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(Managing) Diversity

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  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics

Synonyms

Dissimilarity; Heterogeneity

Definition

The division of the workforce into distinct categories that (a) have a perceived commonality within a given cultural or national context and that (b) impact potentially harmful or beneficial employment outcomes such as job opportunities, treatment in the workplace, and promotion prospects – irrespective of job-related skills and qualifications (Mor Barak 2014, p. 136).

Description

Organizations have become more diverse over the past decades, among others, due to globalization and women entering the labor force. The increasing reliance on teamwork and loosening of hierarchical boundaries have further created an increase in the extent to which individuals who differ from each other work together. Another main impetus for diversity in organizations was the Civil Rights Act of 1964 in the USA, which prohibited all employment practices that discriminated on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (age and disability were...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Organization Studies, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Hans van Dijk

Authors
  1. Hans van Dijk
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Correspondence to Hans van Dijk .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Deborah C Poff

  2. Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Alex C. Michalos

Section Editor information

  1. Amsterdam Center for Integrity and Leadership, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Karianne Kalshoven

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© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

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van Dijk, H. (2017). (Managing) Diversity. In: Poff, D., Michalos, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_52-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_52-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-23514-1

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