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The article aims to investigate how washing practices focused on appeasing sceptics of diversity work in for-profit organizations play out in corporate online communication of diversity and inclusion efforts, and how these enable communication to a wide audience that includes social equity advocates.

Online corporate communication data of diversity and inclusion themes were compiled from the websites of eight Swedish-based multinational corporations. The data included content from the companies’ official websites and annual reports and sustainability reports as well as diversity and inclusion-themed blog posts. A thematic analysis was conducted on the website content.

The study showcases how tensions between conflicting external demands are navigated by keeping the communication open to several interpretations and thereby achieving multivocality. In the studied corporate texts on diversity and inclusion, this is achieved by alternating between elements catering to a business case audience and those that appeal to a social justice audience, with some procedures managing to appease both audiences at the same time.

The article complements previously described forms of washing by introducing an additional type of washing – business case washing – an articulation of the business case rhetoric that characterizes the diversity management discourse. While much has been written about washing to satisfy advocates of social change and equity, washing to appease shareholders and boardroom members, who are focused on profit and economic growth, has received less attention. The article suggests that online corporate communication on diversity and inclusion, by appeasing diverse audiences, can be seen as aspirational talk.

This paper aims to discuss the importance of organisations paying closer attention to their corporate language policies as a strategy for embracing diversity in their workforce.

An exploratory study of the web sites of companies recognized for their diversity efforts is conducted to highlight their communication strategy, in particular the terminology used to refer to non‐whites.

This research found that the language used in corporate communications to refer to non‐whites varies even among companies that have been highly recognized for their diversity efforts. While the web sites clearly revealed the companies' commitment to diversity, the difficulty associated with this controversial issue can also be seen. An argument is made that organisations should eliminate the use of the term “minority” from their communications in an effort to enhance their diversity climate and more accurately reflect their commitment to diversity.

This research relied on web site content analysis and only the sites of companies that have been highly recognized for their diversity efforts were considered.

The paper shows that as the debate about the use of the term “minorities” continues, companies that embrace diversity should pay close attention to the language used in their corporate communications to ensure that the messages and signals they send consistently mirror their beliefs and perceptions of various stakeholders.

This research may be of special interest to communication strategists and persons within the organisation that are interested in improving their corporate image and addressing the behaviours and attitudes of the organisation's stakeholders.

The purpose of this paper is to make a case for contextual interpretivism in managing diversity in organizational settings, specifically in its bearing on internal communication, going against the dominating functionalistic stance of venerated and ubiquitous approaches.

Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were employed to explore the potential of contextual interpretivism within the mining and construction industries of South Africa, due to the fecund diversity context of its employee population.

This paper points to the enriched understanding that could result from following a contextual interpretivistic approach to internal communication for diversity management, and in so doing discusses the ways in which this could take hold in organizations through the application of germane theoretical assertions of revered internal organizational communication literature, specifically the excellence theory and communication satisfaction.

The main limitation to this research is the restricted generalizability of its empirical research. Further research is required for the exploration of the central premise in other organizational contexts.

The paper provides insights into the ways in which organizations could approach its diversity management so as to speak to more than just the functional aspects thereof, and rather to the importance of nurturing an understanding of employees’ interpretation of the organization’s diversity endeavors.

The implications of applying a new approach to diversity management in organizational settings is discussed and argued, offering an empirical application thereof, which gives way to practical, data-driven recommendations for use in organizational settings.

Research examining organizational diversity has largely ignored the role corporate web sites play in establishing the tone for diversity in organizations. Serving as “electronic storefronts,” corporate web sites are typically the first point of contact individuals have with an organization. The purpose of this paper is to centralize communication as a critical tool in understanding the strategies corporations use to communicate their diversity philosophy, practices and policies. This virtual ethnographic study examines corporate web sites (n=100) across industries and sectors to capture the strategies organizations use to strategically communicate diversity to a variety of stakeholders.

Taking a virtual ethnographic, this study examines 100 corporate web sites across industries to capture the methods organizations employ to strategically communicate diversity in their respective organization.

Results from this ethnographic study reveal that organizations typically use three strategies in their diversity messages: impression management, persuasion and strategic ambiguity. Strategic ambiguity and the persuasive use of selling, telling and framing their diversity message are ubiquitous in corporate diversity communication. The use of these strategies may have a profound impact on how diversity is perceived within organizations. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

This is one of the first social science/humanistic studies to examine diversity messages on corporate web sites and advances a conceptual framework for electronic diversity communication. Additionally, this project employs a virtual ethnographic approach, a novel, yet contemporary, method.

This chapter presents a study on the role of internal communication for diversity and inclusion (D&I) management in organisations. It sheds light on how the units D&I management and internal communication are linked to each other in terms of exchanging and sharing ideas and know-how and the (common) pursuit and achievement of strategically set objectives. In total, 20 D&I experts (17 D&I managers and three D&I management consultants) from Austria and Germany were interviewed. The focus of the interviews was on the development of D&I management strategies and concomitant measures as well as the internal D&I communication activities. The findings indicate the importance of internal communication to communicate D&I goals and measures. In this context, the internal communication department plays the role of a service provider and advisor. Numerous communication channels are used to communicate D&I initiatives, with ‘rich’ media such as interpersonal communication and social intranet being particularly common. Furthermore, the results show that storytelling is a particularly popular form of communication. The study contributes to the scholarly examination of the role of internal communication in D&I management, to what extent and how the two units collaborate, and what communication measures are taken to pursue D&I management goals.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how diversity climate in service organizations influence employee learning behavior. Additionally, the study examined the mediating effects of psychological safety and communication satisfaction between diversity climate and learning behavior.

