DIVERSITY, EQUALITY AND INCLUSION IN ORGANIZATIONS
PROF. KOEN VAN LAER
INHOUD
1. Introduction.................................................................................................................... 3
1.1. Phase 1: 60’s & 70’s ................................................................................................ 4
1.2. Phase 2: 80’s & 90’s ................................................................................................ 5
1.3. Phase 3: 2000’s & 2010’s ........................................................................................ 7
1.4. Phase 4: from 2019 to the future.............................................................................. 8
ZIJkant ............................................................................................................................ 9
2. The effects of diversity on group processes ...................................................................... 9
3. Diversity, competencies & value at work ........................................................................ 17
4. Diversity, careers and career boundaries ....................................................................... 24
4.1. Career outcomes & diversity ................................................................................. 26
5. Diversity in a material world .......................................................................................... 32
5.1. How can spaces contribute to the disadvantaged position of disabled people? ...... 33
5.2. How can spaces contribute to the disadvantaged position of neurodivergent people?
34
5.3. How could material elements influence the inclusion of Muslim employees? ......... 36
6. Diversity and migration in the global economy ............................................................... 38
6.1. Migrant workers as a reserve army of labour .......................................................... 38
6.2. Domestic labour and social reproduction theory ................................................... 41
6.3. Subcontracted labour within racial capitalism ....................................................... 44
7. Classic & alternative diversity management policy and practices ................................... 46
7.1. What are some common EDI practices & policies? ................................................ 46
7.2. WHat can explain these findings?.......................................................................... 49
7.3. But what does this approach look like in practice? ................................................. 53
7.4. Some illustrations from Belgium ........................................................................... 55
Disrupting gender dichotomies – Roos & Zanoni, 2016.................................................... 55
Organizational practices fostering ethnic equality at work - Janssens & Zanoni, 2014 ...... 56
7.5. Backlash against EDI ............................................................................................ 57
Unpicking arguments against positive discrimination – Noon, 2010 ................................ 58
Parrying Diversity-Hostility in the workplace – Dobusch et al., 2025 ................................ 59
Dealing with resistance as fundamental to EDI work – Stierncreutz & Tienari, 2023 .......... 61
1
,Overview course
- Group project
• Analyse a movie connected to EDI in the workplace and analyse what happened
based on the theories
• Possibility to receive online feedback
• Presentation
- Students will be evaluated based on:
• An individual written open book exam (70% of total grade) (2 June at 13 o’clock)
• A presentation on a group project (30% of total grade) (week of 27 April)
- The grade on the individual written exam is an individual grade, the grade on the group
project is a collective grade.
- Important: for students from the Interuniversity Master Gender & Diversity (nr of course:
2062), this course is 5ECTS credits; for other students (nr of course: 5271), this course
is 6 ECTS credits →They will get an additional reflection question on the exam (which
will be communicated before the exam)
- When the student does not take part in one of the two evaluations or receives a grade
lower than 10/20 on one of them, they cannot pass the course.
2
,1. INTRODUCTION
Goal: brief overview of the field and its history
Employment gap in the EU, 2024
- Why does this matter?
- Employment gap in the EU: difference between employment rates
• (percentage of a group that is employed)
- Differences in social categories
• Fe: very large employment gap between people with and without disabilities
Share of female managers
- 35% of managers in the EU are females
- Differences between countries
- In general, there is a rise
Reasons for different employment rates (brainstorm)
- Access to education
- Racism, sexism, discrimination
Studies on DEI in Management and Organization Studies focus on
- Exposing inequalities in the labour market and in organizations
- Understanding how organizational processes & policies reproduce these
3
,- Exploring how organizations can address these inequalities → to do so, they draw on
theories from different traditions → interdisciplianry field
1.1. PHASE 1: 60’S & 70’S
Starting point
- Emergence of social movements such as the Women’s Rights Movement & the Civil Rights
Movement with Martin Luther King
• March on Washington (“I have a dream”)
• March for jobs and freedom
- Emergence of anti-discrimination legislation in the USA
• A lot of the thinking on this topic has been exported from the USA to the other parts of
the world → ideas were first developed in the States
4
,Important moments & acts
- Executive order 10925 (’61)
• Federal contractors have to take “Affirmative Action”
• Active steps to end discrimination
o Based on race, colour, creed & national origin
o Updated & extended in later years (fe: to include sex discrimination)
- Equal Pay Act (’63): equal pay for comparable work
- Civil Rights Act (’64): employment discrimination is prohibited for all employers (so not only
federal contractors)
• Establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to oversee
compliance
- Supreme Court: Griggs v. Duke Power
• Indirect discrimination → seemingly neutral policies that have disparate impact on
certain groups
o Seemingly neutral policies which weren’t explicitly based on/did not have explicit
discriminatory intentions could still be considered as discriminatory
o In the company, discrimination based on race → lower positions and less pay
o Then, after the act of 64: the company implemented a nr. Of new requirements to
move from these lowest paying jobs to other jobs (including having a high school
diploma and some IQ tests)
o What became clear: these measures still had a disproportionate impact on black
people
→ This led to:
• Prohibition of “the use of employment criteria that operate in a racially exclusionary
fashion and do not measure the skills or abilities necessary to performance of the jobs
for which those criteria are used”
- Throughout the 70s: additional enforcement & compliance demands
What it is necessary to see is that there has never been a single solid monistic determined
commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans on the whole question of Civil
Rights and on the whole question of racial equality. […]
What I'm trying to get across is that our nation has constantly taken a positive step forward on
the question of racial justice and racial equality. But over and over again at the same time, it
made certain backward steps. And this has been the persistence of the so called white
backlash.
