Opening and closing the door to diversity: A dialectical analysis of the social production of diversity

Scandinavian Journal of Management (2013) 29, 87—103

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

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Opening and closing the door to diversity: A dialectical analysis of the social production of diversity ´* Vedran Omanovic Department of Business Administration, The School of Business, Economics and Law, The University of Gothenburg, Vasagatan 1, Box 610, 405 30 Gothenburg, Sweden

KEYWORDS Diversity management; Organizational change; Dialectical view; Discursive closure; Emancipation

Summary This ethnographic study at a large manufacturing company analyses a complex organizational change, focusing on a program to establish a diversity initiative. The study approaches ‘‘diversity’’ as a dialectical production process unfolding over time in workplace dynamics, producing contradictions and praxes. This study shows how a social production process — opening and closing the door to diversity — shapes and prioritizes, and concurrently suppresses and marginalizes, ideas about and interests in diversity in organizations. Emphasizing this contradictory notion of ‘‘opening and closing’’, the study reveals processes of domination over particular sectoral interests attempting to control the direction of diversity production. These processes suppressed conflicting interests and limited the possibility of conceiving alternative diversity praxes that may have had emancipatory potential. # 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

In the mid-1990s, the then President of ‘Diversico’ (a pseudonym for an international manufacturing company)1 and 22 other leaders from companies and public institutions around the country founded ‘‘The Sweden 2000 Institute’’ and signed its manifesto. The Institute’s activities, supported politically and financially by the Swedish Government, were consistent with the larger political mobilization against racism and intolerance initiated by the Council of the European Commission: ‘‘a plan of action for a new societal spirit concerning respect for human differences as well as for the future wealth

* Tel.: +46 31 7865417; fax: +46 31 786 5414. E-mail address: [email protected]. 1 Also, for reasons of confidentiality the names of the interviewees have been changed and some of the statistical information has been modified.

of the nation’’ (Sverige, 2000, 1998:8). Given its direct involvement in the Institute as a member, and indirectly in the Government’s integration initiative, Diversico was endorsing these institutions’ collective values against discrimination, foreigner hostility, and racism in ‘‘the multicultural Sweden’’. Ultimately, however, the company’s implementation of these accepted political and social goals would fall far short of such aspirations. This paper analyses the unfolding situation at Diversico as an exemplar case of complex organizational change, focusing specifically on its programme to establish a diversity initiative, a major project for the organization as a whole. The case documents how the diversity ‘‘door’’ both opened and closed as the situation developed. In its policies and actions, the company expressed a rhetorical appreciation for the benefits of diversity, but at the same time it failed to recognize much of its value in practice. Despite good

0956-5221/$ — see front matter # 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scaman.2012.11.001

88 intentions, change (or even the possibility for change) was not realized. In actuality, Diversico proved to be less able to fulfill these goals than its public posture suggested. Such situations, where good intentions, even publicly stated ones, fail to materialize are hardly unique under organizational conditions requiring complex change. Yet, the complexities ensuing in such cases are often overlooked until contradictory expectations make them visible. Changes in organizational values and associated processes expected to suffuse all organizational levels are particularly prone to these complexities as competing interests surface over time. Dialectical analysis provides a framework particularly well suited for examining the dynamics of change in situations of this nature. Its analytical value stems precisely from its focus on interactions and negotiations among multiple actors with diverse interests, producing power dynamics and potential resolutions. It attends to workplace dynamics as they occur and explores particularities of the social location where various practices acquire their meanings (e.g., Butler & Modaff, 2008; Carr, 2000; Mumby, 2005). The particular dialectical approach used in this paper is based on four principles: social construction (of ideas, interests, and actions), context, contradiction, and praxis, and is explicitly oriented towards a dialectical view of organizations (Benson, 1977, 1983). In the case of Diversico, this analytical orientation implied reframing extant conceptualizations of diversity, understanding diversity as a production process unfolding over time. The analysis is directed to showing how and why diversity ideas/interests were produced, and examining how some of these ideas/interests were privileged and others marginalized. Emphasizing a contradictory notion of opening and closing the door to diversity, the study reveals processes of domination over particular sectoral interests. These processes suppressed conflicting interests and limited the possibility of conceiving alternative diversity praxes that may have had emancipatory potential. To demonstrate these analyses, the paper unfolds as follows: The first section locates the study within critical studies of diversity, explaining how the dialectical framework in this paper differs, in particular, from prior discursive studies. Next, the methodological orientation and methods through which the study was carried out are presented. The third section, in the mode of a case study, presents a chronological reconstruction of Diversico’s activities promoting diversity in the organization, describing several key events in the company’s history as well as real-time observations and interviews during the time of the study. The description of these events and their relationships with one another illustrates how ideas of diversity appeared on Diversico’s agenda and were further socially produced. This is followed by the discussion section, where I analyze these events based on the four principles of organizational dialectics already indicated. Considering how ‘‘diversity’’ becomes increasingly narrowly construed throughout the case — with apparently little conflict — I further examine other processes of domination— from micro-practices to structural conditions–—explaining contradictions and praxes revealed by the dialectical analyses. These include discursive closures (Deetz, 1992; Mumby, 1988), differences in sectoral interests, as well as

