BiblioVault - Books about Diversity in the workplace

The Changing Nature of Work

Edited by Frank Ackerman, Neva R. Goodwin, Laurie Dougherty, and Kevin Gallagher; Foreword by Robert Reich

Island Press, 1998

Human impacts on the environment are largely driven by economic forces. If a more ecologically sustainable world is to be achieved, significant changes must be made to the current growth- and consumption-dependent economic system. The Frontier Issues in Economic Thought series was designed to assist the growing number of economists and others who are responding to the need for new thinking about economics in the face of environmental and social forces that are reshaping the world.The Changing Nature of Work examines the causes and effects of the rapid transformation of the world of work. It provides concise summaries of the key writings on work and workplace issues, extending the frontiers of labor economics to include the often overlooked social and psychological dimensions of work.The book begins with a foreword by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich that presents labor in contemporary perspective. An introductory overview provides a brief history of the changing nature of work and situates current problems in the context of longer-term developments. Following that are eight topical sections that feature three- to five-page summaries for each of the ten to twelve most important articles or book chapters on a subject.Sections cover.new directions in labor economics social and psychological dimensions of work and unemployment globalization and labor new technologies and organizational change flexibility and internal labor markets new patterns of industrial relations family, gender, paid and unpaid work difference and diversity in the workplaceThe book provides a roadmap for scholars on the vast and diverse literature concerning labor issues, and affords students a quick overview of that rapidly changing field. It is an important contribution to the series and is a valuable book for anyone interested in labor, as well as for students and scholars of labor economics, industrial sociology, industrial relations, social psychology, and their respective disciplines.

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Chasing Newsroom Diversity

From Jim Crow to Affirmative Action

Gwyneth Mellinger

University of Illinois Press, 2013

Social change triggered by the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s sent the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) on a fifty-year mission to dismantle an exclusionary professional standard that envisioned the ideal journalist as white, straight, and male. In this book, Gwyneth Mellinger explores the complex history of the decades-long ASNE diversity initiative, which culminated in the failed Goal 2000 effort to match newsroom demographics with those of the U.S. population.

Drawing upon exhaustive reviews of ASNE archival materials, Mellinger examines the democratic paradox through the lens of the ASNE, an elite organization that arguably did more than any other during the twentieth century to institutionalize professional standards in journalism and expand the concepts of government accountability and the free press. The ASNE would emerge in the 1970s as the leader in the newsroom integration movement, but its effort would be frustrated by structures of exclusion the organization had embedded into its own professional standards. Explaining why a project so promising failed so profoundly, Chasing Newsroom Diversity expands our understanding of the intransigence of institutional racism, gender discrimination, and homophobia within democracy.

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The Color Bind

Talking (and Not Talking) About Race at Work

Erica Gabrielle Foldy

Russell Sage Foundation, 2014

Since the 1960s, the dominant model for fostering diversity and inclusion in the United States has been the “color blind” approach, which emphasizes similarity and assimilation and insists that people should be understood as individuals, not as members of racial or cultural groups. This approach is especially prevalent in the workplace, where discussions about race and ethnicity are considered taboo. Yet, as widespread as “color blindness” has become, many studies show that the practice has damaging repercussions, including reinforcing the existing racial hierarchy by ignoring the significance of racism and discrimination. In The Color Bind, workplace experts Erica Foldy and Tamara Buckley investigate race relations in office settings, looking at how both color blindness and what they call “color cognizance” have profound effects on the ways coworkers think and interact with each other. Based on an intensive two-and-a-half-year study of employees at a child welfare agency, The Color Bind shows how color cognizance—the practice of recognizing the profound impact of race and ethnicity on life experiences while affirming the importance of racial diversity—can help workers move beyond silence on the issue of race toward more inclusive workplace practices. Drawing from existing psychological and sociological research that demonstrates the success of color-cognizant approaches in dyads, workgroups and organizations, Foldy and Buckley analyzed the behavior of work teams within a child protection agency. The behaviors of three teams in particular reveal the factors that enable color cognizance to flourish. While two of the teams largely avoided explicitly discussing race, one group, “Team North,” openly talked about race and ethnicity in team meetings. By acknowledging these differences when discussing how to work with their clients and with each other, the members of Team North were able to dig into challenges related to race and culture instead of avoiding them. The key to achieving color cognizance within the group was twofold: It required both the presence of at least a few members who were already color cognizant, as well as an environment in which all team members felt relatively safe and behaved in ways that strengthened learning, including productively resolving conflict and reflecting on their practice. The Color Bind provides a useful lens for policy makers, researchers and practitioners pursuing in a wide variety of goals, from addressing racial disparities in health and education to creating diverse and inclusive organizations to providing culturally competent services to clients and customers. By foregrounding open conversations about race and ethnicity, Foldy and Buckley show that institutions can transcend the color bind in order to better acknowledge and reflect the diverse populations they serve.

