Leading cultural diversity ethically
Leading cultural differences and diversity in large organizations is quite a successful theme today and rests on well-established theoretical and empirical tools and models to leverage this cultural diversity. Yet, some researchers have recently advanced evidence that the management of differences is not as successful as it seems, despite scholars and practitioners’ best intensions. These researchers are preoccupied with understanding power structures in organizations and processes of social change, in the spirit of ‘critical management studies’. They point to empirical evidences and theoretical considerations indicating that the definition and management of differences are done in ways that can reproduce power inequalities and thus undermine the entire purpose of diversity and cross-cultural management. This means that the way cultural diversity management addresses its own fundamental questions and endeavor is said to undermine its raison d’être. Worse, some argue that cross-cultural and diversity management are dehumanizing employees and thus, are unethical.
How is this possible? We aim to investigate this state of affairs, this interconnection between an active leadership of cultural diversity and the alleged reproduction of inequalities and unethical practices. How can cultural diversity management theories and practices be said to contribute to something which so opposite to their endeavor? We aim at an in-depth (ethnographic) investigation of current practices of ‘diversity management’ in order to better understand ‘what is going on’ and to contribute to the further development of ethical inclusive leadership.
Project leader:
Laurence Romani
Project team:
Laurence Romani, Katharina Pilhofer, Lotte Holck and Julie Lorenzen (Center for Advanced Studies in Leadership at the Stockholm School of Economics: CASL), Charlotte Holgersson (KTH & CASL), Sara Louise Muhr and Annette Risberg (Copenhagen Business School and CASL)
Publications
Ashcraft, K. L., & Muhr, S. L. (2018). Coding military command as a promiscuous practice? Unsettling the gender binaries of leadership metaphors. Human Relations, 71(2), 206-228.
Barmeyer, C. Romani, L and Pilhofer, K. (2016), Welche Impulse liefert interkulturelles Management für Diversity Management? , in Petia Genkova and Tobias Ringeisen (Eds), Handbuch Diversity Kompetenz: Gegenstandsbereiche, Spinger.
Bleijenbergh, I., C. Holgersson, & I. Ryan (2016) Diversity, diversity management and identity in organizations. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 35(1).
Christensen, J. and Muhr, S. (2018) Failed diversity and symptomatic anxiety: Theorising organizational diversity as Lacanian lack, Culture and Organization, 24:2, 114-133, DOI: 10.1080/14759551.2017.1407764
Dobusch, L., Holck, L., & Muhr, S. L. (2021). The im-/possibility of hybrid inclusion: Disrupting the ‘happy inclusion’story with the case of the Greenlandic Police Force. Organization, 28(2), 311-333.
Essed, P. and Muhr, S. (2018) Entitlement Racism and its intersections: An interview with Philomena Essed, social justice scholar, Ephemera, 18(1): 183-20. Open access.
Holck, L. and Muhr, S.L. (2020): White bodies doing post-colonial research: Intersectionalities in the Greenlandic police force. In Just, S., Risberg, S. and Villesèche, F. (eds.), Routledge Companion to Organizational Diversity Research Methods. Routledge.
Holck, L. and Muhr, S.L. (2019) From institutionalized othering to disruptive collaboration: A postcolonial analysis of the police force in Greenland. Equality, Diversity & Inclusion – An International Journal. https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-01-2018-0018
Holck, L. and Muhr, S. (2018) Joanne Martin and organizational culture, in A. Pullen and R. Mc Murrey (eds.) Women Writers in Organisation Theory: Rethinking Culture, Organisation & Management. Routledge.
Holck, L. Muhr, S. and Villesèche, F. (2018) Managing Diverse Talent. In I. Tarique (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Talent Management. Routledge.
Holck, L.; Muhr, S. and Villesèche, F. (2016) ‘Identity, diversity and diversity management: On theoretical connections, assumptions and implications for practice’, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, 35(1), 48 – 64. Open access
Holgersson, C. and Romani, L. (forthcoming 2021) Mångfaldsarbete på arbetsplatsen – Lärdomar från sex engagerade företag, in Boréus, L, Sohl, L and Neergaard, A (Eds) Ojämlika arbetsplatser: Hierarkier, diskriminering och strategier för jämlikhet, Bokförlag? Lund: Nordic Academic Press. Open access
Holgersson, C. and Romani, L. (2020) Tokenism revisited: when organizational culture challenges masculine norms, the experience of token is transformed, European Management Review, DOI: 10.1111/emre.12385
Hunger, E. Morillas, M. Romani, L and Mohsen, M. (2020), Unequal integration: skilled migrants conditional inclusion along the lines of Swedishness, class and ethnicity, in Madadevan, Primecz & Romani, Cases in Critical Cross-Cultural Management: an intersectional approach to culture, London, Routledge.
