Alternative diversity management:Organizational practices fostering ethnicequality at work

Maddy Janssens a,*, Patrizia Zanoni b,1

aKU Leuven, Faculty of Business & Economics, Research Center for Organization Studies, Naamsestraat 69,3000 Leuven, BelgiumbHasselt University, Faculty of Business Economics, Agoralaan Gebouw D, 3590 Diepenbeek, Belgium

Scandinavian Journal of Management (2014) 30, 317—331

KEYWORDSDiversity managementpractices;Ethnic equality at work;Ethnic minorities;Employment relation;Structural inequality;Broadened norms

Abstract Taking a critical, performative stance, this study aims to advance our understandingof diversity management enhancing ethnic equality at work. Relying on a multiple-case study, weinductively identify organizational practices that foster the valuing of multiple competencies andthe ability to express multiple identities, two key organizational markers of ethnic equalityadvanced in the gender and diversity literature. Our analysis indicates that ethnic equality isfostered by practices that broaden dominant norms on competencies and cultural identities, andavoid reducing ethnic minority employees to mere representatives of a stigmatized social group.In contrast to ‘classical’ diversity management practices which focus on individuals’ cognitivebiases toward out-group members, these practices redefine what is ‘standard’ in the employmentrelationship, hereby structurally countering ethnic inequality within organizational boundaries.# 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

ScienceDirect

j ou rn al home pag e: http: / /w ww. e l se v ier. com/ loc ate /sc ama n

Introduction

Despite two decades of research documenting and theorizingpower inequality between the majority and historicallyunderrepresented groups in organizations (Linnehan & Kon-rad, 1999; Prasad, Pringle, & Konrad, 2006), our currentknowledge on how organizations can actually achieve powerequality remains poor. The diversity management (DM) prac-tices advanced in the scientific and managerial literature —e.g. formalized human resource management (HRM) proce-dures, diversity training, networking and mentoring — have

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +32 16 326874; fax: +32 16 326732.E-mail addresses: maddy.janssens@kuleuven.be (M. Janssens),

patrizia.zanoni@uhasselt.be (P. Zanoni).1 Tel.: +32 11 268672.

0956-5221/$ — see front matter # 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reservehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2013.12.006

not only been found largely ineffective in fostering equality(Kalev, Dobbin, & Kelly, 2006; Kulik & Roberson, 2008) buteven counterproductive to the extent that they reinforcestereotypes and exacerbate the majority’s hostility towardminorities (Bond & Pyle, 1998; Linnehan & Konrad, 1999).

Starting from the social psychological assumption thatinequality primarily originates in the negative in-group/out-group dynamics resulting from individuals’ biased cognitiveprocesses (Byrne, 1971; Tajfel & Turner, 1986), classical DMpractices aim to correct majority individuals’ stereotypingand prejudices (e.g. diversity training), to limit the discre-tion of biased decision makers regarding allocation andrewarding decisions (e.g. formalization of HRM procedures),and to compensate for majority’s exclusion of minorities dueto their bias (e.g. networking and mentoring programs).Although social psychology acknowledges that contextualfactors play a key role in triggering or diminishing negativein-group/out-group dynamics (Allport, 1954; Pettigrew &

d.

318 M. Janssens, P. Zanoni

Tropp, 2006), these practices do not address them. Rather,they directly address cognition, leaving organizationalstructures and routines which reproduce inequalities andnormalize the privileges of the dominant group (e.g. whiteand male employees) unchanged (Jones & Stablein, 2006;Kalev et al., 2006; Prasad, 2006; Zanoni, Janssens,Benschop, & Nkomo, 2010).

In this study, we seek to envision alternative DM practiceswhich more effectively foster ethnic equality (cf. Holvino &Kamp, 2009; Litvin, 2006). To do so, we inductively identifypractices — formalized organizational system, process, orpractice developed and implemented for the purpose ofeffectively managing a diverse workforce (Yang & Konrad,2011) — that achieve two key organizational markers ofethnic equality derived from the gender and diversity litera-ture: (1) the valuing of multiple knowledge, skills and com-petencies of a diverse personnel (rather than valuing solelythose of the majority) (Acker, 1990; Zanoni & Janssens, 2004;Zanoni & Janssens, 2007) and (2) the possibility for allemployees to bring their entire set of identities to work(rather than having to assimilate to the majority culture)(Cox, 1991, 1993; Linnehan & Konrad, 1999). These markerspoint to structural contextual characteristics of organiza-tions. They reflect the two main identity axes along whichinter-ethnic power relations occur in organizations: class —i.e. ethnic minority employees’ subordinate position in theemployment relation — and ethnicity — i.e. their ethnic/cultural/religious/linguistic subordinate position vis-a-visthe ethnic majority. By including both identity axes, we avoidreducing ethnic minority workers a priori to their particularcultural background, language and religion (Proudford &Nkomo, 2006).

Searching for alternative DM, this study seeks to contributeto the critically oriented diversity literature. While drawing ondifferent critical theories (e.g. post-structuralism, Marxisttheories, postcolonial theory, feminist perspectives), this lit-erature shares at its core an understanding of diversity associally (re)produced in ongoing, context-specific organiza-tional processes which both reflect and reproduce structuralpower relations (Prasad et al., 2006; Zanoni et al., 2010).Power is conceptualized as a relation emerging from specificmaterial and/or ideological structures, rather than as beinglocated in individual cognition. Accordingly, these theoriesprovide lenses that are suitable to highlight how organizationalpractices reinforce inequality along identity lines or, conver-sely, challenge structural elements of inequality.

In undertaking this search for alternative DM, we areaware of the difficulties and contradictions inherent tobuilding ‘critical’ diversity theory from practices in capitalistorganizations (cf. Foldy, 2002; Fournier & Grey, 2000). Weneither deny nor champion the inherently instrumental nat-ure of management. Rather, we take notice of it and opt totemporarily bracket our fundamental critique to engage withsuch practices (cf. Anthony, 1998) and gain an understandingof how organizations can achieve more equality between themajority and minorities, despite (and even, possibly, byvirtue of) their capitalistic nature. We follow Pringle, Konrad,and Prasad’s (2006) call for pushing critical approachesbeyond the mere examination and exposition of situationsof dominance and repression, melding them into the prag-matics of the daily management of diversity. So, we refuse toleave DM to non-critical, functionalistic research paradigms

which aim to enhance performance instead of challenginginequalities (cf. Foldy, 2002). At the same time, we acknowl-edge the difficulties of the task at hand and do not evadecritically self-reflecting on the (im)possibilities of equality-fostering DM practices in capitalist organizations.

Empirically, we present in depth one organization — a callcenter — that stood out in a larger multiple-case study of tenorganizations for the equality it had achieved between ethnicmajority and minority employees along the two above-men-tioned markers. We complement our case analysis by com-paring the practices of this organization with thoseimplemented in the other nine, less equal organizations.Our findings suggest that organizations can enhance ethnicequality by deploying their power to enforce practices thatredefine the employment relationship along broadenednorms and avoid reducing ethnic minority employees to mererepresentatives of a stigmatized social group. Capitalistorganizations are not necessarily sites maintaining ethnicinequality. By enforcing alternative structures, they canavoid reproducing the ethnic inequality institutionalized inbroader society within their own boundaries, taking up apioneering role in advancing ethnic equality.

Theoretical background

‘Classical’ diversity management practices

Whereas the critical diversity literature has pointed to struc-tural organizational characteristics as the main reason for theenduring disadvantages of ethnic minorities at the workplace,the practices commonly advanced in the DM literature focus onindividuals’ cognition and related discriminatory behavior(Kalev et al., 2006). We review here the main DM practicesand their shortcomings as found in empirical studies.

One of the main diversity practices is formalized HRMprocedures. Here, the argument is that objective and pre-specified criteria in selection, promotion, lay-off decisions(Konrad & Linnehan, 1995; Reskin, 2003), performanceappraisal and pay structures (Elvira & Graham, 2002) willrestrict ethnic majority decision makers’ discretion andprevent cognitive biases to shape allocation and rewardingdecisions, reducing discrimination. While widespread, thisdiversity practice is not without discussion. Scholars havepointed to its limited impact because decisions makers’discretion is not totally removed (Linnehan & Konrad,1999) and, more importantly, because HRM systems continueto be culturally biased, valuing the skills and the qualities ofthe ethnic majority (Acker, 1990; Bond & Pyle, 1998). Thislatter critique is in line with our starting argument that afocus on individuals’ cognition does not adequately addresspower differentials and equality between social identitygroups.

A second widespread practice is training. Based on thesocial psychological insight that information may reduce bias(Fiske, 1998), training modules familiarize employees withanti-discrimination law, suggest behavioral changes, andincrease cultural awareness and cross-cultural communica-tion (Pendry, Driscoll, & Field, 2007). However, some studiesindicate that information about out-group members’ cultureactually reinforces group stereotypes and prejudices (Ellis &Sonnenfeld, 1994; Rynes & Rosen, 1995) does not change

Alternative diversity management 319

attitudes toward particular groups (Kulik & Roberson, 2008),and does not necessarily result in behavioral change (Hite &McDonald, 2006).

