Lecture 1 - chapter 1
Diversity and inclusion - definitions
● Diversity
○ Differences among people that are likely to affect their acceptance,
performance, satisfaction, or progress in an organization
○ Became popular in the 1980s. It became popular in a particular way: the
narrow definition:
■ Race, ethnicity, sex
○ There are reasons why we should attend to the narrow definitions for
example due to
■ Historical power differences,
● Historical segregation between whites and colors
■ Surface diversity,
● Some people are noticeably different and can lead to
stereotyping
■ Ascribed status,
● People ascribe status to others based on who they are,
rather than how they are (ethnicity vs leadership style)
○ Broad definitions
■ Education levels
■ Geographic background
■ Language (accent, dialect)
■ Value system and other attributes
○ There are reasons why we should attend to the broad definition.
■ It is more inclusive than the narrow definition
■ Including broad basis for stereotyping
■ Beneficial for everyone
■ Categories = socially constructed
○ Arguments against the broad definition
■ Not all kinds of differences are equally important
● Diversity management
○ One of the early approaches to dealing with diversity was the
representational diversity
■ Trying to make sure you’re bringing in employees to your company
in order to diversify it. So minorities, groups that are
underrepresented, etc.
■ But this is not the same as integrating them into the company, that
is part of a more recent approach; inclusion
○ Inclusion
, ■ From hiring to actually including people. This when we see how
different diversity is to inclusion
○ Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance
■ Diversity is being invited to the party, or going to the party. Inclusion
is choosing the music or being a member of the party-planning
○ Valuing diversity
■ Activities such as highlighting festivities that are recognized by
specific groups
Why is diversity important?
● Initial job analysis and design stage
○ The starting question; what is the job? What skills are needed by people
coming into the job? For whom is the job?
○ Need to come up with a good job description that will not leave out people
that are eligible for the job simply due to demographic differences. I.e.
language barriers
● Selection stage
○ Pay attention to the characteristics of people who already have the job,
and help them appropriately and thoroughly improve the outreach of
where the job ads would go - need to attract people broadly
○ We need people who do the job well, not people who do the entrance
tests well. University students have experience with cognitive and
personality tests, know how scales work and know multiple choice tests,
so students given these types of tests will perform better than someone
who doesn't have this experience. But that doesn’t mean they are better at
the job
○ Also important to understand whether we’re having specific actions in
place like affirmative action (AA) procedures
■ When you prefer to have diversity in your organization and take
affirmative action to achieve this
■ E.g. tilburg uni had a diversity program to increase diversity
● Training and socialization
○ Training:
■ Acquire certain skills and knowledge, explicitly stated
○ Socialization:
■ Learning the culture, the norms and patterns of work that lead to
informal experiences and are not explicitly stated
■ We can also look at culture acquisition as acculturation:
● Assimilation to a different culture, typically the dominant one
○ Performance appraisals
, ■ How is your work performance?
■ Here too, is it important to attend to diversity issues. For example
the language of these appraisals
○ Job evaluation and compensation
■ How are the people being paid? If there is a distinction in how they
are paid based on group membership, then there is an issue: wage
gap
○ Access to an success with group work and leadership
■ Some are more productive in group work, some are not
■ Men and women differ in the extent to which they are believed to
exhibit good leadership skills, irrespective of whether they are
actually able to do that so access to these positions varies
depending on sex the beliefs that people have associated with
people belonging to differnt groups (genders)
○ Organizational development
■ Finding the moments that an organization can do something about
diversity is in the periods of organizational development. For
example when an organization changes due to various reasons. In
that moment you can redesign processes and reassess. For
example during merges
Why is diversity important now?
● We have an increased globalization and more service work so more need for
diversity because you have more contact with more people
● More technology so people are more interconnected
● More focus on teams
● Short term contracts, less stable employment
○ More short term contracts means you have less time to acquire the
company culture
The business case for diversity
● Good diversity management = increased profitability
● Cox’s argument
○ Marketing - more effective in understanding customer base
○ Resource acquisition - minority talent will be more likely to like the
company
○ Better problem-solving - diversity of ideas if diversity is managed well
○ More creativity and innovation
○ Greater system flexibility - adapts easily
● Cost effective: lower turnover, less harassment, fewer lawsuits, etc.
, ● Similar term: value-in-diversity
● Empirical evidence; often archival, descriptive, complex systems
● Litvin (2006): focus less on finance and more on happiness and well-being
A study conducted by Benick, Egan & Lanier, 2010
● Diversity (representation) without inclusion
● A study conducted at a supermarket chain
○ Recruited African Americans for a middle-management position (entry
level management) then assigned these managers to minority
neighborhoods
○ Results:
■ Not matched to customers in other aspects (they belonged to a
minority group so they were matched to a minority neighborhood
but not matched in SES, income, etc.) so there was a reduced
effectiveness
■ These stores were ‘career killer’ stores because the popularity at
these stores was less and because they were in minority
neighborhoods, theft was more common. This meant the
performance of the managers was also less and the managers quit
more quickly
■ A lawsuit happened
Lecture 2 - chapter 2
Models: clarifying what we mean
● Models are simplified full ideas (not theories)
● Culinary models
○ Roosevelt Thomas’s jelly bean model
■ You need to look at the whole jar of jelly beans to learn about
diversity
■ You can look at it from the jelly bean level or from the jar level
○ Salad/stew/soup/tomato sauce model
■ In contrast to the jelly bean model, these models do have an
interaction of the individuals.