V. Omanovic´ sub-structural conditions between the organizational context and the broader social contexts where these events occurred. The paper concludes with reflections on the contributions of this study for organizational change and possible future research on diversity production.

Beyond discourse: Studying ‘‘Diversity’’ as dialectical process In embracing diversity as a goal, Diversico was by no means unique, but rather part of a wider trend as ‘‘diversity’’ had become a real concern for companies worldwide; a concern that has spread internationally from the U.S. since the late 1980s and 1990s (e.g., Boxenbaum, 2006; Cala ´s, Holgersson, & Smircich, 2009; Jones, Pringle, & Shepherd, 2000; Prasad & Mills, 1997). However, discrepancies between espoused managing diversity practices and their results have not gone unnoticed. In particular, critical organizational scholars addressing ‘‘diversity management’’ as a processual, socially-constructed phenomenon have been able to show turning points in the evolution of the concept of ‘‘diversity’’ and its ‘‘management’’, as well as contradictions often embedded in its practice (e.g., Holvino & Kamp, 2009; Lauring, 2009; Lorbiecki & Jack, 2000; Omanovic ´, 2009; Ostendorp & Steyaert, 2009). Research informed by discursive analyses has been particularly effective in articulating these discrepancies in various organizational locations. For example, Jack and Lorbiecki (2007) examined problematic relationships between national identity and organizational globalization in diversity management initiatives in the United Kingdom; Zanoni and Janssens (2004, 2007) addressed the creation and control of diversity patterns as well as employee participation in the control of these activities in Belgium. Meanwhile, Merila ¨inen, Tienari, Katila, and Benschop (2009) demonstrated the effects of the institutionalized societal discourse of gender equality on ‘‘diversity management’’ in Finland-based companies. By studying diversity as organizational discourse in particular contexts, these researchers have also focused on ‘‘diversity’’ as a form of social text or a discursive and/or social practice beyond particular organizations (Jack & Lorbiecki, 2007; Janssens & Zanoni, 2005; Litvin, 2006; Ostendorp & Steyaert, 2009; Zanoni & Janssens, 2004, 2007). Others have addressed ‘‘diversity in organizations’’ as historically constructed knowledge regimes that usually privilege certain managerial and economic interests (Kirby & Harter, 2002), or as institutionalized discourses that silence other societal and organizational issues (Merila ¨inen et al., 2009). The use of language is central in these discursive studies because it is assumed that diversity and its management, as well as other social relationships, are constructed and reproduced by communicative activities. For instance, this research shows that identification and knowledge of communicative activities is important for understanding control and resistance to diversity initiatives (Jack & Lorbiecki, 2007), for identifying changes in existing diversity discourses (Kamp & Hagedorn-Rasmussen, 2004), and in providing alternative understandings of the business case for diversity (Litvin, 2006). According to these proposed alternatives, organizations are expected to serve not just the values

