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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.

The purpose of this research is to compare the mission statements of the hospitals listed on the 2014 US News & World Report’s Best Hospitals List to investigate the research question, “Are high ranking hospitals (HRH) more likely than low ranking hospitals (LRH) to address cultural diversity in strategic statements?”

The strategic statements of 44 HRH and 56 LRH were compared using chi-square and Fisher’s exact test.

While the data do not support the notion that HRHs are more likely than LRHs to address diversity in strategic statements, HRHs are more likely than LRHs to actually devote resources to address the issues of cultural diversity.

The current research is limited to a sample taken from the US News & World Report Best Hospitals. This is not a definitive list, and a multitude of third-party hospital raters exist – each with its own unique metrics.

The results do not show a relationship between a hospital’s mission statement and its ranking in the US News List of Best Hospitals. However, the findings suggest that hospitals that maintain a dedicated diversity manager/office do tend to be higher ranked.

This is the first known investigation of the relationship between the inclusion of diversity in hospital mission statements and hospital rankings. The research suggests that addressing diversity in strategic statements is simply not enough and that dedicated, ground-level resources are necessary to properly impact quality care and third-party ratings.

Using early recruitment and workplace diversity literature, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how employee recruitment statements regarding employment-at-will moderate the effect that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT)-supportive recruitment statements have on job seekers’ job pursuit intentions (JPI) and attraction toward a firm.

A between-subjects, cross-sectional experimental design was used where subjects answered self-report questionnaires after viewing mock recruitment web ads. The ads included statements where the condition for job security or at-will employment and GLBT-supportive or equal opportunity employment climates were manipulated.

The paper provides empirical insights about how gay-friendly work climate perceptions impact the organizational attractiveness and JPI of job seekers. Furthermore, the results suggest that the combination of recruitment strategies affect subjects differently based on their individual level of heterosexist attitudes.

Because of the chosen research approach, research results may lack generalizability and be affected by social desirability effects. Because a cross-sectional design was used, causality cannot necessarily be inferred. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

The implications of these findings will assist human resources managers in creating cultures of tolerance within their workforce by helping them better understand who their recruitment methods target, and how to effectively use statements in recruitment literature to attract tolerant workers.

There is limited research that investigates the effects that diversity statements supportive of sexual minorities have on job seekers. A major contribution of the current study is the empirical evidence supporting the understanding of how individuals are affected by recruitment literature containing statements in support of sexual orientation employee diversity.

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 analysis draws on interviews with 19 self-identified US diversity consultants and 94 diversity statements posted on corporate websites. The findings challenge existing literature that characterizes the business case for diversity as monolithic and wholly problematic for the way it constructs understandings of human difference. The authors accomplish this using metaphor analysis to demonstrate how business case arguments incorporate three metaphorical systems for thinking and speaking about human differences – as asset, as liability and as possibility. Given this diversity of metaphors, the business case does not construct human difference in a monolithic way, but in a variety of ways that both challenge and sustain problematic treatments of difference. The authors argue scholars and practitioners should attend to these nuanced difference within the discourse of the business case, and more carefully consider how these metaphorical systems both enable and constrain the design and execution of diversity work in organizations. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The analysis draws on two data sets: initial interviews with 19 self-identified US diversity consultants analyzed using metaphor analysis. To triangulate findings, the metaphorical framework was applied to 94 diversity statements posted on corporate websites.

Business case arguments operate according to three root metaphors of human difference: human difference as asset, human difference as liability and human difference as possibility. This challenges existing literature that treats the business case as a monolithic discourse.

This analysis offers the three metaphorical system and highlights the “constrained capacity” of each. This framework offers an analytical and practical tool for scholars and practitioners, enabling them to more thoroughly understand and respond to their unique organizational and socio-historical context. It also provides a way to analyze how concepts of difference are mobilized across social and historical contexts.

The findings offer the “constrained capacity” that is, the strategic limitations and possibilities for practitioners who use the business case in their diversity work. This enables more skilled and ethically informed diversity initiatives.

The findings offer insight into the subtle ways that hierarchies of human difference embedded in US history are subtly reinforced and made present through language. This enables social justice workers to better challenge problematic constructions of human difference and create new understandings when needed.