■ In the salad, the individual ingredients retain their flavor and texture
but all together also come together as a salad
■ In a soup/stew the individual ingredients come together to create
something new and the individual ingredients don’t retain their
identifiability
Diversity and inclusion - definitions
● Diversity
○ Differences among people that are likely to affect their acceptance,
performance, satisfaction, or progress in an organization
○ Became popular in the 1980s. It became popular in a particular way: the
narrow definition:
■ Race, ethnicity, sex
○ There are reasons why we should attend to the narrow definitions for
example due to
■ Historical power differences,
● Historical segregation between whites and colors
■ Surface diversity,
● Some people are noticeably different and can lead to
stereotyping
■ Ascribed status,
● People ascribe status to others based on who they are,
rather than how they are (ethnicity vs leadership style)
○ Broad definitions
■ Education levels
■ Geographic background
■ Language (accent, dialect)
■ Value system and other attributes
○ There are reasons why we should attend to the broad definition.
■ It is more inclusive than the narrow definition
■ Including broad basis for stereotyping
■ Beneficial for everyone
■ Categories = socially constructed
○ Arguments against the broad definition
■ Not all kinds of differences are equally important
● Diversity management
○ One of the early approaches to dealing with diversity was the
representational diversity
■ Trying to make sure you’re bringing in employees to your company
in order to diversify it. So minorities, groups that are
underrepresented, etc.
■ But this is not the same as integrating them into the company, that
is part of a more recent approach; inclusion
○ Inclusion
, ■ From hiring to actually including people. This when we see how
different diversity is to inclusion
○ Diversity is being invited to the party, inclusion is being asked to dance
■ Diversity is being invited to the party, or going to the party. Inclusion
is choosing the music or being a member of the party-planning
○ Valuing diversity
■ Activities such as highlighting festivities that are recognized by
specific groups
Why is diversity important?
● Initial job analysis and design stage
○ The starting question; what is the job? What skills are needed by people
coming into the job? For whom is the job?
○ Need to come up with a good job description that will not leave out people
that are eligible for the job simply due to demographic differences. I.e.
language barriers
● Selection stage
○ Pay attention to the characteristics of people who already have the job,
and help them appropriately and thoroughly improve the outreach of
where the job ads would go - need to attract people broadly
○ We need people who do the job well, not people who do the entrance
tests well. University students have experience with cognitive and
personality tests, know how scales work and know multiple choice tests,
so students given these types of tests will perform better than someone
who doesn't have this experience. But that doesn’t mean they are better at
the job
○ Also important to understand whether we’re having specific actions in
place like affirmative action (AA) procedures
■ When you prefer to have diversity in your organization and take
affirmative action to achieve this
■ E.g. tilburg uni had a diversity program to increase diversity
● Training and socialization
○ Training:
■ Acquire certain skills and knowledge, explicitly stated
○ Socialization:
■ Learning the culture, the norms and patterns of work that lead to
informal experiences and are not explicitly stated
■ We can also look at culture acquisition as acculturation:
● Assimilation to a different culture, typically the dominant one
○ Performance appraisals
, ■ How is your work performance?
■ Here too, is it important to attend to diversity issues. For example
the language of these appraisals
○ Job evaluation and compensation
■ How are the people being paid? If there is a distinction in how they
are paid based on group membership, then there is an issue: wage
gap
○ Access to an success with group work and leadership
■ Some are more productive in group work, some are not
■ Men and women differ in the extent to which they are believed to
exhibit good leadership skills, irrespective of whether they are
actually able to do that so access to these positions varies
depending on sex the beliefs that people have associated with
people belonging to differnt groups (genders)
○ Organizational development
■ Finding the moments that an organization can do something about
diversity is in the periods of organizational development. For
example when an organization changes due to various reasons. In
that moment you can redesign processes and reassess. For
example during merges
Why is diversity important now?
● We have an increased globalization and more service work so more need for
diversity because you have more contact with more people
● More technology so people are more interconnected
● More focus on teams
● Short term contracts, less stable employment
○ More short term contracts means you have less time to acquire the
company culture
The business case for diversity
● Good diversity management = increased profitability
● Cox’s argument
○ Marketing - more effective in understanding customer base
○ Resource acquisition - minority talent will be more likely to like the
company
○ Better problem-solving - diversity of ideas if diversity is managed well
○ More creativity and innovation
○ Greater system flexibility - adapts easily
● Cost effective: lower turnover, less harassment, fewer lawsuits, etc.
, ● Similar term: value-in-diversity
● Empirical evidence; often archival, descriptive, complex systems
● Litvin (2006): focus less on finance and more on happiness and well-being
A study conducted by Benick, Egan & Lanier, 2010
● Diversity (representation) without inclusion
● A study conducted at a supermarket chain
○ Recruited African Americans for a middle-management position (entry
level management) then assigned these managers to minority
neighborhoods
○ Results:
■ Not matched to customers in other aspects (they belonged to a
minority group so they were matched to a minority neighborhood
but not matched in SES, income, etc.) so there was a reduced
effectiveness
■ These stores were ‘career killer’ stores because the popularity at
these stores was less and because they were in minority
neighborhoods, theft was more common. This meant the
performance of the managers was also less and the managers quit
more quickly
■ A lawsuit happened
Lecture 2 - chapter 2
Models: clarifying what we mean
● Models are simplified full ideas (not theories)
● Culinary models
○ Roosevelt Thomas’s jelly bean model
■ You need to look at the whole jar of jelly beans to learn about
diversity
■ You can look at it from the jelly bean level or from the jar level
○ Salad/stew/soup/tomato sauce model
■ In contrast to the jelly bean model, these models do have an
interaction of the individuals.
■ In the salad, the individual ingredients retain their flavor and texture
but all together also come together as a salad
■ In a soup/stew the individual ingredients come together to create
something new and the individual ingredients don’t retain their
identifiability