Opening and closing the door to diversity and interests of their members but also those of the wider societies (ibid.). Similar problems have resulted in descriptions of business-‘friendly diversity management’ . . . [as] . . . more fiction than reality’ (Kirton & Greene, 2009: 172). In sum, discursive studies have contributed three-fold to the theory and research of diversity management. First, they show how ideas about diversity and its management are socially constructed processes emerging in organizational contexts. Second, they show how dominant constructions of diversity in organizations incorporate a business rationale that is often antagonistic to diversity concerns. And third, they acknowledge the importance of historically constructed relations of dominance and subordination that impact particular groups of people. However, they often fall short of understanding how processes of domination over particular interests, attempting to control the direction of diversity production, are formed and maintained, in and through organizational events unfolding over time. Also, despite focusing critically on managerial and policy-making discourses, these studies tend to leave unattended actual relational dynamics in the workplace. I argue it is through these dynamics — dynamics that might include processes of domination beyond those easily observed as power differences — that acceptable ideas of ‘‘diversity’’ are produced in organizations and become normative over time. In this paper, ‘‘acceptable ideas’’ are challenged by examining processes that lead to their normalization. In other words, the approach taken here — a critical dialectical perspective — makes explicit how what become normative and taken for granted are preliminary and changeable choices between alternative ideas/interests in ‘‘diversity’’, with meanings which are always tenuously maintained.

A critical-dialectical perspective A dialectical perspective is usually understood as a sequence of events where the parts are related as thesis and antithesis resolving into the form of synthesis (e.g., Lourenco & Glidewell, 1975, see also Arbuthnott, Eriksson, & Wincent, 2010). In organization studies, this perspective has been and continues to be used: with a renewed focus on processes of organizational change (Groleau, Demers, & Engestro ¨m, 2011), viewing the notion of resistance and control as mutually constitutive and socially produced in daily organizational life (Mumby, 2005), understanding corporate culture as corporate hegemony (Ogbor, 2001), and with an ambition of bringing about alternative practices to exiting structures of domination (e.g., Barros, 2010; Foster & Wiebe, 2010). This approach is used in business studies, for instance accounting (Burns & Baldvinsdottir, 2005), communications (Butler & Modaff, 2008), (business) administration (Grimes & Cornwall, 1987), (diversity) management (Omanovic´, 2009), and organization studies (Thomas & Hardy, 2011) contributing to more nuanced and complex understanding of (organizational) change. For instance, Butler and Modaff’s (2008) study highlights the difficulties involved in managing work and family from a home-based business, drawing particular attention to tensions and contradictions in situations when work is being done at home. In another study, Burns and Baldvinsdottir (2005) capture the interplay and dynamics of role(s) change for management accountants in a pharmaceuticals organization. In their focus on when, why and how

89 organizational actors make their decisions on role(s) change, they give illustrations of (unexpected) problems implicated in the studied change process. Grimes and Cornwall (1987) also examined organizational change, but their focus is on the establishing of an organization (a free school) at the beginning of the 1970s. This school was a part of a social movement in the 1960s and the 1970s that tried to establish an education practice called alternative schooling. By examining different organizational events, practices, micro-processes and ideology, the authors identified several contradictions (e.g., freedom versus control; a consensus model versus conflicting and changing goals). These contradictions did not lead to a new praxis (i.e., an alternative school free of bureaucratic and authoritarian structure) but rather to a disintegration of the organization. Omanovic´ (2009) also applied a dialectical perspective in his study on diversity and its management This study illustrates how different actors in different milieux are linked in the complex ‘‘substructural network of relations’’, as well how their ideas about and interests in ‘‘diversity’’ may conflict, given their unequal power positions. Finally Thomas and Hardy (2011) proposed an alternative approach (based on Foucault’s conceptualization of power relations), which showed how both power and resistance constitute organizational change. Arguing that organizational change is an outcome of the dynamics of both power and resistance, the authors illustrated how their approach could be applied as well as the possible implications in understanding and managing change. Benson’s work (1977, 1983), in particular, offers a more detailed framework for applying a dialectical approach to organizational analysis (e.g., see also Butler & Modaff, 2008; Grimes & Cornwall, 1987; Omanovic´, 2009). Following this formulation, Benson’s work focuses on four interrelated principles: social construction, context (‘‘totality’’ in Benson, 1977), contradiction, and praxis. In this study I apply these four principles as follows: the notion of social construction focuses on the social process that produces ideas about diversity, recognizing that these ideas are not neutral, since they serve the interests of particular actors who gradually modify or replace them. Context refers to the notion that people produce their social world and are produced by it. In my use of this principle, I examine how different contexts shape the on-going production(s) of diversity at Diversico during a particular time period, but also how these contexts are linked to each other. Contradiction refers to the social production of diversity in organizations resulting in conflict when people are thwarted in their activities by organizational arrangements. Contradictions are important, although not deterministic, as potential forces of emancipatory organizational change. Finally, praxis refers to the mediation between contradictions and organizational change. Praxis is a particular human action in a given social—historical context, which is driven by social contradictions. Unlike action that may reproduce established order, praxis reflects the criticism of existing social arrangements, the search for alternatives, and the active mobilization of participants. For instance, in dialectical institutional studies, praxis is shown in the active mobilization of institutional inhabitants in the reconstruction of social arrangements using, for instance, alternative institutional logics (e.g., Burns & Baldvinsdottir, 2005; Sharma, Lawrence, & Lowe 2010; Seo & Creed, 2002). Praxis is thus

