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The aim of this chapter is to take stock of the aspect of the social concertation in the framework of policies of diversity management. It rests in particular on the work of a commission created by the AFMD (French Association of Diversity Managers), in partnership with ORSE (a French Societal Observatory). The commission has involved several larges French companies and organised meetings between the representatives of the different employers’ and workers’ organisations. Another source is the numerous actions led by the Labour Unions in Belgium in the framework of the Consortium Diversité Wallonie, which exists since 2007. This study tries to remind some objectives of social concertation in regards to policies of diversity management, to take stock of the legal constraints on concertation in regards to particular targets, to show the multiple conceptions of this notion of diversity management among social partners, to give an overview of the content of the agreements, and to present the steps of a social concertation sensible to diversity.

The purpose of this paper is to report upon the “Diversity and equal opportunities” Special Interest Group of the Francophone Association of Research in Human Resource Management (AGRH), which held its first international conference on “Gender and diversity in organizations”, at the ESCPEAP European Management School in Paris in January 2009.

Equal opportunity and diversity management are relatively recent research fields in Continental Europe, and particularly in France, however there were 95 conference participants who attended two plenary sessions, four workshops and one round table.

Sub‐themes were: diversity management and gender equality; Work‐life practices and equality policies between women and men; gender stereotypes and management; and women's and men's careers. The workshops covered: diversity management and gender equity; work‐life practices; women and men's careers; and social representations and stereotypes.

This paper provides an informative overview of the conference which was original in being co‐sponsored by The Emilie du Chatelet Institute – the first research network for developing and publishing research on women, sex and gender in France. The co‐sponsor was the IAE Gustave Eiffel (Business studies department of the Paris 12 University).

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