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Corporate Futures

The Diffusion of the Culturally Sensitive Corporate Form

Edited by George E. Marcus

University of Chicago Press, 1998

As we approach the end of the century, cultural, institutional, and even geopolitical change becomes the norm rather than the exception. Late Editions, edited by George E. Marcus, is a series of annuals designed to probe these changes not through the familiar academic conventions of analysis but instead through in-depth, informed conversations and interviews with individuals at the sites of these transformations. The casts of other volumes in the series include artists, oncologists, Siberian medical leaders, warhead designers, and computer junkies, all of whom take the opportunity presented by Late Editions to reflect upon the great and often puzzling shifts occurring in the cultural landscape.

Late Editions 5, Corporate Futures, questions this idea of a "cultural landscape" by focusing on the the marked investment of corporations in the concept of culture, long the purview of anthropologists and, more recently, those involved in the humanistic disciplines. Emerging in the discourse of the workplace—and traveling beyond it to traditionally alternative associations—is the idea of a "corporate culture" with its own organization, management policies and practices, and ethos. How can we understand this culture of corporations, and to what extent does it reflect self-contained communities or fragmented human existence in groups under conditions of postmodernity? Corporate Futures tackles these issues and questions through conversations with managers, financial and risk analysts, and other participants in national and international organizations.

The results—engaging, intriguing, speculative, current—continue the work begun in earlier volumes to map the terrain of the present and navigate the uncertain future.

Praise for Late Editions: "If the succeeding volumes are as compassionate and informed as the first, this series could become an essential postmodern guidebook to the world's changing cultural terrain. I plan on letting it ease me into the next century."—Catherine Gysin, Utne Reader

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Corporate Tribalism

White Men/White Women and Cultural Diversity at Work

Thomas Kochman and Jean Mavrelis

University of Chicago Press, 2009

The 2008 elections shattered historical precedents and pushed race and gender back to the forefront of our national consciousness. The wide range of reactions to the efforts of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Sarah Palin dramatically reflected ongoing conflicts over diversity in our society, especially in the venue where people are most likely to encounter them: work. As more and more people who aren’t white men enter corporate America, we urgently need to learn how to avoid clashes over these issues and how to resolve them when they do occur.

Thomas Kochman and Jean Mavrelis have been helping corporations successfully do that for over twenty years. Their diversity training and consulting firm has helped managers and employees at numerous companies recognize and overcome the cultural bases of miscommunication between ethnic groups and across gender lines—and in Corporate Tribalism they seek to share their expertise with the world. In the first half of the book, Kochman addresses white men, explicating the ways that their cultural background can motivate their behavior, work style, and perspective on others. Then Mavrelis turns to white women, focusing on the particular problems they face, including conflicts with men, other women, and themselves. Together they emphasize the need for a multicultural—rather than homogenizing—approach and offer constructive ideas for turning the workplace into a more interactive community for everyone who works there.

Written with the wisdom and clarity gained from two decades of hands-on work, Corporate Tribalism will be an invaluable resource as we look toward a future beyond the glass ceiling.

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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Action

Planning, Leadership, and Programming

Christine Bombaro

American Library Association, 2020

All too often, in a hurried attempt to “catch up,” diversity training can create division among staff or place undue burdens on a handful of employees. Instead, academic libraries need approaches to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that position these priorities as ongoing institutional and professional goals. This book’s model programs will help academic libraries do exactly that, sharing a variety of initiatives that possess clear goals, demonstrable outcomes, and reproducible strategies. Librarians, administrators, and directors will all benefit from the programs detailed inside, which include such topics as

a university library’s community of practice for interactions and learning around DEI;
cultural competency training to create more welcoming instruction spaces;
student workshops on literature searches that mitigate bias;
overcoming the historic tendency to marginalize LGBTQ+ representation in archives;
a curriculum and design workshop that moved from discussing social values to embedding them in actions;
the founding of a library-led LGBT club for students at a rural community college;
a liberal arts college’s retention-boosting program for first-generation students;
tailoring a collection and library services to the unique needs of student veterans; and
a framework for moving from diversity to equity and inclusion, toward a goal of social justice.

