The Praxis of Diversity

Christoph Lütge, Christiane Lütge, Markus Faltermeier, Christoph Lütge, Christiane Lütge, Markus Faltermeier

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030260774
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030260781
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Ethics
• Index: Business

This edited collection brings together experts from various disciplines to engage critically with diversity theory, diversity politics, and their practical application. Accordingly, the volume provides a provocative discursive space, where the key theoretical as well as practical problems of diversity in business, institutions and culture can speak to each other and can be assessed. The aim is to bridge the gap between two relatively distinct discourses: the discourse on practical applications of diversity concepts and the discourse on theoretical approaches to diversity. This selection of articles delivers the first step towards achieving this goal. Approaching diversity from a business perspective, the chapters discuss its ramifications on democratic institutions and theory, as well as point to its relevance in didactic and educational settings.

© The Author(s) 2020

C. Lütge et al. (eds.)The Praxis of Diversityhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26078-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction: The Praxis of Diversity

Christoph Lütge¹ , Christiane Lütge² and Markus Faltermeier³

(1)

Peter Löscher Chair of Business Ethics, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Bayern, Germany

(2)

Institute of English Philology, Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Bayern, Germany

(3)

Bavarian Center for Transatlantic Relations, Munich, Bayern, Germany

Christoph Lütge (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Christiane Lütge

Email: [email protected]

Markus Faltermeier

Email: [email protected]

Keywords

Cultural diversityInclusionBusiness hiringPublic and academic discourses on diversityDiversity management

End Abstract

One of the most pressing issues in political and economic matters in the contemporary world is the question of how to address diversity in the manifold ways and contexts in which the concept is being applied today. In particular, highly developed countries such as the United States and Germany are struggling with how to approach diversity in accordance with principles of justice and democracy without having to risk the productivity of corporations, businesses, and other enterprises. As a matter of crucial salience, diversity speaks to academic, economic, political and many other social actors on different levels. Accordingly, the particular structure of this collection of articles inspired by the 2016 academic conference on “Diversity in Culture, Institutions, and Business” intends to provide a platform for an exchange of ideas and knowledge between practitioners, scholars, entrepreneurs, politicians, and social activists involved in the praxis of diversity.

Diversity is of course not a new phenomenon. It is a commonplace that, depending on the precise historical and geographical context, there have existed ethnic, gender-related, racial, economic, political, and other forms of diversity in any society in various stratifications. However, in the last century, perceptions of and approaches to diversity have changed drastically. Only recently has the term “diversity” been transformed into a normative meta-concept and entered into fields as diverse as economy or politics. Whereas the telos of political and economic practices of many societies has often been and still is homogeneity —thus leading to the open and politically implemented suppression and delegitimization of “unwanted” individual or collective actors—in particular in Western democracies diversity has become a policy ideal with a global agenda and its alleged intrinsic moral worth is particularly valued as well as promoted in the political as well as economic context (Isar 2006).

Diversity issues are often controversial and conflict-laden. In Germany and the United States, as in the rest of the world, people have to cope with issues that are framed through the prism of diversity, ranging from the gender pay gap, diversity in leading positions, and quota for supervisory and other boards to large-scale social problems of integration, legitimacy, citizenship, class, and many others.

This development speaks of a recognition of some vastly changing assumptions on and evaluations of the basic structures of society that organizations, institutions, or corporations can only ignore at their own peril. Often, the challenge lies in showing that improvements in terms of diversity are of mutual interest, e.g. both in the interests of employees as well as corporations, or in the interest of the individual agent as much as of the larger community.

In academia , disciplines such as the social sciences, philosophy, management studies, economics, education, linguistics, or cultural studies have acknowledged these developments regarding diversity and have contributed to the creation of new interdisciplinary fields like diversity management and diversity studies (Bendl et al. 2012; Hubbard 2012; Krell et al. 2007; Kymlicka 2007).

Diversity—A Fractured Discourse

However, the discourse on diversity is in itself not homogeneous; it is fractured into different sections that operate on rather distinct premises about what diversity is and how it should be addressed in a given social setting. As Stephen Vertovec has pointed out, the diversity discourse is on the one hand an academic discourse, but it is at the same time a discussion unfolding in the arena of the general public (2014). Both sides of the debate on diversity can again be divided into two large subsections.

Public Perspectives and Practices

Within the public discourse we can locate a normative struggle for sovereignty on the interpretation of the importance and relevance of diversity and the strategies it implies for contemporary society. To recognize and integrate people of different genders, ages, ethnic backgrounds, sexual orientations, or abilities is a challenge that many individual and collective agents in society face, and which for many has become a key point for success (cf. Moss 2009; Vertovec 2014; Cooper 2010; Baghramian and Ingram 2000). While diversity and related concepts such as multiculturalism or plurinationality have been growing in relevance within the public discourse since the last decades of the twentieth century, recent developments such as new migration patterns due to crisis and wars such as in Syria and the ensuing arrival of large numbers of refugees in particular in Europe have put Western societies’ celebratory appraisal of diversity to the test. Furthermore, identity politics as well as tensions based on ethnic, religious, race, class, and gender issues have had both positive as well as negative ramifications for contemporary societies. In particular the right-wing backlash in democracies of the transatlantic north oftentimes rests on pseudo-conservative notions of homogeneity and a strong xenophobic and anti-diversity sentiment provoked by a growing pluralism.

