Organization: The critical journal of organization, theory and society
Special Issue on DIVERSITY RETHOUGHT: UNPACKING DIVERSITY AND DIVERSITY
MANAGEMENT
Guest Editors:
Patrizia Zanoni, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
Yvonne Benschop, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Maddy Janssens, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium
Stella Nkomo, University of South Africa, South Africa
Deadline for submissions: 1 June 2008
"Diversity" has become an increasingly popular object of research among organizational scholars, generating a large number of publications in organizational journals. The bulk of this literature has drawn from existing social psychological theories -such as social identity theory or the similarity paradigm- to empirically investigate the effects of demographic diversity in terms of gender, race/ethnicity, educational background, and attitudes on work-related outcomes such as minorities' promotions, mentoring relationships, and group processes.
Altogether, as Nkomo and Cox observed in 1996, the notion of diversity itself has largely been taken for granted. The dominance of functionalist and positivist research on this topic, and the lack of "diversity theories" as such, have led to the widespread construction of diversity as a demographic heterogeneity index, promoting an essentialist understanding of
minorities in organizations. In this sense, socio-demographic traits have become readily measurable repositories of 'true identities.' At the same time, inspired by the rhetoric of "the business case", most studies have approached diversity from an instrumental perspective, concealing underlying power relations. For instance, while there are few minority employees in
professional or managerial jobs, they are the samples of choice for touting diversity's contribution to "creativity, innovation and problem-solving skills," masking the fact that most minorities are concentrated in the lowest levels, worst paid and least secure jobs, inimical to innovation and creativity. More recently, diversity has been extended to incorporate almost any kind of difference between individuals in a group, much beyond its original reference in regards to the inclusion of members of minority populations.
In light of these limitations, this special issue provides a space for the emergence of novel and explicitly critical examinations of the idea of diversity. We look for conceptual or empirical work drawing from critical theories to 'unpack' dominant understandings of diversity, revealing their underlying assumptions and consequences, and developing, concurrently, a better understanding of the power dynamics concealed by benign considerations of diversity in organizations.
Submitted papers should develop theoretically informed critical analyses andcontribute to theorydevelopment through innovative insights on the nexus of diversity andorganizations. In particular, given the increasing popularity of notions of diversity in organizations around the world, we are interested in work framed through critical analysis of transnationalism and globalization, as well as work that approach diversity through Black studies; Latino/a studies; cultural studies; and poststructuralists, materialist, postcolonial and queer theories, including feminist theories that have hardly been used to understand diversity, despite the prominence of studies on sex/gender in diversity research.
Submission: Papers must be sent electronically by 1st June 2008 (but not before 1st May 2008) to
organization@wbs.ac.uk as Word attachments, indicating "Diversity Rethought:Unpacking Diversity and Diversity Management" in the subject line of the email. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the guidelines published in Organization and on the journal's website:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalmanuscript.aspx?pid=105723&sc=1Papers should be approximately 8000 words, excluding references, and will be blind reviewed following the journal's standard review process. For further information. please contact one of the following guest editors: Patrizia Zanoni (
P.Zanoni@uvt.nl), Yvonne Benschop (
Y.Benschop@fm.ru.nl), Maddy Janssens (
Maddy.Janssens@econ.kuleuven.be),
or Stella Nkomo (
Nkomosm@unisa.ac.za).