Finally, dedicated networking and mentoring initiativeshave been designed to counter minorities’ social isolationdue to homophily patterns (Ibarra, 1995; Mollica, Gray, &Trevino, 2003). These initiatives are based on research show-ing that minority employees typically have less homophilous(same-race or same-sex) ties, less interpersonal closenessand fewer overlapping social circles providing social andinstrumental support for their careers. However, also speci-fically designed mentoring or networking practices havefound to be largely ineffective in fostering equality (Kalevet al., 2006). A first reason that has been advanced to explainthis is that cross-race or cross-sex mentoring, more oftenthan same-race or same-sex mentoring, produces conflictand does not meet all minorities’ needs (Thomas, 2001).Further, it is argued that the formality of specificallydesigned mentoring initiatives may impede their impact,as formal mentoring relationships provide less mentoringfunctions than informal ones (Ragins & Cotton, 1999).

As a whole, there is little empirical evidence that thecurrent DM practices are adequate to foster ethnic equalityat work. Our argument is that they are ineffective becausethey focus directly on individuals’ cognition rather thanaddressing the structural dimension of privilege, domination,disadvantage and deprivation (Glastra, Meerman, Schedler,& Sjiera de Vries, 2000; Zanoni et al., 2010). As Kalev et al.(2006) argue, although cognitive bias and its consequencesmay provide explanations of inequality at work, interven-tions focused on these aspects are not necessarily the bestsuited for its remediation: ‘‘Understanding the cause ofmalaria and understanding its treatment are two differentthings. Whether a prescription for inequality is effective is aninherently empirical question’’ (p. 591). Following theirreasoning, we opted for a qualitative, multiple-case researchdesign, a design allowing for the inductive identification oforganizational practices fostering ethnic equality. Our searchis guided by two organizational markers of ethnic equalityderived from the critical gender and diversity literature.However, we do not uphold one particular critical theory,as this would limit our ability to inductively identify practicesbased on their effectiveness in reducing ethnic inequality.

Organizational markers of ethnic equality

The gender and diversity literature points to two structuralequality markers of an ethnically diverse organization: thevaluing of multiple forms of knowledge, skills and compe-tencies and enabling all employees to express their identi-ties. Both markers are crucial as they address structuralaspects of the organizational context determining powerdifferentials between employees belonging to differentsocio-demographic groups.

The first marker originates in the sociologically orientedliterature which highlights that organizations have tradition-ally valued the competencies and skills of the social groups inhistorical positions of power, downplaying the value of thoseof less privileged groups (Acker, 1990; Cockburn, 1991; Stein-berg, 1990). What is competence and, conversely, who iscompetent is consequently not an ethnicity-neutral (norgender-neutral) decision. ‘Competence’ involves judgment

and ethnicity (and gender) affect assumptions about skill,resulting in decisions that while males are the more compe-tent, more suited to the job than are others (Acker, 2006),particularly in the US—European context. Ethnic inequality atwork has therefore a structural component as the dominantgroups in society have historically decided on the value ofparticular competences and skills and organizational prac-tices (such as recruitment, wage setting) create hierarchy inwhich ethnic (and gender) inequalities are maintained inorganizations (Acker, 2006). Although the stress of the socio-logical literature is on the role of ideological structures ingenerating material and symbolic inequality, these insightsare not completely extraneous to the more psychologicallyoriented literature. For instance, status theory formulatesthe analogous argument that status inequality betweenmembers of those groups is legitimated by associating dif-ferent social identities with different levels of competence(Ridgeway & Correll, 2006). Albeit in a less explicit way, Elyand Thomas’s (2001) learning-and-integration paradigmpoints in a similar direction. It underlines the importanceof encouraging employees to bring their entire demographicand cultural knowledge to work, despite the fact that suchknowledge has been historically devalued by organizations,as this fosters a ‘diversity mindset’ among the personnel,leading to positive intergroup relations.

Most critically oriented diversity scholars take however askeptical stance toward turning to the logic of competenciesto enhance equality in organization. They warn that theessentialistic and utilitarian conceptualization of identity,which is typical of the ‘business case’, will not lead to moreequality (Lorbiecki & Jack, 2000; Noon, 2007). Although weagree that the valuing of multiple competencies alone is not asufficient condition to achieve ethnic equality, we hold that itis likely to be a necessary one. Arguably, as within a capita-listic logic employees are human resources functional toproducing value for the organization, employees who areseen as possessing valuable competencies are in a morefavorable power position vis-a-vis both the employer andemployees who are seen as not possessing them. The associa-tion of ethnic minorities with valuable competencies is thuslikely to reduce inequality along ethnic lines as it countersthe dominant assumption about (ethnic) minorities’ low(er)competence. This is well illustrated by Zanoni and Janssens’s(2007) study of organizations which, by valuing minorityemployees’ competencies, offer them possibilities of‘micro-emancipation’, despite the exploitative nature ofthe employment relation.

A second key marker of ethnic equality originates in Cox’s(1991, 1993) foundational model of the multicultural orga-nization. Theoretically grounded in Gordon’s (1964) socio-logical work, this model argues for pluralism through themajority and the minority’s mutual acculturation. Allemployees should be allowed to bring their entire set ofidentities to work rather than be required to assimilate intothe dominant culture based on the majority’s identity. Theunderlying idea is that power inequality originates in orga-nizational settings which are infused with cultural normsreflecting historically dominant (ethnic) identities, fore-closing the expression of others. Many organizations remain‘monocultural’ and require (ethnic) minorities to assimilateto such norms. Yet such expectation is not only unethical, itis also unrealistic. Studies on the experiences of ethnic

320 M. Janssens, P. Zanoni

minority employees at the workplace indicate how, despiteminorities’ efforts to assimilate, the majority keeps seeingthem as ‘other’ (Healy, Bradley, & Forson, 2011; Ogbonna &Harris, 2006; Van Laer & Janssens, 2011). Whiteness studieshave well theorized how the dominant ethnic group insociety acquires its structural social, political and culturaladvantage thanks to its social status. ‘White privilege’indeed refers to the package of unearned assets which whitepeople can count on cashing in each day (McIntosh, 2004).These advantages derive from existing inequality structuresand thus remain invisible to white people, but are obvious tonon-whites. As long as unspoken cultural norms remainunquestioned, thinking about ‘‘equality and equity is keptincomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferreddominance’’ (McIntosh, 2004: 192). Acknowledging suchnorms is thus an essential precondition to redesign socialsystems such as organizations to attain structural equality.

Research design

The study site

This study is based on ten ethnically diverse organizations: acall center, a wholesale producer dealer, a logistic company,a scaffold construction company, a hospital, a transportcompany, a chemical company, a hotel, a home for elderly,and an NGO in development cooperation. They were inves-tigated in a publicly funded research project aiming atfostering the employment of ethnic minorities, officiallydefined as nationals of countries outside the EU15 (i.e.Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany,Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portu-gal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom) or whose parents (mini-mum one) or grandparents (minimum 2) are non EU15nationals.2 The organizations are small- and medium-sizedcompanies3 (SMEs) in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking region ofBelgium.4 They were identified from a list of organizationsparticipating in a government scheme providing public fund-ing and consulting services for implementing diversity initia-tives. Selection criteria were minimal size of the organizationto secure a sufficient number of interviews, and sectoral andregional spreading.

These organizations represent a particularly suitable con-text to look for effective DM for a number of reasons. SinceBelgium has no tradition of affirmative action legislation, DMpractices in Belgian organizations are less likely to beadopted for merely legal compliance. This is even morethe case for SMEs, which, having less resources than largercompanies, tend not to implement practices solely for win-dow-dressing (Bacon & Hoque, 2005). Finally, it shouldfurther be observed that SMEs are particularly relevant for

2 This definition is used in work-related policy, as individuals withorigins outside the EU15 area score remarkably lower on work-related indicators.3 According to the EU definition, these are companies with less

than 250 employees.4 Belgium is composed of three main regions: Dutch-speaking

Flanders, French-speaking Wallonia, and mainly French-speakingyet officially bilingual Brussels.

the employment of ethnic minorities in Europe as theyaccount for 99.8 percent of European enterprises and 69.8percent of total employment (European Commission, 2003).