90 opposed to that which is established, static, and deterministic (see Gadotti, 1996; Grlic´, 1965).2 Further, taking inspiration from critical organization theory and communication studies (e.g., Alvesson & Deetz, 2000; Deetz, 1992; Mumby, 1988), I include additional elements from the interpretative vocabulary in order to deepen this dialectical analysis. I focus, in particular, on contradictions in elements articulating the processes that ‘‘open and close the door to diversity’’ considering ideological angles—‘‘functions of ideology’’ (Mumby, 1988) which might explain the minimal conflicts in what otherwise appeared as potentially explosive situations. Those angles include addressing processes of ‘‘discursive closure’’ such as universalization, naturalization, and disqualification (Deetz, 1992; Mumby, 1988), where ‘‘quiet, repetitive micropractices [. . .] function to maintain normalized conflict-free experience and social relations’’ (Deetz, 1992: 189), and when certain groups’ expression, certain types of information, or certain forms of expression become arbitrary privileged (Deetz, 1992). Here, one form of discourse is privileged while another is marginalized, often suppressing conflict before it can further emerge. I also examine influences in narrowing the ‘‘diversity door’’ from perhaps unattended organizational sectoral interests whose ideological positions may not be easily detected (Benson, 1977), for example, those which do not coincide with formal positions of power and who otherwise may appear to represent fragmented interests. Finally, I also consider a sub-structural condition of modernity underlying organizational rationality and mundane activities within the company (e.g., Feenberg, 2010). This condition provides additional explanations for Diversico’s ability to narrow the ‘‘diversity door’’ with little conflict.

Methodology Several approaches to research of complex organizational change, such as punctuated equilibrium (e.g., Gersick, 1991) and path dependence (e.g., Garud, Kumaraswamy, & Karnøe, 2010; Sydow, Schreyo ¨gg, & Koch, 2009) are in principle processual and often based on historical and longitudinal data and interpretations. However, these approaches are mostly informed by an a priori abstract — usually functionalist — conceptualization of how ‘‘the world works’’ (e.g., evolutionary processes) too far removed from the actual dynamics of the situation and the actors involved to be able to capture problematic moments in real time, as well as their context and significance. Critical discursive organization studies overcome some of these limitations insofar as they focus on actual dynamics of the situation they study, understanding the process as socially constructed and unfolding in the actions of participants. However, these studies rely primarily on interviews and documents — i.e., talk and text (e.g., Fairhurst & Cooren, 2004) — and few of them focus specifically on organizational change as primary interest. In contrast, the dialectical-based research described here follows both his-

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However, from the dialectical perspective ´s point of view everything new is not automatically good, and everything new does not mean the totally overcomes the old.

