Search results

This chapter provides a review of diversity management as framed in business and organizational management literature, and relates that literature to the current state of diversity theory development in library and information science (LIS).

This review begins with a theoretical orientation, focusing on organizational theories, diversity management models, and diversity conflict frameworks. It then summarizes some empirical literature for organizations seeking to create a diverse environment. It concludes with a discussion of diversity models developed in and for LIS.

Library and information science has lagged behind organizational science in research and theory development related to diversity. Most of the LIS research that has been done has focused on individuals rather than library systems or the larger organizational systems in which they are embedded. Practical questions are raised about the extent of diversity concerns in the day-to-day operations and practices of libraries, and where diversity concerns come into conflict with librarians’ professional values.

This chapter explores the many dynamics of diversity initiatives and presents a central argument that diversity initiatives are most effective when organizational leaders create and strategically implement them to form an inclusive organizational culture. This chapter addresses diversity from a global perspective in three ways. First, it defines diversity and emphasizes one goal: diversity of perspectives. Second, it advocates for creating an organizational culture to overcome conflicting aspects of traditional, demographic-centered, or individual-centered diversity initiatives. Third, it introduces the DURCI Diversity Model, which stands for Define, Understand, Review, Communicate, and Implement, as a five-step method to foster a diverse, inclusive organizational culture. This chapter begins with a definition of diversity as efforts to synchronize unique demographic groups. It emphasizes the importance of defining diversity as it applies to an organization and ultimately creating an organizational culture that transcends individual demographics and defines diversity by what it means explicitly to the organization, including what diversity the organization already possesses. This chapter proceeds to use nonprofit, private, and public organizations, such as the US Department of Health and Human Services, Google, the American Red Cross, Cisco Systems, Americans for the Arts, the National Diversity Council, and the Gates Foundation, to illustrate the wide applicability of the DURCI Diversity Model to frame successful organizational diversity initiatives.

The interconnected challenges of climate change and social inclusivity have placed unprecedented pressure on businesses to adopt responsible practices. While previous research has explored the individual impacts of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and diversity initiatives, there remains a dearth of comprehensive investigations into how these factors collectively influence carbon emission scores. Drawing on the legitimacy theory, we explore whether ESG and diversity scores predict global companies' carbon emission scores. As concerns about the environmental impact of businesses grow, understanding the relationships between ESG performance, diversity management, and carbon emissions becomes imperative for sustainable corporate practices.

The primary dataset for this study includes 1,268 worldwide firm-year data for 2021. The sample is subjected to missing data examination as a component of the filtration process. Data preprocessing is performed before machine learning analysis, including verifying missing data. Our research resulted in the final sample, which includes 627 worldwide firm data from 2021. Data regarding all publicly traded companies was obtained from Refinitiv Eikon.

Our findings showed that corporate carbon emission performance in global corporations is influenced by ESG performance and total diversity score.

Firms involve in ESG as well as diversity practices to be able to achieve sustainable success. Yet, the forecasting of carbon emissions based on ESG scores and diversity scores remains inadequately established due to conflicting findings and enigmas prevalent in the literature.

The Companies Act of 2013 stressed upon gender diversity in the board of management considering the significant role of women toward the success of an organization. Following it, both public and private sector banks in India implemented the act from 2015 onward. This study aims to investigate whether its implementation has improved board gender diversity uniformly across public and private sector banks. Furthermore, the authors study the impact of board gender diversity on the performance of public and private sector banks in India.

Secondary data on listed Indian commercial banks for the period 2015–2021 have been used in this study that encompasses 15 commercial and 12 public sector banks. Return on assets, return on equity and Tobin’s Q are considered as the banking performance indicators in this study, while gender diversity of the board is measured by using Blau index. Furthermore, generalized method of moments has been adopted to analyze the effect of board gender diversity on performance of the Indian banking sector.

Empirical results exhibit that board gender diversity has been gradually improving since 2015 in both public and private sector banks in India. However, board diversity in case of public sector banks is seen to be lower than that of private sector banks. Furthermore, this study found a significant impact of board diversity on the performance indicators of both public and private sector banks.

This study gives a clear picture that board diversity of both public and private banks has remained quite low over the years. Apparently, women representation has been found to be less than 50% throughout the period of 2015–2021. As board diversity has significant impact on banking performance, it is important on the part of banks to take proper steps to improve the board diversity.

This study has added to the existing literature by highlighting on the divergence between gender diversity across public and private sector banks in India. It emphasizes on the need to improve gender diversity by a significant increase in the proportion of women in the board to create an impact on decision-making.

Literature on the board diversity of Islamic banks (IB) found limited knowledge of the “deep-level” attribute. This study aims to explain the impact of the board diversity attributes (education levels, educational backgrounds and the interactions between these two attributes of diversity) on profitability.

The research sample is 37 fully flagged IBs from five Southeast Asian countries, covering nine years (2010–2019). Data were analyzed using the two-step system generalized moment (2SYS-GMM) method.

We found that the cognitive conflict between the board of directors (BOD) and the Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB), which has heterogeneity in its education level and educational background, positively affects profitability. These results reinforce the resources dependence theory (RDT) approach that having boards with heterogeneous characteristics is beneficial for IB.

The findings of this study would offer useful information for Islamic banking authorities to revise or formulate rules and guidelines and make a greater effort to implement corporate governance (CG) reform measures by determining educational level and background as a requirement to become a member of a BOD or an SSB.

