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This article provides human resource professionals and managers with an insight into the under representation of women/ethnic minorities at senior management level in UK organisations and the issues involved in increasing diversity in leadership. It describes three leadership studies carried out by Pearn Kandola covering: barriers to the career progress of ethnic minorities; differences in perception of male and female managerial success; and changing leadership behaviour. The research was conducted via literature reviews and interviews with HR/diversity specialists, senior managers and ethnic minority employees. The findings highlight the individual and organisational barriers facing ethnic minority employees and the differences in attribution of male and female managerial success. It underlines the need for diversity policies to encompass development and progression, as well as recruitment, and for skills development. Although further quantitative research is needed, the findings raise questions about underlying stereotypes and bias and discrimination when developing and implementing appraisal systems. Practical suggestions are made regarding behaviour change and policy review.

This paper reviews the recent “Women at the Top” Conference held in London by the British Psychological Society's Division of Occupational Psychology and offers some suggestions for future research on women at the top.

The report is generated from attendee observations, notes, other reviews and podcast recordings following the conference.

Conference proceedings highlighted key areas of interest and current work for psychologists tackling the dearth of women leaders. A majority of presentations examined the role of stereotyping and prejudice in understanding leadership and gender, while a few others discussed contextual factors shaping women's leadership journeys such as life experiences and external parties such as head‐hunters. The limited focus on other diversity dimensions such as racio‐ethnicity is noted.

In light of the conference proceedings, the authors discuss how psychological research could further contribute to addressing the lack of women at the top of organisations. The authors suggest that models of stereotyping and prejudice in leadership need further contextualization and call for more research on multiple stakeholders accountable for women's leadership experiences, particularly those in positions of power and privilege such as current male leaders and Chairmen. Also stressed is the need for an intersectional approach which takes into account the multiple identities of women at the top.

Responses to diversity management have resulted in disappointment to many organizations (Cox, 2001). Previous work has situated rational for diversity in deontological ethics by equality scholars, while the business case for diversity has commonly rested on utilitarian ethics (van Dijk et al., 2012). The purpose of this paper is to examine a possible shift in rational for diversity – to explore if and how the ethic of care has been utilized in the diversity statements of companies earning recognition as one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2012.

This study utilized visual rhetoric analysis and was designed to examine multiple elements of these diversity statements as published in the company web sites, including presence of the ethic of care, visual communication, and logistics.

Of note are the results of the presence of the ethic of care as a primary or secondary rationale in 70 percent of the statements studied. Statistically significant results were found in the number of images of people from diverse backgrounds, as well as levels pleasantness and activation of the tone of the ethics statements.

This study contributes to a better understanding of identifiable characteristics of these diversity statements at organizations which have been identified by their employees and the Great Place to Work Institute.