Managers' practice of managing diversity revealed: A practice‐theoretical account

• Published date: 01 May 2017
• Date: 01 May 2017
• Author: Jane O'Leary,Jörgen Sandberg
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2132

Managers' practice of managing diversity

revealed: A practice-theoretical account

JANE O'LEARY

1

AND JÖRGEN SANDBERG

2

*

1

Diversity Council Australia, Sydney, NSW, Australia

2

UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia

Summary Despite the centrality of managing diversity effectively in contemporary organizations, existing literature

gives disparate and incomplete accounts of how managers actually manage diversity in practice. The prevail-

ing managerial literature focuses on what diversity activities should be involved in managing diversity but

does not identify how managers actually undertake these activities in practice. The growing

interpretive/critical literature focuses on how people's understandings define managing diversity, but is silent

on how managers translate their understandings into specific diversity activities in practice. We applied a

practice perspective in conjunction with phenomenography as a methodological approach to investigate

how managers actually manage diversity in practice in the empirical context of professional services firms.

The results show that managers' practice of managing diversity is constituted by four understandings of man-

aging diversity that distinguish and organize diversity activities into four different and progressively more

comprehensive ways of managing diversity. This practice-theoretical account transcends the existing litera-

ture's partial accounts in significant ways by offering a new and considerably broader and more precise con-

ceptualization of managers' practice of managing diversity, including which ways of managing diversity may

be more effective than others. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Keywords: managing diversity; diversity; practice perspective; phenomenography

Introduction

A central issue for managers in today's global business environment is to manage the growing levels of diversity

among workplace participants (Chrobot-Mason, Ruderman, & Nishii, 2013; Kulik & Roberson, 2008). Effectively

managed, workforce diversity can deliver significant organizational benefits, such as more customers, increased

sales, and greater relative profit (Herring, 2009; Kulik, 2014). Poorly managed, it can lead to conflict, staff turnover,

and costly diversity complaints (Nishii & Mayer, 2009; Pelled, Eisenhardt, & Xin, 1999). A crucial question, then,

for being able to manage diversity effectively, is what constitutes managers' practice of managing diversity. Under-

standing how managers actually practice managing diversity is vital given their critical role in translating organiza-

tional diversity policies and activities into day-to-day practice (Greene & Kirton, 2011; Kulik, 2014). Without this

understanding, it is not possible to design diversity educational initiatives and policies that encourage and enable

managers to develop more effective diversity practices. However, existing literature gives disparate and incomplete

accounts of how managers actually manage diversity in practice, and is therefore in need of significant th eoretical

development (Olsen & Martins, 2012).

The dominant managerialist literature focuses on what diversity activities should be involved in managing diver-

sity but does not identify which activities are actually undertaken by managers in practice (e.g., Dovidio & Gaertner,

2010; Kalev, Dobbin & Kelly, 2006). An emerging body of interpretive/critical literature focuses on how collectives

*Correspondence to: Jorgen Sandberg, UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, Australia. E-mail: j.

sandberg@business.uq.edu.au

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Received 29 March 2015

Revised 14 July 2016, Accepted 10 August 2016

Journal of Organizational Behavior, J. Organiz. Behav. 38, 512–536 (2017)

Published online 21 September 2016 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/job.2132

Research Article

(e.g., workgroups and organizations) understanding defines managing diversity, but fails to consider how managers

translate their understandings into specific diversity activities in practice (e.g., Ely & Thomas, 2001; Kalonaityte,

2010; Konrad & Linnehan, 1995; Zanoni & Janssens, 2004).

In this study, we aimed to address these limitations in the literature. We conducted a combined interview and

observational study with a specific focus on how managers actually manage diversity in practice, using a

practice-theoretical perspective (e.g., Nicolini, 2013; Sandberg & Dall'Alba, 2009; Schatzki, 2012) as an investiga-

tive framework. A practice perspective does not focus exclusively on either understandings or activities as such.

Instead, it emphasizes the actual performance of practice, that is, how understandings and activities are enacted in

practice. It thereby enables us to empirically examine more precisely what managerial understandings and diversity

activities are associated with managers' practice of managing diversity, and how they are related in managers' actual

performance of managing diversity.

We begin our investigation by critically reviewing existing literature on diversity and its management with a spe-

cific focus on how it regards managers' practice of managing diversity. Thereafter, we develop a practice perspective

in conjunction with phenomenography as a methodological approach to investigate how managers manage diversity

in practice, in the empirical context of professional services firms in Australia.

The resulting practice-theoretical account of managing diversity contributes in three significant ways to existing

literature. In contrast to existing literature the practice-theoretical account empirically reveals: (1) which core under-

standings and activities are actually associated with managers' practice of managing diversity; (2) how understand-

ings and activities are related in managers' performance of managing diversity; and (3) a hierarchical variation in

managers' ways of managing diversity, consisting of four distinct ways of managing diversity in practice, which

are increasingly comprehensive and potentially effective. Finally, we discuss how the practice-theoretical account

of what constitutes managers' practice of managing diversity opens up new avenues for advancing the field theoret-

ically and practically.

How existing literatures conceptualize managers' practice of managing

diversity

Two main bodies of literature constitute the field of managing diversity: the prevailing managerialist literature and

the smaller, yet growing, interpretive/critical literature. Subsequently, we review these literatures, considering how

each conceptualizes managers' practice of managing diversity.

The largest body of literature approaches the practice of managing diversity from a managerialist perspective,

conceptualizing it as a set of diversity activities, which should be involved in managing diversity (see Kulik

(2014) and Roberson (2013) for reviews).This literature focuses on the effects of diversity in organizations, treating

diversity as something that can be objectively defined and measured through pre-determined categories, such as

employees' individual differences (e.g., personality and values) or sociodemographic group differences (e.g.,

ethnicity/race and gender) (Zanoni & Janssens, 2004). Managing diversity involves implementing activities that

maximize the positive effects of these employee differences for business benefit (Cox, 1994).

Managerial textbooks recommend managers implement “best practice”diversity activities, such as affinity

groups, mentoring schemes, or flexible work for historically under-represented sociodemographic groups (Moran,

Harris, & Moran, 2007) or promote an inclusive rather than color-blind or assimilatory organizational culture

(Cox, 1991; Ferdman & Deane, 2013).

Organizational behavior and social psychology texts recommend managers implement “effective”organizational

diversity activities, such as formalized human resource policies (Elvira & Graham, 2002), identity-conscious activ-

ities that focus on historically under-represented groups (Dobbin & Kalev, 2013; Konrad & Linnehan, 1995), a sup-

portive diversity climate (Gonzalez & Denisi, 2009), or bundles of diversity activities (Kalev et al., 2006). Other

recommendations include workgroup activities like fostering an open diversity climate (Chrobot-Mason &

MANAGERS' PRACTICE OF MANAGING DIVERSITY REVEALED 513

Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J. Organiz. Behav. 38, 512–536 (2017)

DOI: 10.1002/job