Ethnicity in our study can be best understood as a combi-nation of low-education, culture, religion, and language.Reflecting ethnic minorities’ disadvantaged position in theBelgian labor market, most ethnic minority employees in ourten cases were low educated and mostly employed in lower-rank jobs. As in other European countries, ethnic minoritiessuffer from high unemployment rates, and, when employed,are concentrated in sectors at the low end of the economy(OECD, 2008), due to their significant lower educationalqualifications (OECD, 2008) as well as discrimination (Arrijn,Feld, & Nayer, 1998). Further, Flanders knows a strong soci-etal discourse of ethnic minorities as ‘allochthons’ — fromthe Greek, meaning ‘from another country’ — as opposed to‘autochtons’ — individuals with origins in the country. In thelast decade, this discourse has been mainly used to refer toMuslim labor immigrants and their descendants (Ceuppens &Geschiere, 2005), who suffer from a particularly weak socio-economic position and whose social mobility has, till today,remained limited. In this discourse, minorities’ disadvan-taged socio-economic position is often presented as resultingfrom their alleged unwillingness to learn Dutch and ‘their’culturally specific values and behaviors. The stress on lan-guage likely derives from the historical exclusion of Dutchfrom the public sphere, dominated by French. In Flanders,the inability to speak Dutch retains today a strong negativeconnotation as it is interpreted as contempt for Flemishculture. Concerning employment relations more generally,Belgium is characterized by institutionalized collective bar-gaining at the sectoral level guaranteeing legally employedindividuals’ minimum protection standards and wages.

The call center stood out of our ten organizations for itsequality in terms of the recognition of competencies and theexpression of identities. Founded in 1998, this company grewout of a socio-economic development project to stimulatethe revival of an underprivileged urban area with high unem-ployment. Today, it is a for-profit company offering telemar-keting, telephone market research and help desk services in avariety of European languages. The company has a flatorganizational structure with four organizational levels:operators (151), supervisors (3), management (5), and theCEO. At the time of the study, 45 (28 percent) of the 160employees of the call center had a foreign background, fromcountries like Morocco, Ghana, Turkey, Senegal, Cameroon,but also European countries such as Poland, Rumania, Italy,and Spain. This percentage is rather high as 8.2 of the totalBelgian population has a foreign nationality (OECD, 2005).5

Most ethnic minority (97 percent) and majority (93 percent)employees worked as call operators. One of the three super-visors was Moroccan; no ethnic minority employees were inany of the few management positions. The call center’sworkforce ethnic composition well reflects the compositionof the Belgian workforce resulting from various waves ofmigration since the 1950s.

5 However, this figure is an underestimation as it does not includethe population with foreign origins who has obtained the Belgiancitizenship, on which no official data is available.

Alternative diversity management 321

Method

For each of the ten companies, we collected data throughsemi-structured interviews and documents such as the ‘diver-sity plan’ drafted to benefit from government support anddescribing the organizations’ DM initiatives. In total, 116interviews were conducted at the workplace during workinghours. They lasted between one and two hours and wererecorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis. In each case,respondents included the person responsible for DM and/or thehuman resource manager, managers supervising an ethnicallydiverse group of employees, ethnic majority employees, eth-nic minority employees, and if present, representatives of theunions. The interviews aimed at exploring any organizationalpractice that affected ethnic (in)equality, including not onlythe classical DM practices but also the reason for recruitingminority employees (Kossek & Pichler, 2006), work processes(Janssens & Zanoni, 2005), and human resource practices(Chen, Chanda, D’Netto, & Monga, 2009).

The interviews were conducted by four male and femaleethnic majority researchers who were part of the largerresearch project team led by the first author, and who werefamiliar with research on diversity. Drawing on our priorexperience with qualitative data collection on diversity inthe workplace, we drafted the interview protocol and dis-cussed it with the interviewers. We specifically drew theirattention to the vulnerable position of ethnic minorityrespondents and the importance of formulating questionsin a simple, concrete language as many interviewees wouldnot be speaking in their own mother tongue and some wouldhave limited schooling. A few interviews were conducted inFrench. Overall, we stressed the need to engage in a dialogwith informants to understand their perspective, rather thanmechanically reproducing the questions. To avoid probing,we put general questions first and more specific ones ondiversity later.

Data analysis was guided by the constant comparativemethod (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) whereby intra- and inter-case differences and similarities in the two equality markerswere drawn out in relation to consistencies and variations inorganizational practices. We first assessed each organizationin terms of the two equality markers. We selected all inter-viewees’ accounts that indicated whether or not employeesfelt valued for their competencies and referred to the abilityor inability of expressing their identities at work and dis-cussed them jointly.

We then identified the organizational practices related tothe two markers. To do so, we focused on the transcribeddata which explicitly referred to practices that were men-tioned by interviewees as relevant to managing an ethnicallydiverse workforce or as influencing minority and majorityemployees’ working experience. We did not rely here on an apriori definition of ethnicity to include/exclude practices butrather incorporated all practices that respondents men-tioned when asked about ethnic minorities, such as religion,language, skin color, and weak labor market position. Withineach case, we checked the mentioned practices across inter-viewees and how the organization’s diversity policy wasdescribed in the documents but found only minor discrepan-cies. For instance, in one organization, accounts by bothminority and majority employees pointed to a laissez-faireapproach that negatively influenced their work experience,

yet this practice was (unsurprisingly) not mentioned bymanagers. We decided to incorporate all practices identifiedby at least two types of respondents or data sources in ouranalysis. Table 1 presents an overview of the results of ouranalysis for all cases in our sample, indicating for each caseits equality outcome in terms of the two markers and the setof identified organizational practices.

In the results section below, we focus our analysis on theset of practices of the call center. However, to understandhow the practices of this organization foster equality, weselectively compare them with those implemented in theother nine organizations and report their less positive/negative effects on the two equality markers. This analyticalapproach allows developing an in-depth, nuanced analysis ofa best case organization without losing the explanatorypower of a cross-case comparative design (Eisenhardt &Graebner, 2007).

Results

All the information we collected at the call center pointed toa company characterized by a high degree of ethnic equality.The words of a supervisor of Moroccan origins are illustrativeof respondents’ accounts:

The different backgrounds are enriching. I do not see thatsomebody is black, disabled, etc. We are family. Here itslively, warm, thanks to differences. There is solidarity andtogetherness. Also, the different nationalities make usmultilingual, a great advantage for this organization.

Equality was achieved by means of a virtuous combinationof organizational practices. Some of these practices — abusiness/social recruitment policy, teamwork in multi-ethnicteams, a competency-based job classification and a devel-opmental evaluation system — valued multiple competen-cies, while others — multicultural practices, a two-languagepolicy and a flexible work schedule policy — enabled theexpression of multiple identities.

Practices valuing multiple competencies

A business/social recruitment policyA first practice crucial to valuing multiple competencies wasthe call center’s recruitment policy based on both businessand social criteria. Specialized in multilingual services, thecompany considered ethnic minorities’ linguistic skills astrategic asset to deliver its services internationally. TheCEO told us:

We are multilingual and work with native speakers. Peoplewho really speak their mother tongue are crucial in ourindustry. This way we can deliver services in most Eur-opean languages. For instance, an American company waslooking for somebody here to open the European marketfor them. They came to us because we had the languageknowledge they needed. We have the basic languages:French, Dutch, English, German, Italian, Portuguese,Spanish, Romanian, Polish, etc.

At the same time, the company offered employment toparticularly vulnerable individuals in the labor market suchas migrant female single parents, political refugees, and

Table 1 Ethnic equality at the ten cases and their organizational practices.

Markers of ethnicequality

Cases

Call center Wholesale producedealer

Logistic company Scaffold constructioncompany

Hospital

Valuing multiplecompetencies

High Low Medium High Medium

Expression of multipleidentities

High Low Low Low Low

Focus of organizationalpractice

Work design andethnic minorities’position within it

Ethnic minorities in samejobs as majoritycolleagues in ethnicallymixed project teams,having both individualand common goals

Ethnic minorities in low-status, upstream job in asequential work flow

Ethnic minorities in low-status, upstream job in asequential work flow,complemented by weeklyteam meetings

Ethnic minorities in samejobs as majoritycolleagues in ethnicallymixed permanent teams,responsible for commongoal

Ethnic minorities inmainly segregated, low-status job of logisticalassistant + acting astranslator for ethnicminorities’ patients

Job classification Competence-based jobclassification, consistingof developmental stagesof skill acquisition

Newcomers’introduction

Developmentalnewcomers’ introduction

Adjusted newcomers’introduction to addresslanguage difficulties

Job evaluation Developmentalperformance appraisalfocused on improving oneparticular skill

Non-transparentevaluation system

Meritocratic evaluationbased on explicit criteria

Meritocratic evaluationbased on explicit criteria

Recruitment Recruitment for ethnicminorities’ languageskills and motivation aswell as offering themchance to work

Recruitment based onavailability rationale

Recruitment based onavailability rationale

Recruitment based onavailability rationale

Recruitment for ethnicminorities’ specificcultural knowledge andlanguage skills

Religious practices Religious practices areallowed

Religious practices aretolerated

Religious practices arenot allowed

Religious practices arenot allowed

Discriminatorybehavior

Anti-discrimination policy Laissez-faire policy Change of team membercomposition if withinteam conflict

Social activities Multicultural socialactivities

Social activities basedupon ethnic majority’shabits

Social activities mainlyfor majority employees tolearn other cultures(neighborhood walks)

Language Two-language policy One-language policy One-language policy One-language policy One-language policy

322

M.

