Margaret Yap

Trade-offs and disappearing acts: shifting societal discourses of diversity in Canada over three decades

Abstract In the past few decades, research on minority and disadvantaged groups in the workplace has focused on the discourse of diversity management; however, most of this research has emphasized individual and organizational discourse rather than broader, societal contexts. Our critical analysis of societal/macro level discourse explores the discursive constructions of equity and diversity in Canada, and provides original findings on how these discourses have been produced in the public sphere. We apply quantitative and qualitative textual analysis to articles published from 1986 to 2014 in The Globe and Mail, a nationally distributed newspaper, and the Canadian Employment Equity Act Annual Reports from 1988 to 2013. This paper describes a range of discursive patterns including those focusing on compliance-based equity oriented toward social justice as well as voluntary ‘diversity management’ grounded in corporate self-interest. It demonstrates important trade-offs in who is protected and promoted through the contrasting discourses, and in the types of actors legitimizing these discourses. We provide detailed evidence of these patterns by applying Habermas’ Theory of Communicative Action, and conclude with a discussion of implications for practice and for theory that are suggested in our analysis.

Using the Diversity Audit Tool to Assess the Status of Women in the Canadian Financial Services Sector

A diversity assessment measures an organization’s progress in increasing diversity and inclusiveness. As part of a larger study, this paper examines and analyses the application of the Diversity Audit Tool (DAT) to the Canadian Financial Services sector to the status of women’s representation within the workforce. The DAT assesses policies and practices to increase diversity and inclusiveness not only on human resource functions but also how diversity can be integrated throughout the organization’s value chain. As an exceptionally adaptable and flexible tool, the DAT has been previously applied to education, health care, police services, and information and communications technology (ICT) sectors; it is generalizable enough to examine diversity initiatives across a number of groups as well as to focus on a single one, as it does in this study. This paper begins with a discussion of the current status of female workers within this sector and identifies a number of barriers that prevent full workforce participation and inclusiveness. The DAT is systematically applied to the financial services sector (reproduced in Appendix 1) and the findings are discussed, examining six key areas: leadership and governance, human resource practices; quality of life and organizational culture; measuring and tracking diversity; integrating or mainstreaming diversity across the value chain; and developing the pipeline. Finally, these findings will be discussed and conclusions will be made.