V. Omanovic´ torical and real-time activities and discourses of organizational participants, with a focus on organizational change but without presuppositions about how the process will unfold. Specifically this study follows the activities of Diversico’s project to develop diversity practices and policies, unfolding during a three-year period. It focuses on key participants in the project as well as on activities of other organizational members who are ‘‘touched’’ by it. Primarily data were obtained through an ethnographic study in the organization (e.g., van Maanen, 1995) where I functioned as participantobserver. Field study data were collected from the beginning of October 2001 to the end of August 2002. The empirical material consisted of three linked components. The first component, archival research, covered documents from the beginning of 1995 to the end of 2002. These included Diversico’s diversity project statements, policies, cases, presentations, and minutes from meetings and workshops, and Diversico’s internal magazine. Also, some documents related to the specific social—historical context of Sweden were included (e.g., Swedish research and consultants reports). All these documents helped increase my understanding of how and why Diversico became interested in diversity issues. The second component, interviews, consists of 23 indepth focused interviews, which included the Diversity Director, the Diversity Champions, managers, and HR employees. I also interviewed three non-managerial employees: two factory workers and a salesman. All interviews were taperecorded. After each interview, I listened to the recorded interviews, and then they were transcribed verbatim (298 pages in total). Furthermore, I took notes both during and after the interviews. My notes included remarks about various interesting sequences in the interviews, comments on how I contacted the interviewees, and/or descriptions of the settings. Following the ethnographic tradition I established close contacts with one key informant during my fieldwork. The Diversity Director, Sara (whom I interviewed 9 times) became my guide and my ‘‘teacher’’ in helping me with important information about Diversico and its diversity work. Therefore Sara is probably more visible in this story of Diversico than some other interviewees. The third component, fieldwork, included participantobservations at 19 Diversico meetings and workshops where ‘‘diversity’’ was on the agenda. All observed events took place in Diversico’s various conference rooms. In the beginning, my role was more of a passive observer–—I was watching, listening and taking notes. Later my observations and my presence at the observed events became more active. I gradually began to participate in discussions by answering questions and offering brief comments about Diversico and its actions. One of my goals when observing these events was to increase my understanding of the participants’ ideas/interests and actions in regard to diversity. Additionally, by participating at those events, I increased my access to possible interviewees and was indeed able to interview some of them. Thus, some of the first activities in the process of producing this story occurred in my interactions with the collected archival material, the observed events, and the interviews. For instance, I was actively engaged in learning which information to ask for, and from whom. I was actively choosing and then interpreting the written documentation and oral statements about diversity.

Opening and closing the door to diversity As I studied this empirical material, I acquired more insights and saw new relationships. I realized that other interpretations (and relationships in the material) were possible. After multiple readings of this material, which included the transcribed interviews with organizational participants and my notes on the observed events, I gradually saw how some ideas/interests were marginalized and others were privileged. In short, I began to understand how diversity was produced at Diversico. From these data, I have re-constructed a chronology of the dynamics of diversity production at Diversico, as described next.

Producing diversity at Diversico Established at the beginning of the twentieth century, Diversico is one of Sweden’s largest and most respected companies, employing several thousand people worldwide. Through its long history, the company has demonstrated a commitment to interactions and dialogue with local, national and international authorities and has been involved in various social initiatives. In one of these initiatives, supported by the Swedish Government, one finds the first signs of Diversico’s involvement and engagement in diversity.

Social Diversity: The Sweden 2000 Institute As already highlighted in the introduction, in the mid1990s the then President of Diversico and various other leaders from companies and public institutions in Sweden founded ‘‘The Sweden 2000 Institute’’, and pledged commitment to its aims. Diversico became directly involved in the Institute as a member, and indirectly involved in the Government’s integration initiative. Articulated as social diversity, the Institute’s activities were expected to be consistent with the larger political mobilization against racism and intolerance in Europe, which for Sweden implied a positive attitude toward cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity in the country’s mid-1990s integration policy. Through this involvement, Diversico showed its endorsement of these institutions’ collective values against discrimination, foreigner hostility, and racism. Yet, as the case unfolds, the meaning of ‘‘diversity’’ at Diversico becomes produced and reproduced several times over. Diversity becomes as well a productive force making visible the interplay of multiple competing interests throughout the company, with consequences that mostly limited the intended social outcomes.

Diversity as multicultural experience: Corporate Citizenship Policy (CCP) report In 1999 a U.S.A. multinational company in the same industry acquired Diversico. Shortly after the change of ownership was finalized in late 2001, the Executive Management Team announced a very ambitious long-range growth plan. Officially presenting the plan at a meeting of 250 managers and human resources employees, Diversico’s Vice President stated:

