Diversity Matters

The business case for diversity backfires: Detrimental effects of organizations’ instrumental diversity rhetoric for underrepresented group members’ sense of belonging.

“…This report argued that “managing diversity” would therefore become a business imperative to attract and secure the purportedly small share of highly educated job seekers in these new talent pools, and thereby avoid a shortage of skilled workforce (Edelman et al, 2001). In the wake of this report, framing diversity as a source of competitive advantage for organizations (Edelman et al, 2001; Litvin, 2002; Wittenberg-Cox, 2014) has seemingly become standard in the professional management literature, management conferences, and workshops (Edelman et al, 2001), as well as in official reports on diversity (Catalyst, 2013; Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2012; McKinsey & Company, 2015) and the general press (Clark, 2014; Manjoo, 2014; Smedley, 2014; Turner, 2015). In this context, management consultants played a crucial role in introducing and promoting this new diversity rhetoric within organizations (Edelman et al, 2001).…”

“…Specifically, this theory posits that some organizations are more central and established than others within the business world, and that peripheral organizations seek to gain legitimacy and status by mimicking the practices of central organizations—a mimicry process that ultimately leads to the broad dissemination of practices adopted by central organizations, and ultimately, to a homogenization of business practices across organizations (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Given organizations as established and vocal about diversity as McKinsey, Deloitte, or Credit Suisse have been publishing diversity reports that tout the business case for diversity for some time (Credit Suisse Research Institute, 2012, 2016; Deloitte & The Alliance for Board Diversity, 2016; McKinsey & Company, 2010, 2015), we theorized that this instrumental diversity rhetoric might have disseminated across the business world, and that other firms might have similarly adopted it. We therefore predicted that the business case for diversity would be more prevalent than the fairness case for diversity at present.…”