Anne Ponsteen
sv lectures making diversity work: building inclusive
organisations
Lecture 1 - The many faces of diversity
- Why this course? Society, and thus the labour market, has become more diverse, in
the Netherlands this is due to migration, ethnic/cultural diversity, globalisation and
more women entering the workforce. Therefore, it becomes more important to know
how to deal with diversity, especially in a tight labour market where companies are
compelled to take diversity and inclusivity more seriously
- Course takes a multidisciplinary approach to gain a multi-level understanding on how
to promote D&I at the institutional, symbolic & experiential level
- Inequality and exclusion as a seven headed monster with the heads representing the
multiple challenges and mechanisms that keep inequality in place. Only if we
understand this monster as a whole we can slay all its heads at the same time and
defeat this monster (and improve organisations)
- 3 levels:
1. Symbolical (humanities approach): e.g. how are women and non-dominant groups
and their societal roles represented in the linguistic, narrative and visual structures
that shape the organisation?
2. Institutional (law/business approach): what are effective responses to inequality
and exclusion at work, on the institutional level? (rules, regulations, policies etc.)
3. Experiential (psychological approach): how do women and non-dominant group
members experience the many forms of inequality in the workplace? How do these
groups experience institutional measures aimed at correcting these inequalities?
- All these levels influence each other in many ways and are often all present at the
same time (but in a different ratio) → policies focussed at only one level will likely be
less effective than when focussing on all three levels (integrated approach)
- Diversity = everything that distinguishes people from one another
- The definition of diversity is fairly broad, most times the definition is focussed on
different aspects of diversity (race, ethnicity, gender etc.). Most attention is focused
around dimensions in which differences in outcomes and discrimination occurs
- Surface-level dissimilarity = relatively visible/detectable dissimilarities between
people, like gender, age, ethnicity, nationality and religion
- Deep-level dissimilarity = relatively invisible/underlying dissimilarity between people,
like personality, attitudes, values, sexual orientation, & racial/ethnic identity
- People can experience one specific type of dissimilarity or both at the same time,
their experience also depends on certain factors like context, self-image or the
extend to which dissimilarities are visible (bisexual people might perceive themselves
as surface or deep-level dissimilar depending on their current partner)
- There are different diversity dimensions: diversity based on relationship-oriented
attributes and diversity based on task-oriented attributes, sometimes these
dimensions intertwine
- Galinsky et al. (2015) present even more diversity dimensions: 1. Diversity present in
groups, communities and nations, and 2. Diversity acquired through individuals’
personal experiences
, Anne Ponsteen
- Diversity in a sample of dutch organisations shows that people mostly feel dissimilar
from others in terms of personality (21%), age (13%) and ethnicity (13%)
- However, diversity is hard to measure as people change overtime in opinion,
experiences, attitudes etc.
- Diversity policies are mostly focussed around visible dissimilarities (age, disability
(+/-), gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation (+/-)), rather than invisible dissimilarities
(personality, experience, religion, political preference)
- Which diversity matters? and matters for what?
1. Moral reasons: equal treatment, opportunity and/or outcomes → these 3 different
motives will result in fairly different D&I policy designs
2. Societal reasons: emphasis on good outcomes/focus on consequences of
inequality (more practical)
3. Compliance: new laws forcing/encourage companies to engage in diversity
policies, pressure from society, or just keeping up with the competition or prevention
of governmental interventions
4. Synergic reasons: relationship between employees and organisation, personal &
business economic growth, employee satisfaction & harmony among employees
5. Business-economic reasons: main goal of organisations is to sustain and make
profit, working with diversity might attract diverse employees, increase service to
diverse populations, increase in wellbeing/less retention of employees, improve
relations between employees, increase productivity & creativity, reduce lawsuits/legal
challenges and enhance reputation (= ‘business-case’ for diversity)
- Scientific evidence shows it isn’t self-evident that diversity leads to better
performance and innovation → this is called the diversity paradox:
- Social identity theory (Turner) shows that people favour people that are like them,
this creates in- and outgroups. People derive (part of) their personality from their
ingroup and will defend them from outgroups. Similarity-attraction theory (Bryne)
states that people are more attracted to others that are similar to them. Conclusion:
we have a tendency to benefit group members and those who are like us and not
others, in this case diversity will lead to more conflict
- Information-elaboration processes (Oldham & Cummings) shows how diversity can
be beneficial when diverse team members share information with each other and
critically reflect on each other, this can lead to more creativity and innovation
- In the diversity paradox there are both positive and negative factors that influence the
effect of diversity, which factor wins out (when does diversity turn positive/negative?)
depends on the climate for inclusion → climate for inclusion is the key, without an
inclusive climate/climate that is ope n to differences, diversity won’t turn out
positively
- Climate for inclusion is based on: fair and unbiased treatment of employees,
differences are integrated in company values and norms (open towards and values
differences between employees), employees can be themselves and all employees
are included in decision making
- The picture below shows that team performance in diverse teams is mostly based on
invisible differences as these can promote deeper information processing, complex
thinking, reflecting etc. Visible differences often don’t provide better information or
different perspectives (however their might be some overlap
, Anne Ponsteen
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- → this mindset is mostly based on business-economic reasons for inclusivity, more
societal-motivated companies might focus more on visible diversity. Shows how
different motivations/mindsets should lead to different strategies, and how important it
is that those two facets (motivation - strategy) align
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- Perceived inclusion/sense of inclusion = perception of employees that the group
gives them a sense of authenticity and belonging
- Perceived dissimilarity is negatively related to the sense of inclusion, especially
among those who feel invisible dissimilar. A climate for inclusion moderates (buffers)
negative effects of feelings of dissimilarity on perceived inclusion → in an
organisation where diversity is celebrated, dissimilarity isn’t a problem/negative thing.
Also, when people feel included they experience higher job satisfaction, less work
related stress and less turnover intentions
- Not only people who perceive dissimilarity, but also people who don’t (so those
experiencing high similarity) benefit from an inclusive work-climate as they themselve
feel more included too (the effect of perceived similarity is less big than with
perceived dissimilarity but it still exists) as this elicits an egalitarian social
environment
- Deep-level dissimilarity was more important than surface-level dissimilarity for social
inclusion at work (but wasn’t always found) → interesting, as most D&I policies focus
on surface level dissimilarity
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- The above model looks at the underlying mechanisms of inclusion and shows how
there are different clusters of mechanisms that all have a different relative influence
(weight differs) 4 mechanisms are distinguished; perceived dissimilarity, leads to:
1. More uncertainty between/towards colleagues in how to behave (in both