(Martin Luther King jr., 1967 “The Other America” speech)
1.2. PHASE 2: 80’S & 90’S
Raegan administration in US (80s)
- Judicial steps to oppose AA
- Reduced enforcement
- Also little support from next administrations
Based on the ideas
- Colour blindness
• Rather than having specific policies to address racial inequalities etc. we should simply
adopt a colourblind approach in which we try to stop talking about race
• If we do that, people might stop seeing race and thereby racism might solve itself
- Labour market deregulation
- Previous policies → individual freedoms & rights
5
, 1987: Hudson Institute: Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the Twenty-First Century
- From social justice case focused on discrimination & backed by legislation
- To business case focused on economic benefits through voluntary actions
- (it makes economic sense to work on EDI so they will do it voluntarily and end
discrimination)
What could be some of the economic benefits that diversity might bring? (brainstorm)
- More diverse customers
- Go global
- Different perspectives → allows you to be more innovative, creative and make better
decisions
- Better reach and understand certain populations
The ‘business case’ for diversity
1. Reduce costs
• Turnover costs
• Absenteeism (= the frequent absence of a worker from their place of work)
• Avoiding law suits
2. Attract and deploy talent
• Employer’s image
• Optimal use of talents
• Acquire key competences
o Fe: speak multiple languages
o Female employees will display different types of leadership, therefore you bring in
different types of competences
3. Drive business growth
• Better connection to the diverse market
• Stimulate innovation and creativity
• Make better decisions
Shift: view on diversity
- We are all diverse, everyone is different in some way
- Shift from focus on certain groups → to the idea that diversity is about everyone
6
PROF. KOEN VAN LAER
INHOUD
1. Introduction.................................................................................................................... 3
1.1. Phase 1: 60’s & 70’s ................................................................................................ 4
1.2. Phase 2: 80’s & 90’s ................................................................................................ 5
1.3. Phase 3: 2000’s & 2010’s ........................................................................................ 7
1.4. Phase 4: from 2019 to the future.............................................................................. 8
ZIJkant ............................................................................................................................ 9
2. The effects of diversity on group processes ...................................................................... 9
3. Diversity, competencies & value at work ........................................................................ 17
4. Diversity, careers and career boundaries ....................................................................... 24
4.1. Career outcomes & diversity ................................................................................. 26
5. Diversity in a material world .......................................................................................... 32
5.1. How can spaces contribute to the disadvantaged position of disabled people? ...... 33
5.2. How can spaces contribute to the disadvantaged position of neurodivergent people?
34
5.3. How could material elements influence the inclusion of Muslim employees? ......... 36
6. Diversity and migration in the global economy ............................................................... 38
6.1. Migrant workers as a reserve army of labour .......................................................... 38
6.2. Domestic labour and social reproduction theory ................................................... 41
6.3. Subcontracted labour within racial capitalism ....................................................... 44
7. Classic & alternative diversity management policy and practices ................................... 46
7.1. What are some common EDI practices & policies? ................................................ 46
7.2. WHat can explain these findings?.......................................................................... 49
7.3. But what does this approach look like in practice? ................................................. 53
7.4. Some illustrations from Belgium ........................................................................... 55
Disrupting gender dichotomies – Roos & Zanoni, 2016.................................................... 55
Organizational practices fostering ethnic equality at work - Janssens & Zanoni, 2014 ...... 56
7.5. Backlash against EDI ............................................................................................ 57
Unpicking arguments against positive discrimination – Noon, 2010 ................................ 58
Parrying Diversity-Hostility in the workplace – Dobusch et al., 2025 ................................ 59
Dealing with resistance as fundamental to EDI work – Stierncreutz & Tienari, 2023 .......... 61
1
,Overview course
- Group project
• Analyse a movie connected to EDI in the workplace and analyse what happened
based on the theories
• Possibility to receive online feedback
• Presentation
- Students will be evaluated based on:
• An individual written open book exam (70% of total grade) (2 June at 13 o’clock)
• A presentation on a group project (30% of total grade) (week of 27 April)
- The grade on the individual written exam is an individual grade, the grade on the group
project is a collective grade.