Jansse

ns,

P. Zan

oni

Table 1 (Continued )

Markers of ethnicequality

Cases

Call center Wholesale producedealer

Logistic company Scaffold constructioncompany

Hospital

Work schedule Work schedule flexibilitypolicy attendingemployees’ individualneeds

Work schedule flexibilitypolicy attendingemployees’ individualneeds

Work schedule flexibilitypolicy attendingemployees’ individualneeds

Markers of ethnicequality

Cases

Chemical company Hotel Transport company Nursing home Social profit organization

Valuing multiplecompetencies

High Medium Medium Low Medium

Expression ofmultiple identities

Medium Medium Medium Low Low

Focus of organizationalpractice

Work design and ethnicminorities’ positionwithin it

Ethnic minorities in samejobs as majoritycolleagues in ethnicallymixed permanent teams

Specific ethnic minoritygroups concentrated inspecific jobs yet ethnicminorities in allorganizational ranks

Ethnic minorities mainlyin operative jobs in small,ethnically mixedpermanent teams

Ethnic minorities in low-status jobs

Ethnic minorities indifferent jobs and theyare involved in projectswith their country oforigin

Job classificationNewcomers’

introductionOn-the-job training Company-oriented

newcomers’ introductionAd-hoc newcomers’introduction

Ad-hoc newcomers’introduction

Job evaluation Meritocratic evaluationbased on explicit criteria

Meritocratic evaluationbased on explicit criteria

Non-transparentevaluation system toreceive promotion

Evaluation based onintegration into specificwork culture

Ad-hoc evaluationoriented towardidentifying need fortraining

Recruitment Recruitment based onavailability rationale

Recruitment based onavailability rationale andethnic minorities’language and culturalskills

Recruitment based onavailability rationale

Recruitment based onavailability rationale

Recruitment based onsocial responsibilityrationale

Religious practices Religious practices aretolerated

Religious practices aremostly allowed but notwhen interfering withwork

Religious practices areallowed

Discriminatorybehavior

Change of team membercomposition if withinteam conflict

Informal mediationbefore laying-off theperson

Anti-discrimination policy

Alte

rnative

dive

rsity m

anage

ment

323

Table

1(Continued

)

Markers

ofethnic

equality

Cases

Chemical

compan

yHotel

Tran

sport

compan

yNursinghome

Social

profitorgan

ization

Social

activities

Socialactivitiestaking

into

accountcu

ltural

difference

s(food)

Social

activitiesbased

uponethnic

majority’s

hab

its,

afew

ethnic

minorities’

festivities

Social

activitiesbased

uponethnic

majority’s

hab

its

Social

activitiesbased

uponethnic

majority’s

hab

its

New

social

activities

focu

sedonlearningother

cultures

Langu

age

One-lan

guag

epolicy

One-lan

guag

epolicy,

langu

ageco

ursesfor

ethnic

minorities

One-lan

guag

epolicy

One-lan

guag

epolicy

One-lan

guag

epolicy,

langu

ageco

ursesfor

ethnic

minorities

Work

schedule

Work

schedule

flexibility

policy

attending

employe

es’

individual

needs

Work

schedule

flexibility

policy

attending

employe

es’

individual

needs

324 M. Janssens, P. Zanoni

persons with disability. This policy was based on the doubleidea that they deserved to get a chance to work and that theywould be more committed and loyal to the company thansomebody with better employment chances:

For example, if four candidates are all good, we look attheir specific situations. The Belgian is 25 years old andjust got out of school. The African is 45, a refugee. We askourselves: ‘Who of the two experiences the most difficul-ties in the labor market?’ And then we would say, let’s takethe African. The other is as good but has more chances.That’s the philosophy behind it (manager).

Our people really choose for this job and want to makesomething of it. They are proud of what they do. Thispositively affects the performance, how they are, theircommunication. They make more effort to come to anoutstanding result than somebody who’s just passing by(CEO).

This recruitment policy effectively acknowledged andvalued the linguistic and motivational competencies of itsdiverse workforce. Despite its clear business rationale, it wasstrongly appreciated both by ethnic minority and majorityemployees, as illustrated by the following quotes:

They need us because of our native language is French butthey also want to give us a chance. We really feel theywant to give us foreigners a chance to work. They [man-agement] don’t say that officially, but you see that.Because there are many foreigners here. So, it’s not justbusiness, it’s also a choice. Also the Belgians who workhere have a hard time finding a job. . . It’s not easy for meto find work here, surely not as foreigner and as I don’tspeak Dutch, and surely as a black (laughs). Really, peoplehave a lot of negative prejudices. I have been looking for ajob in several places but when there is that negativeprejudice, you don’t have a chance. That’s very disap-pointing. So, when I could start working here, I really tookthat chance very seriously (operator of Senegalese ori-gins).

This company has a special regime. How or what, I don’tknow exactly, but in any case, a special goal to be open forthose who have less chances, to focus especially on them.On the phone, you don’t see who is on the line. It’s not justpeople of a foreign origin. Here, you have for instance alot of fat people, if I may put it bluntly. That’s also ahandicap when you look for a job, just as skin color(operator of Belgian origins).

Despite its clear business rationale, this practice redefinescompetencies in a way that values those of a diverse work-force, fostering ethnic equality in the organization. Ratherthan using education and previous working experience assigns of competence — as organizations generally do, result-ing in the exclusion of ethnic minority candidates —, the callcenter stresses language skills, motivation and loyalty. Whilereflecting the exploitative nature of the employment rela-tion, this practice structurally redefines the organizationalunderstanding of who is ‘a good candidate’, countering thedominant representation of ethnic minorities as lacking

Alternative diversity management 325

competencies (cf. MacKenzie & Forde, 2009; Zanoni & Jans-sens, 2004) and resulting in occupational chances for ethnicminorities (and, more broadly, disadvantaged candidates).This does not often occur in Flemish organizations, whichgenerally either discriminate and exclude ethnic minoritiesor hire them as second-best workers merely to solve theshortage of majority candidates. Indeed, the other organiza-tions in our sample at best stressed avoiding discriminating onthe basis of ethnicity in recruitment.

Teamwork in multi-ethnic teamsA practice that further contributed to valuing multiple com-petencies was the organization of work in multi-ethnic teamswith both individual and collective goals. Operators wereinstructed in teams and then independently called customersby phone. This individually carried out task was embedded inproject teams, where operators helped and coached eachother by sharing their expertise and insights, enabling theachievement of both individual and common targets. Thefollowing quotes are illustrative:

In the team meetings, we discuss the best way to sell,what can be improved in the calls, changes. . . Teammembers can make suggestions. We look together forthe best manner to sell a product. If the client hascomments, we also discuss them. . . People learn fromeach other, they coach each other and exchange tips(female operator of Moroccan origins).

[Work as a call operator] is individual work, but it becomesteam work from the moment that you have the opportu-nity to listen to different experiences. We help each other.If somebody for instance is not reaching her sale targets,then we can ask each other: ‘How are you doing that?’ Weall help each other out. We work as a team (femaleoperator of Turkish origins).

This work design makes competencies of ethnic minorities(and of all employees) visible to co-workers. It fosters ethnicequality because, similar to the recruitment policy, it under-mines the societal ideology of minorities as less competentworkers (cf. MacKenzie & Forde, 2009; Zanoni & Janssens,2004). The key role of this collaborative work arrangement infostering this equality marker was confirmed by comparisonwith the other organizations in our sample. For instance,where ethnic minorities were concentrated in low-status jobsin a sequential workflow — e.g. the wholesale produce dealer,the logistic company and the hospital — minority and major-ity workers interacted largely when minorities made mis-takes, interrupting the flow of activities. As a result, in theseorganizations, minorities were perceived as less competentthan majority employees, in line with prevailing stereotypesin Flemish society at large.

A competency-based job classification anddevelopmental evaluation systemAt the same time, a competency-based job classification and adevelopmental evaluation system enabled the call center tovalue multiple competencies by highlighting their potentialrather than their shortcomings. The organization used a com-petency-based job classification consisting of four stages ofskill acquisition. This practice allowed to define employees’

jobs based on their individual strengths and preferences. Forinstance, an operator with local background told us:

I’m strong in helpdesk, less in sales. They know that I liketo hold longer calls; I haven’t yet received a remark aboutthat. . . they also have their goals, want to reach a certainpercentage but if they hear that somebody is very good inserving the customer, then it’s less important if you havesold or not; you gave good customer service. And there areother criteria for all calls. . .. And this way, everybody isgood in something.

At the highest competence level, employees could decidethemselves whether to work on several projects or focus onone, and they were free to change their preference overtime.