Kirkegaard, L. and Muhr, S. (2018) Uniform bodies/embodied uniforms: An affect analysis of body possibilities in the military, in A. Pullenand and M. Fotaki (eds) Diversity, Discourse, Affect and Materiality. London: Routledge.
Mahadevan, J. Primecz, H. and Romani, L. (2020), Cases in Critical Cross-Cultural Management: An Intersectional Approach to Culture, Routledge.
Murh, S. and Ashcraft K. (2017) Coding military command as a promiscuous practice? Unsettling the gender binaries of leadership metaphors, Human Relations, 71 (2): 206-228. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726717709080
Muhr, S. and Sløk-Andersen, B. (2017) Exclusion and inclusion in the Danish military: A historical analysis of the construction and consequences of a gendered organizational narrative, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 30(3): 367-379. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JOCM-10-2016-0195/full/html
Omamovic, V., Tarim, E. and Holck, L. (forthcoming 2021): Practices of organizing migrants’ integration into the European labour market’ (editorial), Special issue in European Management Review.
Pilhofer, K. & C. Holgersson (2015) Review. Diversity at work: The practice of inclusion (book review), Scandinavian Journal of Management, 31(3), 453-454. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095652211730043X?via%3Dihub
Primecz, H., Mahadevan, J. & Romani, L. (2016), Why is Cross-Cultural Management blind to power relations? Investigating ethnicity, language, gender and religion, International Journal of Cross-Cultural Management, 16(2), 127-136. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1470595816666154
Risberg, A. & Pilhofer, K. (2018) Diversity and difference research: a reflection on categories and categorization, Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization. 8(1): 131-148. Open access
Risberg, A and Romani, L. (2021) Underemploying highly skilled migrants: An organizational logic protecting corporate ‘normality’, Human Relations, online first https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0018726721992854
Romani, L., Barmeyer, C; Pilhofer, K.; Primecz, H. (2018) Cross-cultural management studies: state of the field in the four research paradigms, International Studies of Management and Organization. 43(3) Open access.
Romani, L. and Binswanger, C. (2019) Critical perspectives on Diversity Management, in E. Hanappi-Egger and H. Mensi-Klarbach (Eds) Diversity in Organizations: concepts and practices. Houndmills, Palgrave.
Romani, L. Boussebaa, M. and Jackson, T. (2020) Critical perspectives on Cross-Cultural Management, in B. Szkudlarek, L. Romani, J. Osland and D. Caprar, The Sage Handbook of Contemporary Cross-Cultural Management, London: Sage. Pp. 51-65.
Romani, L and Frame, A. (2020) Les études critiques en gestion interculturelle. Communication et Organisation, 58:25-40. https://www.cairn.info/revue-communication-et-organisation-2020-2-page-25.htm
Romani, L. Holck, L. Holgersson, C and Muhr, S.L (2017), Diversity Management and the Scandinavian Model: Illustrations from Denmark and Sweden, in M. Özbilgin and J.F Chanlat (Eds.) Management and Diversity: Perspectives from National Context, Volume 3, London: Emerald. Pp. 261-280.
Romani, L. Holck, L. and Risberg, A. (2019) Benevolent discrimination: explaining how Human Resources professionals can be blind to the harm of diversity initiatives. Organization, 26(3):371 –390. Open access
Romani, L. and Holgersson, C., (2020a) Inclusive leadership for the ethical management of cultural diversity, in L. Zander (Ed.) Research Handbook of Global Leadership: Making a difference, Edward Elgar, UK.
Romani, L. Mahadevan, J. and Primecz, H (2020) Methods for Critical Management Research, in B. Szkudlarek, J. Osland, D. Caprar and L. Romani, The Sage Handbook of Contemporary Cross-Cultural Management, London: Sage.
Romani, L.; Zanoni, P. and Holck, L (2020) Radicalizing diversity (research): Time to resume talking about class, Gender Work and Organization, online first DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12593.
Status:
Financed by the Ragnar Söderberg foundation 2014-2019
