

In Chapter 5, we unfold and discuss the post-structuralist view of identity, diversity and diversity management. Arguably, the post-structural perspective builds on and extends the critical one, as it emphasizes that identities are fragmented, fluid and thus ultimately non-manageable. The post-structural perspective suggests a reconceptualization of difference where difference is always becoming. This means that post-structural takes on diversity and identity insist on the instability and transgression of categories. Post-structural approaches thus encourage constant reflexivity about the way that norms structure our concepts and they foreground the continual need to undo these to pave the way for equality.

Reclaiming Identity: The Critical Diversity Project

Critical scholars of identity and diversity share an interest in uncovering social injustice and domination in organizations. Their chief object of criticism is the perceived apolitical approach of mainstream identity and diversity management research. Such practices are criticized for being blind to measures of managerial control and marginalization through identity categorization and assignment. The critical perspective focuses on how organizational members as agents can actively alter and resist organizational modes of domination. However, we also contend that a critical approach must be supplemented with the development of practical solutions to the progressive changes that the critical scholarship otherwise expounds. This chapter ends with a discussion of how this might be achieved.