Practices with an evaluative component focused on anindividualized learning process in which employees couldgrow at their own pace, according to their own potential,rather than along an absolute norm. For instance, after theintroduction, newcomers were not monitored for a while toallow them to learn the job at ease. Our respondents experi-enced this practice as highly supportive:

In the beginning, they make you feel at ease. Here, it isreally so that they don’t force you. When you start workinghere, you don’t know a thing, it’s all new. And if they thenforce you in all these things: ‘You need to do that in thatway and this and that. . .’ They did say: ‘I hope you will getgood results’, but they didn’t push, pushing, no, thatdoesn’t happen here. Of course, if you have no results,then they will tell you: ‘Look, this can better, and that canbetter’, but not in terms like. . . they really welcome youhere (operator of Moroccan origins).

Interviewees also referred to developmental performanceappraisals focused on their achievements and identifying, ifnecessary, only one aspect for improvement at once. Thanksto this orientation toward personal improvement, they feltable to do their job and experienced a sense of value:

They correct you in a way that you become better everytime. They say: ‘You can better do it like this, when youtalk with a customer, and avoid saying this or that’(operator of Turkish origins).

Managers indicated that these practices were meant toenhance and broaden employees’ skills. They furtherdescribed how providing constructive feedback helped themto become more self-confident and assertive, fostering notonly their performance but also their personal development.For instance, the female supervisor of Moroccan origins told us:

There are many aspects of a person that change whensomebody starts working here, in terms of motivation,character. There are people who come in who are veryinsecure, but who now have much more punch. Someoperators were very timid, but they evolved completely.We also do individual coaching. When somebody is shy,afraid, or cries when being yelled at by a customer, weprovide individual support.

These practices further redefine the organizational under-standing of what are ‘valuable competencies’. They empha-size a multiplicity of competencies, focusing on employees’

326 M. Janssens, P. Zanoni

strengths, potential and individual improvement (cf. Clifton& Harter, 2003). By broadening the norms on competenciesand performance, various individual developmental pathswere created, letting all employees experience that theywere valued for what they could contribute to the organiza-tion. This approach stands in strong contrast to other orga-nizations where (ethnic minority) employees were evaluatedthrough a ‘meritocratic’ system based on mere compliantbehavior (i.e. coming on time, being a disciplined worker) —e.g. chemical company, logistic company — or arbitrarily —e.g. wholesale produce dealer.

Practices enabling the expression of multipleidentities

Multicultural practiceSeveral practices at the call center fostered equality byallowing the expression of multiple identities. We discussthem here together as they all contribute to enforcing multi-cultural norms in the organization rather than ethnic major-ity ones. For instance, the call center allowed religioussymbols and practices at work. Muslim respondents men-tioned the importance of being allowed to pray and to weara headscarf. For example, a Muslim female worker told us:

For the girls who wear a headscarf, it’s really good thatthey are allowed to. That they don’t have to take it off,‘cause I know it’s very hard for them. It’s good for them,that they don’t need to change that.

Also, the fasting hours during Ramadan were publiclycommunicated so that everybody knew when practicingMuslim employees would take a break to eat. According tothe managers, this enhanced ethnic majority employees’understanding and support for their fasting colleagues.The symbolic power of this religion-friendly policy can befully appreciated only by comparison with the other cases,where these expressions were forbidden, reflecting the eth-nic majority norm that expressions of one’s faith — especiallyof non-Christian ones — are inappropriate in the workplace.

To ensure that all employees were able to express theiridentities, the call center further implemented a strict anti-discrimination policy. From the female supervisor of Moroc-can origins, we learned that a temporary ethnic majority wasfired because she had made racist remarks on her. Otherethnic minority and majority respondents confirmed thisstrict anti-discrimination policy. Some interviewees men-tioned that the company made it clear already during therecruitment process:

Here you run into all colors, foreign origins, everything.. . .If you don’t feel at ease with people with other origins,then you are not going to start here, you wouldn’t getthrough the first interview, your eyes would fall out. . . It’sexpected, although it’s not required to become bestfriends or so. I think that they say it explicitly in thebeginning: ‘We have people like this and like that here, doyou think you fit here?’ (ethnic majority operator)

This anti-discrimination policy signaled to employees thatthe company would use its power position when employeesshowed no respect for the manifestations of other employ-ees’ identities. In the other companies, discriminatory

behavior was tolerated — wholesale produce dealer—orsolved by assigning the involved employees to another unit— e.g. scaffold construction company, chemical company.

Finally, also enabling the expression of employees’ multi-ple identities were the call center’s multicultural socialactivities. Organized on a regular basis, often to celebratethe end of a project, they created opportunities for ethnicminority respondents to bring their own music and dishes to adrink. Respondents emphasized that there were no specific‘ethnic’ evenings but that this was something ‘normal’ to do.An operator of Moroccan origins recounted:

There are often social events and then we go out together.We once went bowling until midnight. Next to it was CafeIle Afrique. I said, I know a bar here and then we all wentthere. They [colleagues] liked it, we started dancing in anAfrican way. We laughed, we stayed until 4am. . . we alsowent once to a Moroccan bar, or we go dance rai music.Everybody was there, and everybody was Moroccan thatday, we laughed a lot. It was fantastic.

Such social activities create space for the expression ofmultiple cultural identities. In contrast, other organizations —e.g. hotel, nursing home, transport company — also organizedsocial activities for their personnel, yet these reflected ethnicmajority’s common leisure activities, such as BBQs and bowl-ing, hereby creating a monocultural organization. Overall, thevarious multicultural practices are in line with Cox’s (1991)idea of the multicultural organization, allowing for multipleexpressions of religious and cultural identities rather thanimposing the ethnic majority norm on all employees.

Two-language policyA second practice enabling the expression of multiple iden-tities was the two-language policy allowing French as thesecond working language next to Dutch. As French wasspoken by many ethnic minorities, employees were allowedto use it and all official documents were translated in bothlanguages. This practice provided the possibility to expressoneself in the language in which one felt most comfortable.For instance, an operator of Moroccan origins said:

. . . it’s easier for people to talk another language everynow and then. Above all French and Dutch. If you can’tspeak Dutch very well, but you can understand, then it canhappen that you talk French to me and I answer back inDutch to you.

The CEO presented the two-language policy as ‘‘a matterof being polite’’ when working with a multilingual workforce.The same politeness principle applied to ethnic minorities,who were not allowed to speak their native language at work,a frequent cause of inter-group conflict in the organizationsin our study. The symbolic power of including French as anofficial language in the work place is particularly strong in theFlemish context, where language remains a particularlysensitive political issue. Indeed, all other organizations onlyallowed Dutch on the work floor.

A flexible work schedule policyA last practice allowing the expression of multiple identitieswas the call center’s flexible work schedule policy. Allemployees could obtain flexible schedules for a variety of

Alternative diversity management 327

personal needs and requests, independent of whether theywere related to care, religion, family or other. An ethnicmajority operator told us:

Our work schedules are adjusted to our needs, because ofsmall children or any other kind of reason. . . we can almostdecide ourselves.

Ethnic minority interviewees were highly appreciative ofthis practice as it allowed them to take an extra day ofvacation during Ramadan or take longer vacation to travel totheir countries of origin. As the company did not close itsoperations around Christmas, non-Christian employees couldkeep working and save their vacation days for their ownreligious holidays.

This individual-centered flexibility policy treated a broadvariety of requests as equally legitimate, allowing allemployees to arrange working hours in ways that werecompatible not only with religious practices but also, morebroadly, with their other social roles outside work. In thisway, the organization refrained from only considering ethnicmajority requests to be legitimate requests. This practicewas implemented in five of the ten organizations understudy, and facilitated in all of them the expression of multi-ple identities (cf. Kamenou, 2008). Often, the flexibilitypolicy was presented by managers as compensating employ-ees’ own flexibility in function of the employer’s needs. Thecall center, however, tried to limit flexibility demands onemployees. The company had for instance refused to extendworking hours into the evening, anticipating the difficultiesthis would have caused to employees with caring responsi-bilities.

Discussion

Driven by our concern to envision possibilities for an alter-native DM within the constraints of capitalist organizations,this study aimed at advancing the current knowledge onequality-fostering DM. We are aware that the call centercase might appear to the critical reader fairy tale-like,especially in the light of the literature on work and employ-ment conditions in call centers (Bain & Taylor, 2000; Fleming& Sturdy, 2011; Knights & McCabe, 2003) and the exploitationof ethnic minorities and migrants (Anderson & Ruhs, 2010;MacKenzie & Forde, 2009). Still, the DM practices we identi-fied were clearly exceptionally innovative and coherent,recognized by respondents in various positions and supportedby other available data sources.