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Enhancing Diversity

Educators with Disabilities

Ronald J. Anderson

Gallaudet University Press, 1998

The 43 million people with disabilities form this country’s largest minority group, yet they are markedly under-employed as educators. Enhancing Diversity: Educators with Disabilities paves the way for correcting this costly omission. Editors Anderson, Karp, and Keller have called upon the knowledge of 19 other renowned contributors to address the important issues raised in Enhancing Diversity, including the place of disability in discussions of diversity in education, research on educators with disabilities that validates their capabilities, and information on the qualifications desired in and the demands made of education professionals. Legal precedents are cited and explained, and examples of efforts to place disabled educators are presented, along with recommendations on how disabled individuals and school administrators can work toward increased opportunities. Interviews with 25 disabled educators discussing how they satisfactorily fulfill their professional requirements completes this thoughtful-provoking book.

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Equal Opportunities and Ethnic Inequality in European Labour Markets

Discrimination, Gender and Policies of Diversity

Edited by Karen Kraal, Judith Roosblad, and John Wrench

Amsterdam University Press, 2009

Despite laws and policy measures being developed at the European, national, and local levels, job-seeking immigrants and ethnic minorities still suffer unequal access and ethnic discrimination. This important volume—divided into sections on discrimination, gender, equity policies, and diversity management—compares several European labor markets, recommends methods for conducting further research, and evaluates the actual effects of discrimination-combating policies.

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Hispanic Representation in the Department of Defense Civilian Workforce

Trend and Barrier Analysis

Miriam Matthews

RAND Corporation, 2017

Hispanics are less represented in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) civilian workforce than in the federal civilian workforce and the civilian labor force. This report assesses what factors might account for Hispanic underrepresentation in DoD. It includes assessments of trends in Hispanic employment and analyses of job applicant data. It also presents findings from interviews with representatives of DoD and of Hispanic-serving institutions.

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Managing Diversity in Organizations

Robert T. Golembiewski

University of Alabama Press, 1995

Managing Diversity in Organizations focuses on a key issue that organizations are facing—diversity. It is here, and it is growing. The only question now is how well we deal with diversity, especially in organizational contexts.

Golembiewski identifies the many forces and factors propelling us into the age of diversity in organizations—ethical, political, philosophic, demographic, and so on—and details the historical and contemporary approaches. Most practice has focused on a "level playing field" or equal opportunity and "tilting the playing field" or equal outcomes. This volume focuses on diversity as a strategic device rather than as a nicety rooted in behavioral and organizational research. Managing diversity successfully in organizations requires a thorough understanding of management infrastructure that is consistent with diversity--especially structures of work, policies, and procedures that institutionalize and build diversity.

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Markets and Diversity

Sherwin Rosen

Harvard University Press, 2004

A staunch neoclassical economist, Sherwin Rosen drew inspiration from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, particularly his theory of compensating wage differentials, which Rosen felt was central to all economic problems involving product differentiation and spatial considerations. The main theme of his collection is how markets handle diversity, including the determination of value in the presence of diversity, the allocation of idiosyncratic buyers to specialized sellers, and the effects of heterogeneity and sorting on inequality.

Rosen felt that good economics required combining simple but powerful concepts such as optimizing and equilibrium with careful empirical analysis. It was important for the relatively simple rules of behavior implied by rationality to have useful, empirically descriptive content and predictive power. If they did, it was often possible to infer underlying structure (tastes and technology, for example) from actual behavior. Using this approach, Rosen was able to develop powerful insights into such phenomena as the enormous salaries paid to sports and entertainment stars and top business executives. He also explored with fruitful results the premium paid to workers in risky jobs, learning and experience in the labor market, and other labor market phenomena.

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Responding to Rapid Change in Libraries

A User Experience Approach

Lauren Stara and Callan Bignoli

American Library Association, 2020

In the face of rapid change and an ever-widening constellation of challenges, it’s crucial for library leaders to pull back to the question of “why?” Plotting a sustainable way forward depends upon recommitting ourselves to our underlying values, such as customer service and community-building, while fostering the improvements that change makes possible. With passion, patience, and fortitude, libraries can stride confidently into the future. In this book, noted speakers and consultants Bignoli and Stara speak directly to library directors, managers, administrators, and technology staff, offering concrete guidance on setting or resetting strategic priorities. Taking an interconnected and specific approach to planning for and strengthening the library environment as a whole, their book

discusses why libraries should embrace change as a fundamental part of library life;
explores how to harness rapid change to provide more responsive, user-centered library service;
addresses the ways in which libraries straddle the physical and the digital, in areas such as service provision and collections, illuminating how they overlap and can be improved using similar philosophies;
presents both a comprehensive overview of library technologies as well as related team and change management advice, all grounded in user experience principles;
shows how the concepts of sustainability and flexibility apply to physical space planning and design, from furniture selection and arrangement to infrastructure; and
provides sound guidance on project management, problem solving, preparing for future challenges, personal reflection and self-care, and other leadership topics.

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