The other side of the public discourse focuses on the policies, practices, and institutionalizations that diversity politics imply. At least since the 1990s diversity has been developed into a policy ideal—adopted as best practice by a large array of various public agents involved in contexts such as the business world, industry, politics, government, or education. Institutions such as the law strive for broader recognition and representation of the rights and demands of minorities or disenfranchised groups; educational settings employ inclusive approaches and governments manage diversity. During the last three decades diversity as policy has also become a growing concern for businesses and enterprises in the globalized world (Klarsfeld 2014; Moss 2009; Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner 2012). Organizing management strategies in accordance with the demands of a highly diverse society has become more prevalent in German and European companies. In the United States, companies have been encouraged to employ tactics related to diversity management through legislative control, such as Affirmative Action. Furthermore, regulatory organs such as the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission have been founded partly due to the intensive cultural and social struggles for equality and minority rights beginning in the late 1950s (Vedder 2006).

The public discourse on diversity and the practices it involves circulates around core topics such as redistribution, recognition, representation, provision, competition, and organization. Within these topics diversity is either seen as a challenge that needs to be addressed due to social justice claims, or as a necessity of contemporary business models. Accordingly, basal to the different voices within these discursive formations are normative ontologies that either judge diversity measures as problematic or as obligatory to the success of contemporary societies.

Diversity Discourse and Academia

Similar to the public discourse, the academic treatment of diversity is splintered into at least two sections with one focusing on the management aspect of diversity and the other provides a meta-critique of both the academic-management debate and the public disputes.

The former refers to those fields of inquiry that analyze why, how, and on which grounds e.g. businesses, institutions, and governments can and should integrate diversity measures to their practices. In general, diversity management protagonists negotiate along two seminal argumentative lines. One argument employs a more or less utilitarian structure by weighing diversity strategies against their potential productivity outcomes. Leading questions are whether diversity management can foster market advantages, an increase in efficiency, or a growth of economic surplus. The other argumentative line seems to be more deontological than utilitarian by stressing notions of equality, dignity, anti-discrimination, and human rights regardless of the concrete value payoff of diversity management.

Likewise, legal, political, social, and other institutions play a pivotal role in shaping how a given society conceives of and manages its responses to diversity. On the one hand, institutions are crucial in fostering respect and legitimacy for diversity in a given community by securing and enforcing the rights, interests, and needs of both its individual and collective agents. On the other hand, it is debatable whether political or juridical institutions should actively promote diversity by legislative or executive sanctions, or whether e.g. legal institutions should only be used to “strike down blatantly racist policies” (Wilson 2007). Over the courses of their respective histories, institutions in Western democracies approached these challenges in a strikingly different manner due to their concrete socioeconomic, sociopolitical, and ideational frameworks. Depending on how communities or societies interpret issues such as social justice, moral norms, and the principles guiding their actions in these regards, diversity challenges are addressed in divergent ways (cf. Gould 2007; Kymlicka 2007).

The questions that need to be addressed center on the challenges that institutions have to deal with their operations and practices related to diversity within paradigms of social justice. Should diversity be seen as a moral prerogative that needs to be established via institutional measures regardless of the immediate effects it has on the structures of community? Should more utilitarian aspects regarding the well-being of a community guide the institutional provisions when it comes to enforcement of diversity interests? What applicable options are open to public institutions when facing the demands of diversity? Do institutions have to buy into certain categorizations that produce a static heterogeneity in favor of the fluid identities in social diversity due to the logics involved in institutional practices? How does the concrete socio-political and socio-economic context of institutions in the varying global frameworks account for different approaches in answering the challenges that come with diversity? How can scholars learn from the diversity-related epistemologies underlying and structuring the institutional agency in a globalized world?

However, these discourses come with a baggage, as scholars from fields such as critical race theory, critical legal studies, postcolonial studies, or African American studies have pointed out. Diversity as a concept of public discourse, of best practice, and of academic management oftentimes not only involves normative programs, it is also being identified as instrumentalist, as reinforcing normativity by positing that diversity is something that needs to be managed, as patronizing, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Introduction: The Praxis of Diversity
• 2. Diversity Beyond Non-discrimination: From Structural Injustices to Participatory Institutions
• 3. Diversity and the Problem of Social Glue
• 4. Why Research on Women Entrepreneurs Needs New Directions
• 5. Political Practice, Hybrid Selves, and Rational Antagonism
• 6. A Sociological Perspective on Diversity in ELT Coursebooks
• 7. Approaching Diversity in Education: Pedagogic and Queer Perspectives
• 8. Scattered Speculations on Business and Cultural Diversity
• Back Matter