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Managing Diversity in Corporate America
An Exploratory Analysis
Managing diversity has become a primary concern of top U.S. corporations. In this paper, the authors develop a fact-based approach to modeling diversity management. They use the model to determine whether diversity-friendly corporations really do stand out from other companies by analyzing the strategies pursued by 14 large U.S. companies recognized for their diversity or human resource (HR) achievements. Finally, to understand whether best practices alone make a company diversity-friendly, they compare a number of characteristics of best diversity companies, best HR companies, and other companies, using quantitative and qualitative methods. They find that firms recognized for diversity are distinguished by a core set of motives and practices that resemble those presented in the best-practices literature, but that best practices per se may not enable a company to achieve a high level of diversity. Contextual factors, such as industry affiliation and company size, may be as significant as strategic factors in influencing the extent of a company’s diversity.
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Contents
Chapter One:
Introduction
Chapter Two:
The Diversity Management Literature
Chapter Three:
Does the Diversity Literature Hold Up in Practice?
Chapter Four:
Are Best Practices Enough?
Chapter Five:
Conclusion
Appendix A:
Fortune’s Criteria for the “Best Companies for Minorities”
Appendix B:
Diversity Manager Interview Protocol
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