Reflecting on our empirical results, we propose two impor-tant ways in which the organizational practices we identifiedeffectively foster ethnic equality. On the one hand, theybroaden the norms on both competences and identities. Onthe other, they approach ethnic minority employees as fullsubjects. Hereunder, we first discuss these key insights in thelight of the existing DM literature and then indicate theircontribution to the critical diversity literature. Our argumentis that, in order to foster ethnic equality within organiza-tions, diversity management should not only address unequalpower relations between ethnic majority and minoritygroups, as generally pled (cf. Linnehan & Konrad, 1999)but also address the (culturally defined) relationshipbetween the employer and employees.

Alternative diversity management: counteringsocietal, institutionalized ethnic inequality

A main insight that emerges from our study is that equality-fostering DM is about broadening norms on competences andidentities, countering societal, institutionalized understand-ings of ethnic minorities both as workers and as ethnicminorities. Our most equal organization, the call center,refuses to apply institutionalized categorical identities(and the relations between them) that are dominant in thesurrounding society within its own boundaries. This is crucialas, according to Tilly (1989), such imitation is precisely one ofthe key mechanisms of the reproduction of inequality alongsocio-demographic lines. Organizations tend to copy socialstructures including unequal categorical relations from otherlocations because they are familiar, decreasing individuals’transaction costs of learning them (not because they areinherently better in terms of efficiency). Our ‘best case’though refuses to just imitate. Rather, it redefines its under-standing of ethnic minority employees so that representa-tions of the ‘normal/ideal worker’ in the organization aredestabilized (Benschop, 2001; Ostendorp & Steyaert, 2009;Prasad & Mills, 1997) and ethnic minority workers are nolonger constructed as deviations from the dominant norm. Itdoes so by broadening norms which offer multiple position-ings that are less hierarchical in value.

In particular, the recruitment, job classification and eva-luation practices in the call center redefine the organizationalunderstanding of what valuable competencies are and, there-fore, who is a good candidate and what is good performance.Such broadened norms foster equality as they challenge thesocietal assumption that ethnic minorities are less competent.Instead of merely reproducing inequalities within the organi-zational boundaries (Acker, 2006), contributing to their insti-tutionalization, the broadened norms enacted through thepractices of the HR cycle decrease inequalities. ParaphrasingLiff and Wajcman’s (1996) argument that gender equality willnot be achieved as long as the ‘‘perceptions of job require-ments and procedures for assessing merit [are] saturated withgendered assumptions’’ (1996, p. 89), we argue that ethnicequality will not be achieved as long as the perceptions of jobrequirements and procedures for assessing merit are saturatedwith cultural assumptions. The work design further plays a keyfacilitating role in enforcing broadened norms on competencesin the every-day functioning of the organization. Specificallyconcerning the call center, multi-ethnic teams made ethnicminority employees’ contributions to work visible to all,countering the predominant ideology of ethnic minorities asless competent.

Similarly, the broader norms on cultural identitiesenforced by the practices of allowing religious symbols,two official languages, flexible work schedules and the strictnon-discrimination policy make room for the expression of abroader variety of identities. Refraining from an ethnocentricjudgment of religious practices, language use and requestsworthy of accommodation, the organization avoided repro-ducing monocultural, institutionalized norms within its bor-ders. Rather, it opened space for multiple identities. This is ofparticular significance to ethnic minorities whose culturalexpressions are often considered illegitimate both at workand in other public spheres (Modood, Triandafyllidou, &Zapata-Barrero, 2006).

328 M. Janssens, P. Zanoni

DM practices that broaden norms and offer multipleunderstandings of competence and multiple identity posi-tionings are effective in fostering ethnic equality becausethey subvert Western perceptions of ‘otherness’ in termsof, ethnicities, ‘races’, cultures, religions etc. Specifically,they destabilize the dominant hierarchical system of bin-aries which values the ethnic majority over the ethnicminority in work settings: e.g. skilled/unskilled, produc-tive/unproductive, and thus valuable/valueless. As arguedby postcolonial theory, such system serves to conceptuallymaneuver the West into a position of ontological super-iority over the Orient (Prasad, 2006; Said, 1978). Thepervasive structural inequality sustained by these collec-tively shared linguistic categories cannot be corrected atthe level of individuals’ cognition — for instance throughtraining —, as individuals rely on them to make sense ofsocial reality and act upon it. Inequality rather needs to beaddressed by changing the discursive structures throughorganizational practices and processes at the core of theorganization.

The destabilization of hierarchically ordered binary cate-gories further opens up novel possibilities for DM because itallows the organization to address ethnic minorities asemployees, rather than as members of ethnic minoritygroups. By replacing binaries with multiple positioning,diversity is normalized and the needs of ethnic minorityemployees can be cast as analogous to those of ethnicmajority ones, rather than automatically ascribed to theirspecific ethnic background. The advantage of this approach isthat ethnic minority employees are no longer essentialisti-cally reduced to mere representatives of a stigmatized socialgroup but are approached as ‘full’ subjects, a key conditionfor equality (cf. Zanoni & Janssens, 2004).

This point throws new light on the debate on whether DMshould rest on broad or narrow definition of diversity (Prasadet al., 2006). Critically oriented diversity scholars havetraditionally argued that, to be effective in promoting equal-ity, DM should focus on identity axes along which inequalityhas historically been structured, such as gender, ethnicity orsexual orientation (Holvino & Kamp, 2009; Liff, 1997; Linne-han & Konrad, 1999). Yet, the problem with a ‘target group’policy grounded on existing categories of employees asmembers of historically subordinate social groups is that itinevitably reproduces reified representations of minorityemployees (Jones & Stablein, 2006; Litvin, 1997; Zanoni &Janssens, 2004). Its emancipation purposes are underminedbecause the predominant negative representations of min-ority employees are perpetuated, denying them subjectivityand agency. In this sense, the destabilization of identitycategories constitutes in itself a political act (cf. Butler,1990; Yeatman, 1990), as it helps achieve the delicate bal-ance between ‘‘recogniz[ing] otherness while making spacefor individual experiences beyond categorization’’ (Ghorashi& Sabelis, 2013: p. 83).

Alternative diversity management and itscontribution to critical diversity literature

The critical diversity literature has traditionally viewedcapitalist organizations as maintaining and reproducing eth-nic inequality (Noon, 2010; Zanoni & Janssens, 2004) and

considered DM as a particular tool to this end (Prasad, 2006).Our study however suggests that a capitalist organization canpotentially be a site of social change, contributing to combatethnic inequality.

Until now, the diversity literature has largely discussedpower along socio-demographic identity groups, or thehistorical relation between minority and majority groupsresulting in their unequal access to resources (Linnehan &Konrad, 1999; Pringle et al., 2006). The argument is that‘‘intergroup power relationships constitute a fundamentalissue that diversity initiatives must engage to be effective’’(Linnehan & Konrad, 1999, p. 400). Although this is neces-sary, we argue that it might not be sufficient to fosterequality, as an exclusive focus on intergroup power rela-tions tends to obscure the specific role of the (majority)employer in reproducing (or countering) inequality. In otherwords, by conceiving power along socio-demographic iden-tity lines, the power of management is seen as originatingsolely in its membership to the dominant identity group.Management is cast as powerful because managers largelybelong to the cultural ‘majority’, thus similarly to majorityemployees.

Our findings however strongly indicate that managementis powerful also by virtue of its position in the employmentrelation, which grants it power over labor. This power can beeffectively used to redefine the employment relation in waysthat no longer match the profile of ethnic majority labor,avoiding the indirect discrimination of minorities. Theemployer can namely craft an employment relationship inwhich multiple competences are valued and multiple iden-tity positionings are offered and enforced in all its practices.As a result, an ‘alternative’ organizational space is createdwhere all employees’ contributions are valued and differ-ences are normalized, and where all employees areexpected to comply with broadened norms (rather thanasking only minority employees to unilaterally adjust andassimilate to historical majority employment norms). So,paradoxically, it is its by virtue of its power over an ethnicallydiverse labor that the call center is able to increase ethnicequality within that same labor and, at the same time, toharvest the business gains of doing so. In this sense, thepractices of the call center radically question institutiona-lized power relations along ethnicity, but less fundamentallythose along class, which are constitutive of capitalisticorganizing.

In the light of our result, we argue that to understand thedynamics of diversity and envision practices fostering ethnicequality, organizations should be conceptualized at once asexpressions of cultural majority norms and as expressions ofcapital within the employment relation. This double lens isindispensable to account for the complexities of power inreal organizational settings and address them effectivelythrough DM. Such insight echoes the argument of intersec-tionality scholars for researching and practicing more for-cefully and intentionally the simultaneity of identities such arace, gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexuality and class inorganizations (Holvino, 2010; McCall, 2005; Munro, 2001).Specifically, our study brings to the foreground that to openup new possibilities for understanding diversity manage-ment and to challenge (in)equality in organizations we needto interlock ethnicity in the employer—employee relation-ship, or class.

