WORKPLACE DIVERSITY · Inclusive Identities in the Context of Increasing Culturally Diverse Workplaces

Periodic Report Summary - WORKPLACE DIVERSITY (Inclusive identities in the context of increasing culturally diverse workplaces)

The research project is an international comparative study on the effects of cultural diversity and diversity management in organisations in Austria, the Netherlands and New Zealand. The overall focus of this research project lies on influences of national and organisational factors on successful management of cultural diversity at the work floor from an international perspective. With the opportunity for cross-national comparative studies and a multi-methods approach we aim at getting a more holistic picture of general and specific preconditions, processes and effects of successful integration at the workplace. During the first part of the project's duration we aimed at identifying issues of cultural diversity on the national, the organisational and personal level and their respective links. Studies were conducted with participants of different cultural background and positions, within different types of organisations and across different countries, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Austria specifically. Apart from national and organisational context analyses via secondary material we conducted face-to-face, qualitative interviews with employers/employees of different cultural backgrounds in New Zealand (n = 18/n= 78), Austria (n = 29/n= 19) and the Netherlands (n = 19/n= 50). To link the macro- with the meso-level of analysis, we tested a logistic hierarchical regression model on national and organisational context effects on the implementation of action programs for ethnic minorities based on the Cranet database (n = 1865 from 10 countries), a cross-national, longitudinal survey with human resource managers. To link the meso- with the micro-level of analysis we conducted surveys with New Zealand employers (n = 100; n = 141) and tested the impact of organisational and personal factors on workforce composition, diversity management and performance using observed measures structural equation modelling. We further developed a survey instrument in German, English and Dutch to conduct comparable studies in the three countries of interest. To have cross-culturally valid and reliable scales and measurements, several pre-tests with students and employees were conducted, including new measures of our core concepts of perceived benefits and threats of diversity, diversity perspectives and inclusive identities. Overall, our findings identify different organisational and national mechanisms to diversify and manage diversity and the relevance of personality and attitudes of primary decision makers. In the quantitative as well as qualitative studies it becomes clear that a person's personal intercultural experience and attitudes towards diversity affect how he or she conceptualises and perceives diversity and if he or she works towards a diverse workforce and implements diversity management practices (in case our participants are in the position to do so). Furthermore, public, international and service oriented organisations are more likely to have formal diversity management implemented, whereas organisational size and workforce composition show ambivalent results implying only possible indirect effects. Economic factors become only relevant when it comes to an organisation's profitability to be able to implement diversity management, but not in relation to its international market orientation or labour market related needs. With regard to output and training, the findings got communicated and discussed within and outside the academic community in the respective countries and on international conferences. The new webpage: http://www.workplace-diversity.eu will further support the dissemination of important results and on-going work. Future work lies in conducting cross-national comparative studies in New Zealand, Austria and the Netherlands to be able to test our research model in a multi-level framework of workplace diversity within one dataset and to be able to provide feedback and recommendations to relevant stakeholder groups.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union