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This chapter provides a review of diversity management as framed in business and organizational management literature, and relates that literature to the current state of diversity theory development in library and information science (LIS).

This review begins with a theoretical orientation, focusing on organizational theories, diversity management models, and diversity conflict frameworks. It then summarizes some empirical literature for organizations seeking to create a diverse environment. It concludes with a discussion of diversity models developed in and for LIS.

Library and information science has lagged behind organizational science in research and theory development related to diversity. Most of the LIS research that has been done has focused on individuals rather than library systems or the larger organizational systems in which they are embedded. Practical questions are raised about the extent of diversity concerns in the day-to-day operations and practices of libraries, and where diversity concerns come into conflict with librarians’ professional values.

This chapter explores the many dynamics of diversity initiatives and presents a central argument that diversity initiatives are most effective when organizational leaders create and strategically implement them to form an inclusive organizational culture. This chapter addresses diversity from a global perspective in three ways. First, it defines diversity and emphasizes one goal: diversity of perspectives. Second, it advocates for creating an organizational culture to overcome conflicting aspects of traditional, demographic-centered, or individual-centered diversity initiatives. Third, it introduces the DURCI Diversity Model, which stands for Define, Understand, Review, Communicate, and Implement, as a five-step method to foster a diverse, inclusive organizational culture. This chapter begins with a definition of diversity as efforts to synchronize unique demographic groups. It emphasizes the importance of defining diversity as it applies to an organization and ultimately creating an organizational culture that transcends individual demographics and defines diversity by what it means explicitly to the organization, including what diversity the organization already possesses. This chapter proceeds to use nonprofit, private, and public organizations, such as the US Department of Health and Human Services, Google, the American Red Cross, Cisco Systems, Americans for the Arts, the National Diversity Council, and the Gates Foundation, to illustrate the wide applicability of the DURCI Diversity Model to frame successful organizational diversity initiatives.

The popular press often touts workforce demographic diversity as profit enhancing because it may reduce the firm's communication costs with particular segments of customers or yield greater team problem-solving abilities. On the other hand, diversity also may raise communication costs within teams, thereby retarding problem solving and lowering productivity. Unfortunately, there is little empirical research that disentangles the above countervailing effects. Diversity in ability enhances the team productivity if there is significant mutual learning and collaboration within the team, while demographic diversity may harm productivity by making learning and peer pressure less effective and increasing team-member turnover. We evaluate these propositions using a novel panel data from a garment plant that shifted from individual piece rate to group piece rate production over three years. Because we observe individual productivity data, we are able to econometrically distinguish between the impacts of diversity in worker abilities and demographic diversity. Teams with more heterogeneous worker abilities are more productive at the plant. Holding the distribution of team ability constant, teams composed of only one ethnicity (Hispanic workers in our case) are more productive, but this finding does not hold for marginal changes in team composition. We find little evidence that workers prefer to be segregated; demographically diverse teams are no more likely to dissolve, holding team productivity (and hence pay) constant, than homogeneous teams.

This chapter aims to expose the reader to the notion that mandated diversity and inclusion changes intended to vary the composition of institutions of learning has not accomplished its goal. Rather, it has triggered a complex mix of reactions from the very people for whom the policy was designed to assist and from those who work under the policy. As society is molded to meet diversity targets, salient threats from dominant groups directed toward minority groups result in interpersonal conflict. This chapter explores the benefits that instructors receive from professional development activities centered on diversity. It examines the social identity conflict that is created when different minded people work together. It provides insight into the benefits of approaching social identity conflict with a conflict transformation perspective. This chapter exposes the reality that, while the words one speaks are respectful and inclusive, one’s actions may be totally different. Educators must exhibit an overarching commitment to the making of decisions on integrity and evidence rather than impressions. This chapter discusses the importance of the role of educators as moral leaders and the need for educators to create inclusive classrooms where diversity is celebrated.

In this chapter, we first show how the concept of competency, and management of or by competency, can be a factor in helping more people find employment, improve employability and develop competency, thus contributing to increased diversity in the workforce at every level of an organisation. We then examine a different part of the literature, more closely related to organisational learning, which finds that deviance and diversity can potentially boost competency. Subsequently, we look at diversity management first as an organisational competency, then as an individual competency. Concerning the reasons for the spread of management by competency and diversity management, we shall see that their respective advocates employ the same rhetoric of economic rationality, with both types of practice being justified by an objective change in the environment and, for this reason, presented as unavoidable and to some extent as simply “moving with the times”. In opposition to this supposed rationality as seen by companies, we will show that, in France, the two concepts of competency and diversity interact closely with institutional processes of mimetism, normalisation and coercion. In the final section, we shall look more closely at critical views of management by competency and diversity, as the criticisms of the two concepts are very similar and question their (possible) claims to be propelling society towards a fairer society.

Although there is great potential for diversity, library and information science (LIS) is a relatively homogenous profession. Increasing the presence of librarians of color may help to improve diversity within LIS. However, recruiting ethnic minorities into LIS has proven to be difficult despite various initiative including scholarships, fellowships, and locally focused programs. The central questions explored in this research can be divided into two parts: (1) Why do ethnic minorities choose librarianship as a profession? (2) What would motivate members of minority groups to join a profession in which they cannot see themselves?

The research was conducted through semi-structured, qualitative interviews of 32 ethnic minority students from one of four ethnic minority groups (African American, Asian American, Hispanic/Latino, and Native American) currently enrolled in an LIS graduate program. Eleven themes emerged from the data: libraries, librarians, library work experience, LIS graduate program, career plans and goals, education and family, support, mentors, ethnicity and community, acculturation, and views of diversity.

The findings seem to support many assumptions regarding expectations and career goals. The findings related to libraries, librarians, mentors, and support illustrate that many recruitment initiatives are starting in the right place. However, the most noteworthy findings were those that centered on identity, acculturation, and diversity because they dealt with issues that are not often considered or discussed by many in the profession outside of ethnic minority organizations.

Many organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity and firm’s financial performance. We use a sample of 35 companies from five countries in Southeast Europe (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece) for the period between 2008 and 2012 to find that, on average, companies with well-educated board members are more profitable and overvalued on the market. When running the regression again to test the levels of heterogeneity, we also find that the companies with more women on board tend to be overvalued on the market, while those with more foreigners on board are subject of undervaluation. The paper mostly contributes to the literature on corporate governance and board diversity. First, we postulate the impact of each of the board diversity variables on the financial performance and then show the extent of this impact and its economic interpretation. Our findings have important practitioners’ implications for corporate regulators and policy-makers since the demonstrated positive impact of the well-educated board members on firm’s financial performance gives a new impetus in building a corporate strategy that will intend to engage more people holding PhD on board.

Although some researchers have recognized that context can play an important role in explaining the mixed findings of past diversity research, to date a comprehensive framework for specifying these contextual influences has been lacking. In order to address this gap, we propose a framework for future research that incorporates contextual variables at extra-organizational, organizational, and team levels. We consider how these various aspects of diversity influence categorization-based or elaboration-based diversity outcomes. We also present findings of a literature review that identifies aspects of diversity context that have received attention directly or indirectly in research conducted between 1999 and 2007.