Alternative diversity management 329

The (im)possibilities of alternative diversitymanagement in capitalist organizations: a futureresearch agenda

With this study we have presented one ‘best case’ organiza-tion fostering ethnic equality by crafting broader norms oncompetences and identities. The capacity of this organiza-tion to challenge institutionalized inequality raises a wholenew set of important research questions for diversity scho-lars. Considering the boundary conditions of the call center,we propose the following directions.

Scholars may in the first instance examine what motivatesand drives an organization to enact multiple novel practicesrather than merely imitating dominant practices which insti-tutionalize inequality. In our case, the origins of the call centerin a socio-economic development project likely played a keyrole in its capacity to envision novel practices that attempt toalign business needs with ethnic equality. This calls for study-ing organizations which have an explicit social goal next to abusiness one, such as organizations within the socio-profitsector. To date, this literature remains rather limited (yetsee Kalonaityte, 2010; Tomlinson & Schwabenland, 2010). Butresearch may also focus on leadership within profit organiza-tions to study why an organization refuses to imitate socialstructures, hereby identifying the values and motives thatinitiate an organizational understanding of desirable practicestoward broader norms on competencies and identities. Insightson this matter may raise important implications (as well asresearch) for how change agents such as diversity managerscan help organizations consciously enact alternatives to mono-cultural practices and norms.

Second, scholars may want to explore organizationalcharacteristics that facilitate the crafting of broader normson competencies and identities. We suspect that in our casethe small size and flat structure facilitated the enforcementof alternative, broader norms throughout the organization. Inlarger, hierarchical organizations, there is often a wider slackin the application of official policies. Valuing a broadervariety of competencies is also likely to be more difficultwhen wage and benefits differences between the low andhigh ranks are large. Future research may therefore want tosearch for larger, more hierarchical ‘best case’ organizationsand investigate how organizational characteristics facilitateor hinder organizations in their capacity to establish equality-fostering practices. In doing so, we invite scholars to take anintersectional approach as many organizational factors pointprecisely to the relevance of the employment relation (i.e.‘class’) to foster equality.

Further, future research may want to consider the broaderinstitutional conditions that facilitate the redefinition andenactment of the employment relationship toward moreequal ethnic norms. We suspect that the relatively highdegree of workers’ protection characterizing the Belgianlabor market (e.g. minimum wage and an institutionalizedsystem of collective agreements on wages, benefits andemployment conditions mainly at the sectoral level) mightbe important as it enables single organizations to build theemployment relation on other aspects than wage. In con-trast, when wages are negotiated at the organizational level,they likely become the core aspect around which the employ-ment relationship is built. Diversity scholars therefore maywant to investigate whether overall workers’ protection

institutions represent a precondition for equality-fosteringorganizational practices to emerge, as if this is the case,political efforts should better be enlarged to include not onlyanti-discrimination legislation but also more general work-ers’ rights (cf. Harvey, 1993).

Finally, future research may benefit from simultaneouslyusing multiple markers to assess equality. In our study, wefocused on the two structural equality markers of valuingmultiple competences and allowing multiple identities,which are suitable to assess ethnic equality when there isa large gap in formal qualifications between the ethnicmajority and the ethnic minority and thus more rank-sensi-tive measures would skew results. However, when minorityand majority employees have similar educational profiles, werecommend research to consider adding to these two markersthe ‘classical’ structural indicators of power re-distribution,such as the degree of horizontal and vertical segregation.This will allow diversity scholars to gain a fuller and morefine-grained understanding of the way novel practices re-shape power relations and thus (in)equality.

In the aftermath of this study, the question remains underwhich conditions alternative business models can emerge incapitalist organization. Despite our prudence toward thevery possibility of equality in such organizations, we invitecritical diversity scholars to take a tempered radical stanceand not to give up the search for organizational practicescalling into question institutionalized inequality.

References

Acker, J. R. (1990). Hierarchies, jobs, bodies: A theory of genderedorganizations. Gender and Society, 4, 139—158.

Acker, J. R. (2006). Inequality regimes: Gender, class, and race inorganizations. Gender and Society, 20, 441—464.

Allport, G. W. (1954). The nature of prejudice. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Anderson, B., & Ruhs, M. (2010). Migrant workers: Who needs them? Aframework for the analysis of staff shortages, immigration andpublic policy. In M. Ruhs & B. Anderson (Eds.), Who needs migrantworkers? (pp. 15—51). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Anthony, P. (1998). Management education: Ethics versus morality. InM. Parker (Ed.), Ethics and organization (pp. 269—281). London:Sage.

Arrijn, P., Feld, S., & Nayer, A. (1998). Discrimination in access toemployment on grounds of foreign origin: The case of Belgium.International Labour Organisation .

Bacon, N., & Hoque, K. (2005). HRM in the SME sector: Valuableemployees and coercive networks. International Journal ofHuman Resource Management, 16, 1976—1999.

Bain, P., & Taylor, P. (2000). Entrapped by the ‘electronic panopti-con’? Worker resistance in the call centre. New Technology, Workand Employment, 15(1), 2—18.

Benschop, Y. (2001). Pride, prejudice and performance: Relationsbetween HRM, diversity and performance. International Journalof Human Resource Management, 12(7), 1166—1181.

Bond, M. A., & Pyle, J. L. (1998). Diversity dilemmas at work. Journalof Management Inquiry, 7, 252—269.

Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion ofidentity. London: Routledge.

Byrne, D. E. (1971). The attraction paradigm. New York, NY: Aca-demic Press.

Ceuppens, B., & Geschiere, P. (2005). Autochthony: Local or global?New modes in the struggle over citizenship and belonging in Africaand Europe. Annual Review of Anthropology, 34, 385—407.

330 M. Janssens, P. Zanoni

Chen, J., Chanda, A., D’Netto, B., & Monga, M. (2009). Managingdiversity through human resource management: An internationalperspective and conceptual framework. International Journal ofHuman Resource Management, 20, 235—251.

Clifton, D. O., & Harter, J. K. (2003). Investing in strengths. In A. K. S.Cameron, J. E. Dutton, & R. E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organiza-tional scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline (pp. 111—121). San Francisco: Berret-Koehler.

Cockburn, C. (1991). In the way of women. London: MacMillan.Cox, T. H. (1991). The multicultural organization. Academy of Man-

agement Executive, 5, 34—47.Cox, T. H. (1993). Cultural diversity in organizations. San Francisco,

CA: Berrett-Koehler.Eisenhardt, K. M., & Graebner, M. E. (2007). Theory building from

cases: Opportunities and challenges. Academy of ManagementJournal, 50, 25—32.

Ellis, C., & Sonnenfeld, J. A. (1994). Diverse approaches to managingdiversity. Human Resource Management, 33, 79—109.

Elvira, M. M., & Graham, M. E. (2002). Not just a formality: Paysystem formalization and sex-related earnings effects. Organiza-tion Science, 13, 601—617.

Ely, R. J., & Thomas, D. A. (2001). Cultural diversity at work:The effects of diversity perspectives on work group processesand outcomes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 46, 229—273.

European Commission. (2003). Observatory of European SMEs.Enterprise publications. 2003/7. European Commission.

Fiske, S. T. (1998). Stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. In D.T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Stereotyping, pre-judice and discrimination (pp. 357—411). NY: McGraw-Hill.

Fleming, P., & Sturdy, A. (2011). ‘Being yourself’ in the electronicsweatshop: New forms of normative control. Human Relations,64(2), 177—200.

Foldy, E. G. (2002). ‘Managing’ diversity: Identity and power inorganizations. In I. Aaltio & A. J. Mills (Eds.), Gender, identityand the culture of organizations (pp. 92—112). London: Routle-dge.

Fournier, V., & Grey, C. (2000). At the critical moment: Conditionsand prospects for critical management studies. Human Relations,53, 7—32.

Ghorashi, H., & Sabelis, I. (2013). Juggling difference and sameness:Rethinking strategies for diversity in organizations. ScandinavianJournal of Management, 29, 78—86.

Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of groundedtheory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.

Glastra, F., Meerman, M., Schedler, P., & Sjiera de Vries, S. (2000).Broadening the scope of diversity management: Strategic impli-cations in the case of the Netherlands. Relations Industrielles/Industrial Relations, 55/4, 698—724.

Gordon, M. (1964). Assimilation in American life. New York: OxfordPress.

Harvey, D. (1993). Class relations, social justice, and the politics ofdifference. In M. Keith & S. Pile (Eds.), Place and the politics ofidentity (pp. 41—66). London: Routledge.

Healy, G., Bradley, H., & Forson, C. (2011). Intersectional sensibil-ities in analyzing inequality regimes in public sector organiza-tions. Gender, Work and Organization, 18, 467—487.

Hite, L. M., & McDonald, K. S. (2006). Diversity training pitfalls andpossibilities: An exploration of small and mid-size US organiza-tions. Human Resource Development International, 9, 365—377.