Data were collected from 128 hotel and lodging managers by administering survey questionnaires. The dual mediational model was tested using the mediation test suggested by Preacher and Hayes (2008).

Results indicated that when managers perceived a positive diversity climate they also reported high engagement in learning behavior. Additionally, the study found the mediating effects of psychological safety and communication satisfaction.

The importance of learning behavior has been noted by researchers and practitioners because of its influence on service performance. Learning behavior is especially important in complex, error prone, and fast changing businesses like the services industry. This research contributes to the existing body of research by examining the influence of diversity climate on learning behavior, which has not been investigated empirically in the literature. The current research not only makes a significant contribution to the learning and diversity literature, but also informs practitioners how learning behavior can be increased and how diversity climate can be created in within service organizations, in particularly hospitality.

The purpose of this article is to examine the communicative factors that facilitate or hamper the development of an inclusive work environment with an emphasis on the communication about equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), while taking diversity characteristics of employees into account.

In total, 84 persons employed in Austria and Germany, who feature various observable and non-observable diversity characteristics, were interviewed following a problem-centered approach.

The results indicate that employees with (observable) diversity characteristics, who tend to feel less included, observe more excluding and marginalizing communication and practices in their organizations. Moreover, formal interpersonal communication appears to be more important to develop a highly inclusive workplace than informal interpersonal communication and other forms of communication about EDI.

The sample was rather imbalanced and comprised only employees in Austria and Germany, which limits the study's explanatory power. However, the findings stress the significance of formal interpersonal communication as the cornerstone of an inclusive workplace, which should be followed up in future research.

In terms of the development of an inclusive work environment the findings suggest that strategic (i.e. formal) organizational communication about EDI issues is key to increase the perception of inclusion.

This paper contributes to the literature by demonstrating the importance of interpersonal communication as a key factor that facilitates, but also hampers an inclusive work environment.

This paper aims to identify the rudiments of an organizational communication framework which can serve as a facilitator of a positive diversity climate, which, in turn, could enhance the integration of locals into the expatriate-dominated workforce of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As UAE citizens constitute a small minority of the workforce, the local style of communication is not, ipso facto, the dominant one in organizations.

The study elicited 458 Emirati respondents’ narratives of positive and negative workplace communication experiences. The authors identified emerging themes to highlight the key features of interpersonal interactions likely to foster or hinder a supportive diversity climate.

The critical incidents reported are interpreted in terms of UAE cultural traditions, more specifically, the communication patterns valued by local workers.

Outside of the Arabian Gulf, there are perhaps no other national workforces that are so multicultural that local communication strategies are overshadowed. This research is, therefore, a pioneering attempt to re-establish a preference for indigenous communication practices to facilitate the workforce localization policies that are present in many Gulf countries.

The communication preferences identified could inform the implementation of an organizational communication model centered around indigenous communication preferences, including the communication strategies that would be most effective for organizational leadership to use. At the same time, this could contribute to the creation of a positive diversity climate that, in turn, could decrease levels of attrition among Emirati employees and enhance workforce localization.

This study represents an innovative attempt to construct a communication model around which a positive diversity climate can coalesce and, in so doing, it serves as an initial contribution to the management of diversity within the context of Arabian Gulf workplaces.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the field of diversity studies with novel insights on how language diversity and communication frequency influence dissimilarity attitudes.

The authors examine language diversity and communication frequency as group‐level antecedents for positive dissimilarity attitudes by use of questionnaire responses from 489 members of academic culturally diverse departments.

The results showed that communication frequency has strong positive relationships with three variables depicting positive dissimilarity attitudes, namely openness to linguistic, visible and informational diversity. Contradicting our predictions, language diversity had positive associations with all variables portraying positive dissimilarity attitudes. The implications of these findings are discussed in detail.

Few prior studies have dealt with the relations between language, communication and dissimilarity attitudes.

This study aims to examine the effects of diversity-oriented leadership and strategic internal communication on employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior during a crisis situation, coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in particular. Integrating knowledge sharing research with internal crisis communication literature as well as self-determination theory, the mediating roles of employees’ intrinsic needs satisfaction are also identified.

An online survey was conducted with 490 full-time employees in the USA across industry sectors during the COVID-19 outbreak.

Results suggest that diversity-oriented leadership contributes to transparent internal communication during a crisis and increases employees’ satisfaction of autonomy, competence and relatedness needs. Transparent internal communication also increases employees’ intrinsic needs satisfaction, which in turn fosters their job engagement and knowledge-sharing behavior during the crisis.

This study is one of the earliest studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of diversity-oriented leadership and strategic internal crisis communication in enhancing employees’ knowledge-sharing behavior, especially in the context of COVID-19.