Inclusion in Organizations and Society: Bringing People Together in a Multi-Cultural World

• In Event: 1162 - Navigating Diversity in Everyday Life

Abstract

Increasing numbers of organizations are defining diversity and inclusion as key strategic goals, and in doing so, most have claimed that inclusion is the more important of the two concepts. In this paper, I critically review the meaning of inclusion as discussed in the management and organization literatures and compare it with the extensive discussion of the related concepts of assimilation and integration from the literatures on migration and multiculturalism. In my analysis, I raise issues about the challenges at different levels of analysis of how it is possible for people from different backgrounds to get along with each other and work together in the context of inequality and political divide. I also discuss the differences in how dominant and subordinate groups view what inclusion should entail, outline some of the key concerns of turning “us and them” into “we,” and discuss the limitations in the solutions that have been offered to reduce intergroup conflict at both the micro and macro levels. In addition, I sketch a model of what inclusion should mean, drawing from a broad literature across disciplines. In brief, I argue that inclusion should encourage symbolic, if not substantive, cultural affiliation without requiring homogeneity or subordination of group identity; that it must be structural as well as cultural, thus, including access for all groups to power, decision-making and material rewards and not just to acceptance and good feeling; and that it should foster a sense of common fate and engagement in both organizations and societies. I end with a claim that inclusion must, across groups, entail representation, resources, and rights and that leaders of major institutions have a responsibility for fostering inclusiveness.

Author

• Nancy DiTomaso, Rutgers University