Holvino, E. (2010). Intersections: The simultaneity of race, genderand class in organization studies. Gender, Work and Organization,3, 248—277.

Holvino, E., & Kamp, A. (2009). Diversity management: Are wemoving in the right direction? Reflections from both sides ofthe North Atlantic. Scandinavian Journal of Management, 25,395—403.

Ibarra, H. (1995). Race, opportunity and diversity of social circles inmanagerial networks. Academy of Management Journal, 38,673—703.

Janssens, M., & Zanoni, P. (2005). Many diversities for many services:Theorizing diversity (management) in service companies. HumanRelations, 58, 311—340.

Jones, D., & Stablein, R. (2006). Diversity as resistance and recup-eration: Critical theory, post-structuralist perspectives and work-place diversity. In A. M. Konrad, P. Prasad, & J. K. Pringle (Eds.),Handbook of workplace diversity (pp. 145—166). London: Sage.

Kalev, A., Dobbin, F., & Kelly, E. (2006). Best practices or bestguesses? Assessing the efficacy of corporate affirmative actionand diversity policies. American Sociological Review, 71, 589—617.

Kalonaityte, V. (2010). The case of vanishing borders: Theorizingdiversity management as internal border control. Organization,17, 31—52.

Kamenou, N. (2008). Reconsidering work-life balance debates: Chal-lenging limited understandings of the ‘life’ component in thecontext of ethnic minority women’s experiences. British Journalof Management, 19, S99—S109.

Knights, D., & McCabe, D. (2003). Governing through teamwork:Reconstituting subjectivity in a call centre. Journal of Manage-ment Studies, 40(7), 1587—1619.

Konrad, A., & Linnehan, F. (1995). Formalized HRM structures:Coordinating equal employment opportunity or concealing orga-nizational practices? Academy of Management Journal, 38, 787—820.

Kossek, E. E., & Pichler, S. (2006). EEO and the management ofdiversity. In P. Boxell, J. Purcell, & P. M. Wright (Eds.), Handbookof human resource management (pp. 251—272). Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Kulik, C. T., & Roberson, L. (2008). Common goals and missedopportunities: A research agenda for diversity education in aca-demic and organizational settings. Academy of ManagementLearning & Education, 7, 371—375.

Liff, S. (1997). Two routes to managing diversity: Individual differ-ences or social group characteristics. Employee Relations, 19,11—26.

Liff, S., & Wajcman, J. (1996). ‘Sameness’ and ‘difference’ revisited:Which way forward for equal opportunity initiatives? Journal ofManagement Studies, 33, 79—94.

Linnehan, F., & Konrad, A. M. (1999). Diluting diversity: Implicationsfor intergroup inequality in organizations. Journal of Manage-ment Inquiry, 8, 399—414.

Litvin, D. (1997). The discourse of diversity: From biology to manage-ment. Organization, 4, 187—209.

Litvin, D. (2006). Diversity: Making space for a better case. In A. M.Konrad, P. Prasad, & J. K. Pringle (Eds.), Handbook of workplacediversity (pp. 75—94). London: Sage.

Lorbiecki, A., & Jack, G. (2000). Critical turns in the evolution ofdiversity management. British Journal of Management, 11, S17—S31.

MacKenzie, R., & Forde, C. (2009). The rhetoric of the ‘good worker’versus the realities of employers’ use and the experiences ofmigrant workers. Work, Employment & Society, 23, 142—159.

McCall, L. (2005). The complexities of intersectionality. Signs, 30,1771—1800.

McIntosh, P. (2004). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knap-sack. In P. S. Rothenberg (Ed.), Race, class, and gender in theUnited States (pp. 188—192). New York: Worth Publishers.

Modood, T., Triandafyllidou, A., & Zapata-Barrero, R. (2006). Multi-culturalism, Muslims and citizenship: A European approach.London: Routledge.

Mollica, K. A., Gray, B., & Trevino, L. K. (2003). Racial homophily andits persistence in newcomers’ social networks. OrganizationScience, 14, 123—136.

Alternative diversity management 331

Munro, A. (2001). A feminist trade union agenda? The continuedsignificance of class, gender and race. Gender, Work & Organiza-tion, 8, 454—471.

Noon, M. (2007). The fatal flaws of diversity and the business case forethnic minorities. Work, Employment and Society, 21, 773—784.

Noon, M. (2010). The shackled runner: Time to rethink positivediscrimination? Work, Employment and Society, 24, 728—739.

OECD. (2005). Trends in international migration. Paris, France:OECD.

OECD. (2008). Jobs for immigrants. Labour market integration inBelgium, France, the Netherlands and Portugal. Paris: OECD.

Ogbonna, E., & Harris, L. C. (2006). The dynamic of employeerelationships in an ethnically diverse workforce. Human Rela-tions, 59, 379—407.

Ostendorp, A., & Steyaert, C. (2009). How different can differencebe(come)? Interpretative repertoires of diversity concepts inSwiss-based organizations?. Scandinavian Journal of Manage-ment, 25, 374—384.

Pendry, L. F., Driscoll, D. M., & Field, S. C. T. (2007). Diversitytraining: Putting theory into practice. Journal of Occupationaland Organizational Psychology, 80, 27—50.

Pettigrew, T. F., & Tropp, L. R. (2006). A meta-analytic test ofintergroup contact theory. Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology, 90, 751—783.

Prasad, A. (2006). The jewel in the crown: Postcolonial theory andworkplace diversity. In A. M. Konrad, P. Prasad, & J. K. Pringle(Eds.), Handbook of workplace diversity (pp. 121—144). London:Sage.

Prasad, P., & Mills, A. J. (1997). From showcase to shadow: Under-standing the dilemmas of managing workplace diversity. In P.Prasad, A. J. Mills, & A. Prasad (Eds.), Managing the organiza-tional melting pot: Dilemmas of workplace diversity (pp. 3—27).Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Prasad, P., Pringle, J. K., & Konrad, A. M. (2006). Examining thecontours of workplace diversity: Concepts, contexts and chal-lenges. In A. M. Konrad, P. Prasad, & J. K. Pringle (Eds.), Handbookof workplace diversity (pp. 1—22). London: Sage.

Pringle, J. K., Konrad, A. M., & Prasad, P. (2006). Conclusion:Reflections and future directions. In A. M. Konrad, P. Prasad, &J. K. Pringle (Eds.), Handbook of workplace diversity (pp. 531—539). London: Sage.

Proudford, K. L., & Nkomo, S. (2006). Race and ethnicity in organiza-tions. In A. M. Konrad, P. Prasad, & J. K. Pringle (Eds.), Handbookof workplace diversity (pp. 323—344). London: Sage.

Ragins, B. R., & Cotton, J. L. (1999). Mentor functions and out-comes: A comparison of men and women in formal and informalmentoring relationships. Journal of Applied Psychology, 84,529—550.

Reskin, B. F. (2003). Including mechanisms in our models of ascriptiveinequality: 2002 presidential address. American SociologicalReview, 68, 1—21.

Ridgeway, C. L., & Correll, S. J. (2006). Consensus and the creation ofstatus beliefs. Social Forces, 85, 431—453.

Rynes, S., & Rosen, B. (1995). A field survey of factors affecting theadoption and perceived success of diversity training. PersonnelPsychology, 48, 247—270.

Said, E. (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage books.Steinberg, J. R. (1990). Social construction of skill: Gender, power,

and comparable worth. Work and Occupations, 17(4), 449—482.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory ofintergroup behavior. In S. Worchel & L. W. Austin (Eds.), Psychol-ogy of intergroup relations (pp. 7—24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall.

Thomas, D. A. (2001). The truth about mentoring minorities: Racematters. Harvard Business Review, 99—107.

Tilly, C. (1989). Durable inequality. Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress.

Tomlinson, F., & Schwabenland, C. (2010). Reconciling competingdiscourses of diversity? The UK non-profit sector between socialjustice and the business case. Organization, 37, 101—121.

Van Laer, K., & Janssens, M. (2011). Ethnic minority professionals’experience with subtle discrimination at the workplace. HumanRelations, 64, 1203—1227.

Yang, Y., & Konrad, A. M. (2011). Understanding diversity manage-ment practices: Implications of institutional theory and resource-based theory. Group & Organization Management, 36, 6—38.

Yeatman, A. (1990). Bureaucrats, femocrats, technocrats: Essays onthe contemporary Australian state. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

Zanoni, P., & Janssens, M. (2004). Deconstructing difference: Therhetoric of human resource managers’ diversity discourses. Orga-nization Studies, 25, 55—74.

Zanoni, P., & Janssens, M. (2007). Minority employees engaging with(diversity) management: An analysis of control, agency andmicro-emancipation. Journal of Management Studies, 44,1371—1397.

Zanoni, P., Janssens, M., Benschop, Y., & Nkomo, S. (2010). Unpack-ing diversity, grasping inequality: Rethinking difference throughcritical perspectives. Organization, 17, 9—29.