Diversity climate : It's time for some clarity
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2014-06-09
Author(s)
Abstract
Diversity has become the standard rather than the exception in the workforce. As firms have struggled to effectively advance members of historically marginalized groups into senior management (Kalev, Dobbin, & Kelly, 2006), reduce the relatively higher level of conflict (King, Hebl, & Beal, 2009) and turnover in these groups (Nishii & Mayer, 2009), and benefit from improved performance as a result of this diversity (Joshi & Roh, 2009), both scholars and practitioners have focused on diversity climate as a possible panacea to these challenges. Despite agreement about its importance, however, the existing research on diversity climate lacks cohesion. Scholars have utilized a wide variety of conceptual and operational definitions, and hardly any of it has focused on the diversity-specific outcomes that diversity climate is purported to influence. It is our view that given the 20+ years of research that have been amassed on the topic, it is time for an in-depth review. Although high quality reviews have been published on climate research more generally (e.g., Kuenzi & Schminke, 2009; Schneider, Ehrhart, & Macey, 2013) and on other strategic climates (e.g., Rupp, Bashshur, & Liao, 2007; Schneider, Macey, & Young, 2006), no such review exists for diversity climate. We propose to provide such a review.
We focus our review of the 28 published empirical articles on diversity climate that met our criteria1 into three sections. First, we review existing theoretical and operational definitions of diversity climate. Next, we present our empirical review of psychological and organizational diversity climate. Finally, we discuss theoretical and methodological challenges and outline implications and ideas for future research.
We focus our review of the 28 published empirical articles on diversity climate that met our criteria1 into three sections. First, we review existing theoretical and operational definitions of diversity climate. Next, we present our empirical review of psychological and organizational diversity climate. Finally, we discuss theoretical and methodological challenges and outline implications and ideas for future research.
Language
English
Keywords
Diversity climate
climate for inclusion
review
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Book title
Organizing Inclusion: Beyond Privileges and Discrimination
Start page
1
End page
15
Pages
15
Event Title
7th Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion International Conference (EDI)
Event Location
Munich, Germany
Event Date
07.-10.07.2014
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
231026