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Productive diversity: which companies are active and why?
Joanne Pyke
Institute of Community Engagement and Policy Alternatives
Contact Email: Joanne.Pyke
vu.edu.au
Australian governments have advocated the adoption of productive diversity (or diversity management) as an important organisational change strategy since the early 1990s. Some businesses have adopted diversity management policy comprehensively while the majority have been minimalist or disinterested in diversity and its potential relationship to enhanced productivity and workplace harmony. This research looks at the factors that contribute to productive diversity adoption. The hypothesis is that there are structural business factors that are associated with diversity management adoption such as organisational size, a multicultural workforce, trading with overseas markets amongst others. The problem of how to identify a productive diversity approach is also addressed. Given that effective diversity management practice can occur whether there is explicit policy in place or not, a set of indicators for the measurement of diversity management practice is identified and applied within a classification framework based on a set of types.
Through an analysis of interviews with senior managers from 165 companies in the top 500 in Australia, the research was unable to identify any clear correlations between business characteristics and diversity management adoption. The factors of leadership, company history and corporate engagement with stakeholders were actually found to be of greater impact. The findings also highlight the extent to which diversity management is widely rendered ‘irrelevant’, considered an assault to the concept of ‘merit’ and commonly perceived as an assault to managerial freedom. Further, the research considers the policy assumptions behind the implementation of diversity management that provide little incentive for diversity management adoption.
Paper
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Paper205.doc
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