This paper contributes in three ways: (1) we use the “deep-level” diversity attributes of the BOD and the SSB, (2) it focuses on cognitive conflict in boards by presenting the expertise diversity of the BOD and SSB and (3) we interact with the level of education to evaluate the effect of a cognitive conflict.

This study aims to address gaps and limitations in the literature on corporate governance and stock liquidity. It explores the potential benefits of increasing female representation in corporate leadership, which has been a subject of debate and policy intervention in recent years.

Based on prior empirical studies and by integrating the insights of different theories, this study links gender diversity to stock liquidity and uses a multivariate panel regression approach.

The results show that gender diversity, both on the board and in executive positions, positively and consistently affects stock liquidity across different business cycles. The findings reinforce the notion that diverse executive leadership is crucial and influential irrespective of the prevailing economic conditions.

This study has practical implications for investors, managers and policymakers who are interested in the benefits of gender diversity in corporate leadership. It suggests that increasing the percentage of female executives and board members can improve stock market liquidity, which is a key indicator of market efficiency and firm value.

This study advocates for gender equality and diversity in corporate leadership, which can benefit society. It demonstrates that the presence of women directors can enhance financial stability and thus benefit the stakeholders and the community.

This study contributes to the academic literature by examining the impact of gender diversity on board and executive levels on stock liquidity in the US market. Previous research on this topic has mainly relied on French or Australian data. Moreover, this study extends previous work through examining the case of executives’ gender diversity. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to analyze the relationship between gender diversity and stock liquidity across different business cycles, providing a nuanced understanding of how economic contexts affect this relationship.

Organizational diversity training is designed to enhance employees' skills and competencies regarding diversity and its management. The question of its effectiveness, and the conditions under which it thrives, remains a matter of debate. Unlike previous studies that have predominantly focused on the perspective of training participants, this study shifts the lens to the viewpoints of diversity training providers in Germany – a country where the formal requirement for diversity management was implemented relatively recently. The primary objective is to ascertain the critical factors influencing training effectiveness from the providers' perspective.

This research draws upon case studies based on document analysis and qualitative interviews with diversity training providers across Germany.

The investigation reveals that the effectiveness of diversity training, as perceived by providers, hinges on several key factors: the organizational environment (including the widespread recognition of diversity issues and the presence of an organizational diversity framework), the attributes of diversity trainers (notably their personal familiarity with diversity) and the setting and design of the training (such as venue, duration and a blend of instructional approaches). A notable barrier to achieving effective training outcomes is the lack of supportive conditions within client companies, exemplified by limited training budgets, which impedes the accurate assessment of training effectiveness.

This study marks a novel contribution to the field by explicitly focusing on the perspective of diversity training providers in Germany. It provides new insights into the importance of the organizational context surrounding diversity education within the private sector.

Using intersectionality and introducing newer developments from critical cross-cultural management studies, this paper aims to discuss how diversity is applicable to changing cultural contexts.

The paper is a conceptual paper built upon relevant empirical research findings from critical cross-cultural management studies.

By applying intersectionality as a conceptual lens, this paper underscores the practical and conceptual limitations of the business case for diversity, in particular in a culturally diverse international business (IB) setting. Introducing newer developments from critical cross-cultural management studies, the authors identify the need to investigate and manage diversity across distinct categories, and as intersecting with culture, context and power.

This paper builds on previous empirical research in critical cross-cultural management studies using intersectionality as a conceptual lens and draws implications for diversity management in an IB setting from there. The authors add to the critique of the business case by showing its failures of identifying and, consequently, managing diversity, equality/equity and inclusion (DEI) in IB settings.

Organizations (e.g. MNEs) are enabled to clearly see the limitations of the business case and provided with a conceptual lens for addressing DEI issues in a more contextualized and intersectional manner.

This paper introduces intersectionality, as discussed and applied in critical cross-cultural management studies, as a conceptual lens for outlining the limitations of the business case for diversity and for promoting DEI in an IB setting in more complicated, realistic and relevant ways.

This study aims to examine the impact of interlocking directorships on firm performance in Turkey, with a specific focus on the moderating role of board diversity.

Using a panel dataset comprising the top 100 firms listed on Borsa Istanbul from 2014 to 2018, this study employs regression analysis to investigate the relationship between interlocking directorships, board diversity, and firm performance. It firm-level financial data and directorship information to assess the effects of interlocking directorships on firm performance while also considering the moderating influence of board diversity.

The findings of this study reveal several important insights. First, the results confirm the “busyness hypothesis” as an increase in the number of interlocks per director negatively impacts firm performance, indicating reduced monitoring effectiveness. However, the study also demonstrates that board diversity plays a significant moderating role. Specifically, board diversity positively influences the relationship between interlocking directorships and firm performance, suggesting that a diverse board can mitigate the negative effects of interlocks and enhance overall firm performance.

This study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, this study extends our understanding of the relationship between interlocking directorships and firm performance, considering contingency factors in the Turkish market. Second, our findings imply that board diversity mitigates the negative impact of busy interlocking directorates and improves firm performance, which provides invaluable directions to firms in setting their boards. Moreover, this research enhances corporate governance practices in Turkey and beyond in other emerging markets with similar corporate governance mechanisms by identifying the importance of board diversity and its moderating influence.