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Four leading practitioners' perspectives on diversity work: Organizational change through individual and systems focused approaches
Abstract
With the release of Workforce 2000: Work and workers for the twenty-first century (Johnson & Packer, 1987) which projected increased cultural diversity in the workforce; more and more organizations and organizational consultants have become interested in methods to insure that all people are respected and their talents are fully utilized in organizations. Organizational change strategies are being employed to this end. The purpose of this study is to explore and describe how a group of practitioners conceptualize the nature of their diversity work and describe the change strategies they use. Diversity work in this study is a generic term used to describe the variety of approaches commonly labeled managing diversity, valuing diversity, multicultural organization development, etc. Approaches which include as their goals, respect for all people, the removal of advantages and disadvantages in the workplace based on social group identity, and the re-creation of organizations to reflect diverse perspectives. Through a qualitative case study approach using in-depth interviews the perspectives of four practitioners are explored and shared. The practitioners were chosen through a review of the literature so as to represent approaches that have been documented in writing, and to include people with differing perspectives on the use of individual and systems focused strategies. The four participants are Asherah Cinnamon, Judith Katz, Roosevelt Thomas, and Barbara Walker. Through the interview process three areas were explored with the participants: the practitioners' personal and professional background; their philosophies of change; and their approaches to diversity work. Results of the study indicate that each of the four cases was unique in and of itself. Through each description the theory and assumptions behind the work are made more explicit. At the same time common threads are revealed that provide connections among the approaches. While each practitioner has specific goals, focus, language, and ways of thinking about the work which are articulated through the case descriptions; themes which emerge from the cross-case analysis shed light on the overall practice and also have implications for the future of this work.
Subject Area
Business education|Management|Bilingual education|Multicultural education
Recommended Citation
Conlon, Eileen M, "Four leading practitioners' perspectives on diversity work: Organizational change through individual and systems focused approaches" (1993). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI9329585.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI9329585