- Important: for students from the Interuniversity Master Gender & Diversity (nr of course:
2062), this course is 5ECTS credits; for other students (nr of course: 5271), this course
is 6 ECTS credits →They will get an additional reflection question on the exam (which
will be communicated before the exam)
- When the student does not take part in one of the two evaluations or receives a grade
lower than 10/20 on one of them, they cannot pass the course.
2
,1. INTRODUCTION
Goal: brief overview of the field and its history
Employment gap in the EU, 2024
- Why does this matter?
- Employment gap in the EU: difference between employment rates
• (percentage of a group that is employed)
- Differences in social categories
• Fe: very large employment gap between people with and without disabilities
Share of female managers
- 35% of managers in the EU are females
- Differences between countries
- In general, there is a rise
Reasons for different employment rates (brainstorm)
- Access to education
- Racism, sexism, discrimination
Studies on DEI in Management and Organization Studies focus on
- Exposing inequalities in the labour market and in organizations
- Understanding how organizational processes & policies reproduce these
3
,- Exploring how organizations can address these inequalities → to do so, they draw on
theories from different traditions → interdisciplianry field
1.1. PHASE 1: 60’S & 70’S
Starting point
- Emergence of social movements such as the Women’s Rights Movement & the Civil Rights
Movement with Martin Luther King
• March on Washington (“I have a dream”)
• March for jobs and freedom
- Emergence of anti-discrimination legislation in the USA
• A lot of the thinking on this topic has been exported from the USA to the other parts of
the world → ideas were first developed in the States
4
,Important moments & acts
- Executive order 10925 (’61)
• Federal contractors have to take “Affirmative Action”
• Active steps to end discrimination
o Based on race, colour, creed & national origin
o Updated & extended in later years (fe: to include sex discrimination)
- Equal Pay Act (’63): equal pay for comparable work
- Civil Rights Act (’64): employment discrimination is prohibited for all employers (so not only
federal contractors)
• Establishment of the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission to oversee
compliance
- Supreme Court: Griggs v. Duke Power
• Indirect discrimination → seemingly neutral policies that have disparate impact on
certain groups
o Seemingly neutral policies which weren’t explicitly based on/did not have explicit
discriminatory intentions could still be considered as discriminatory
o In the company, discrimination based on race → lower positions and less pay
o Then, after the act of 64: the company implemented a nr. Of new requirements to
move from these lowest paying jobs to other jobs (including having a high school
diploma and some IQ tests)
o What became clear: these measures still had a disproportionate impact on black
people
→ This led to:
• Prohibition of “the use of employment criteria that operate in a racially exclusionary
fashion and do not measure the skills or abilities necessary to performance of the jobs
for which those criteria are used”
- Throughout the 70s: additional enforcement & compliance demands
What it is necessary to see is that there has never been a single solid monistic determined
commitment on the part of the vast majority of white Americans on the whole question of Civil
Rights and on the whole question of racial equality. […]
What I'm trying to get across is that our nation has constantly taken a positive step forward on
the question of racial justice and racial equality. But over and over again at the same time, it
made certain backward steps. And this has been the persistence of the so called white
backlash.
(Martin Luther King jr., 1967 “The Other America” speech)
1.2. PHASE 2: 80’S & 90’S
Raegan administration in US (80s)
- Judicial steps to oppose AA
- Reduced enforcement
- Also little support from next administrations
Based on the ideas
- Colour blindness
• Rather than having specific policies to address racial inequalities etc. we should simply
adopt a colourblind approach in which we try to stop talking about race
• If we do that, people might stop seeing race and thereby racism might solve itself
- Labour market deregulation
- Previous policies → individual freedoms & rights
5
, 1987: Hudson Institute: Workforce 2000: Work and Workers for the Twenty-First Century
- From social justice case focused on discrimination & backed by legislation
- To business case focused on economic benefits through voluntary actions
- (it makes economic sense to work on EDI so they will do it voluntarily and end
discrimination)
What could be some of the economic benefits that diversity might bring? (brainstorm)
- More diverse customers
- Go global
- Different perspectives → allows you to be more innovative, creative and make better
decisions
- Better reach and understand certain populations
The ‘business case’ for diversity
1. Reduce costs
• Turnover costs
• Absenteeism (= the frequent absence of a worker from their place of work)
• Avoiding law suits
2. Attract and deploy talent
• Employer’s image
• Optimal use of talents
• Acquire key competences
o Fe: speak multiple languages
o Female employees will display different types of leadership, therefore you bring in
different types of competences
3. Drive business growth
• Better connection to the diverse market
• Stimulate innovation and creativity
• Make better decisions
Shift: view on diversity
- We are all diverse, everyone is different in some way
- Shift from focus on certain groups → to the idea that diversity is about everyone
6