This piece makes two significant original contributions to existing literature. It offers more nuance to both critical and uncritical analyses of the business case by showing the diversity of business case assumptions about human difference as demonstrated in three different metaphorical systems and highlighting the constrained capacity of three different metaphorical systems. It offers unique analysis grounded in contemporary discourses, but correlated to historical systems of thought. This enables empirical identification of how certain types of thinking about human difference move across socio-historical contexts.

Originating from the USA in the early 1990s, diversity management has been “imported” to Europe to become a fashionable practice in many business organizations. The aim of this paper is to provide further insight into whether and how the diversity management discourse challenges and replaces existing local discourses on equality and diversity, and how diversity management is given content and meaning in a specific local context.

Statements on diversity, diversity management and equality on both the Dutch and the international websites of ten leading companies in the Netherlands are analyzed.

The analysis shows that translations of diversity management may in fact not actually replace existing local discourses, but rather leave the existing local discourse more or less intact and alter the original diversity management discourse to fit into this local discourse.

This paper offers some important lessons for management practice.

The study aims to explore major internationally operating hotel groups and their corporate diversity statements. An understanding of these statements is critical for the analysis of workforce diversity actions, as they shape the policy framework and basis for any diversity management (DM) program or initiative.

The study applied a qualitative content analysis of corporate web sites. The analysis and evaluation of the data was not treated in statistical terms or in any quantifiable measures due to the study's rather exploratory and inductive nature. Moving away from traditional forms of validity and reliability, this study applied Denzin and Lincoln's authenticity criteria.

Most of the selected hotel companies with diversity management strategies and policies need to communicate their diversity management activities and actions more extensively and clearly via their corporate web sites to help support employee recruitment efforts, attraction of talents with different educational and cultural backgrounds, development of multiple (minority) supplier relations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) image, and accessibility into new markets.

This study should be seen as a starting point with some of the arguments and conclusions to be reconfirmed with more case‐study based explorations of corporate DM policies and their translation into operational actions and programs.

Communicating in a more effective and structured way, corporate or operational diversity strategies and activities via corporate web sites will provide hotel organizations with a key sustainable competitive advantage in talent recruitment, CSR and market accessibility.

This study provides a starting point for better understanding corporate diversity management in the global hotel industry.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how an academic library at one of the most diverse universities in the country responded to the 2016 election through the newly formed Inclusion and Equity Committee and through student outreach.

This paper details the context of the 2016 election and the role of social justice in librarianship. It offers ideas for how library diversity committees can address professional development, recruitment and retention efforts and cultural humility. It highlights student outreach efforts to support marginalized students, educate communities and promote student activism. Finally, it offers considerations and suggestions for librarians who want to engage in this work.

This paper shows that incorporating social justice, diversity, equity and inclusion requires individuals taking action. If institutions want to focus on any of these issues, they need to formally include them in their mission, vision and values as well as in department goals and individual job descriptions. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas University Libraries fully supports this work, but most of the labor is done by a small number of people. Unsustainable practices can cause employee burnout and turnover resulting in less internal and external efforts to support diversity.

Most of the previous literature focuses either on internal activities, such as professional development and committees, or on student-focused activities, such as outreach events, displays and instruction. This paper is one comprehensive review of both kinds of activities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate diversity conflict intersections and how the meanings of diversity markers such as gender and race might be transformed. It highlights the resources of South African women leaders in higher education institutions for doing so.

This study proceeds from a social constructivist perspective, seeking to uncover narrated conflict experiences via a hermeneutical approach.

Women leaders in South Africa experience diversity conflict across multiple intersecting diversity markers, such as gender, race, ethnicity and class. They are united by inner resources which, if utilized, might bring about transformation.

Intersectional approach to diversity conflict is a viable means for uncovering positive resources for transformation across intersecting diversity markers.

Practitioners wishing to overcome diversity conflict should identify positive resources across intersecting diversity markers. This way, organizations and individuals might bring about transformation.

In societal environment wherein one diversity marker is institutionalized on a structural level, such as race in South Africa, diversity conflict might be enlarged beyond its actual scope, thereby becoming insurmountable. This needs to be prevented.

This paper studies diversity conflict intersections in a highly diverse societal environment in organizations facing transformational challenges and from the perspective of women leaders.

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.