Does staff diversity imply openness to diversity?

Abstract

Purpose

Post‐secondary educational organizations are currently some of the most diverse settings to be found. However, few educational studies have dealt with staff diversity and hardly any has looked outside the USA. The purpose of this paper is to present a study of members of international university departments in Denmark. The authors set out to investigate the relationship between different types of staff diversity and openness to diversity in terms of linguistic, visible, value, and informational heterogeneity.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses responses from 489 staff members from diverse university departments to a self‐report electronic survey.

Findings

It was found that diversity‐related internationalization (cultural and linguistic) was generally positively related to favorable diversity attitudes. Inherent demographic diversity (age and gender), on the other hand, was unrelated or negatively associated with positive diversity attitudes.

Originality/value

Few studies deal with the role of staff diversity and no prior studies the authors know of have examined the link between diversity types and openness to diversity.

Citation

Lauring, J. and Selmer, J. (2013), "Does staff diversity imply openness to diversity?", International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 631-646. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-11-2012-0127