Diversity in the Czech Republic

Abstract

Purpose

This contribution is focused on diversity management in the Czech Republic (CR) with a special focus on foreigners and ethnic diversity management. The importance of diversity management, as part of human resources management, in the CR has increased after the integration into the European Union (EU) in 2004.

Methodology

The chapter introduces three current cases of companies which demonstrated the implementation of diversity management principles. The author of this text supervised the research where internal documents were studied and interviews with a survey were conducted.

Findings

The topic is relatively new both in theory and in Czech practice with the increase in academic publications after the year 2000. It has become an important issue as a consequence of the changing workforce structure due to demographic changes in the Czech society, followed by globalization of the labor market. Foreigners make 5% of the total number of citizens in the CR. Majority of them live in Prague and Middle Bohemia. More than half of foreigners legally residing on Czech territory have permanent stay. The most common nationalities have been for many years Ukrainians, Slovaks, and Vietnamese. Foreigners working in the CR make 9.1% of total employment in the national Czech economy. The most common foreign workers coming to CR to seek for a job are EU citizens, mainly Slovaks, followed by people from Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria. Ukrainians are the most common from the third countries. The number of foreigners in the CR is rising mainly due to foreigners from EU. The main pull factor is work. The most frequent groups are Ukrainians, Slovaks, Vietnamese, and Russians. Three case studies are introduced to show current developments in international companies which are successful in the area of ethnic diversity management.

Research Limitations

For further development of the knowledge about recent trends, it is very valuable to collect case studies. I suggest to continue in this activity and collect more studies to have a wider space for comparison.

Practical Implications

These selected cases show the developments in the CR (and Slovakia) in the past 20 years. Local branches of multinational companies have been inspired by experiences from the headquarters and the needs where adapted to local conditions. As the second case shows, it can be also a rather different story with an original Czech company which rapidly succeeded not only on the market but also in the implementation of diversity management. Companies are using benefits of diversity by enrichment of working teams using specific features of multi-ethnic composition of workers. Diversity management is used in the broader meaning, respecting national, cultural, gender, and other differences. All these examples of activities, projects, clubs, councils, or reports can be an inspiration to anybody who aims to increase diversity in any organization.

Originality

This chapter brings original contribution about current trends in diversity management in the region. It can bring very valuable information to academics, experts in diversity management, managers, students or public in general.

Citation

Pavlíková, E.A. (2019), "Diversity in the Czech Republic", Diversity within Diversity Management (Advanced Series in Management, Vol. 21), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 103-116. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1877-636120190000021006