91 Diversico’s objectives are to be a premium brand . . . which means that we have to be number one when it comes to customer satisfaction. When it comes to volume, we plan to increase our volume to 6 million products with the profit growth of six per cent. [Field notes, 011025]. Since Diversico sold 4.22 million products in 2000, the new sales target meant an increase of approximately 1.8 million products, possibly an overly optimistic number. In discussions about how to achieve this very ambitious economic target, ‘‘diversity’’ was assigned a significant role as a tool in the company’s efforts to fulfill these plans. Diversico’s three core values –— safety, quality, and environmental care –— were also intrinsic to this new target. In particular, the core value of quality, with its origins in the company’s earliest history, has special significance for understanding the company’s approach to diversity at this point. At Diversico, quality means its products are manufactured to very high standards and thus are long lasting; however, since its competitors also have such standards, quality alone is not enough. In fact, the original idea of quality has been modified during the course of Diversico’s history, but the interest demonstrated by these modifications has stayed constant: to increase competitive advantage in order to achieve Diversico’s growth goals. Thus, once again the core value of quality was enlarged in the company’s CCP Report, 2000 (p. 14), this time to ‘‘. . . achieving high customer satisfaction’’. This modification was also associated to an idea about diversity presented in the same report: Diversico’s customers are men and women, young and old, living in most countries around the globe. For business reasons, we need more people in our management organization with experience of living and working in different countries and with experience of different cultures. Ethnic origin is a rough measure of what we call multicultural skills. . . [CCP Report, 2000, p. 19]. The paragraph, quoted above is illustrative of how the company opened the door to some aspects of diversity, while simultaneously closing the door to others. The report emphasized the business reasons for promoting and valuing diversity but made no mention of the importance of diversity in creating the more equal society that the Swedish integration policy, as well as the company’s own policies, advocated. Specifically, this statement articulates ‘‘ethnic origin’’ as a ‘‘rough measure’’ for multicultural skills. It implied that the company’s diversity criteria could easily be met by employing more company managers of the same ethnicity or gender as current managers as long as they had experience in different cultures and/or who have lived and worked abroad. This was a form of discursive closure, which universalized ‘‘diversity’’ as ‘‘multicultural experience’’ while limiting its social justice aspects. In so doing it attempted to reconcile potential contradictions between the Sweden 2000’s manifesto, that Diversico’s President signed, and the company’s competitive advantage goals.

Social/Demographic diversity: The Global Diversity Council (GDC) In May of 2001, Diversico created the GDC whose members were appointed by the company’s President and Vice

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President. The Council was formed to discuss and offer visions and objectives related to increasing diversity in the company, but it had no decision-making power. At its first meeting, the GDC agreed that diversity should be a key component of quality, which was in the line with the view on diversity expressed in Diversico’s CCP 2000 Report. However alternative constructions of diversity ideas/interests were also offered. For instance, one recommendation was that the company should reflect its customer diversity in its management recruitment and promotion process. Furthermore, it was recommended that the company should enter into a partnership with society by taking a stand on human rights, by fighting discrimination, and by promoting sound environmental policies. The GDC’s recommendations furthered Diversico’s rhetoric in promoting diversity, including some parallels between ideas/interests in diversity suggested by the GDC members, and the ideas about diversity in the previously mentioned ‘‘Sweden 2000 Institute’’. In fact, in this milieu and time period a three-folded idea/interest in diversity was produced by including the language of social equality and the environment together with economic language. Thus, in principle the council opened the door to a broader understanding of diversity; yet, this opening would not go unchallenged.

Diversity as a contested terrain: The Diversity Director In January of 2001, ten months before the start of my fieldwork, Diversico’s Management Team appointed a young woman, Sara, as the company’s first Diversity Director. Sara and her co-workers began working on diversity issues and the development of what eventually became the Corporate Diversity Business Development Programme. Sara was, as well, aware of the importance quality had as a distinguishing core value in the company, and the role diversity may have to play. For instance, in an interview with me she stated: We have no choice. We must find other ways to do business other than making long lasting products and selling new ones all the time. [Sara, 011109:15]. Sara was also a member of the GDC, and by this time she had presented a diversity proposal to the company’s employees and to the unions based on this council’s recommendations. At meetings with these groups, she listened to people’s ideas about the broad direction of her proposal, noting that the audience reactions varied depending on her presentation format. She soon realized she was working in a highly contested terrain where some people’s ideas differed from those promoted by the GDC. The following interview excerpts illustrate a relational dynamic in Sara’s attempt to direct the production of ‘‘diversity’’ while meeting a kind of counter-control that undermined her initial attempt to control the process. The interview excerpts also show that the GDC’s emerging vision for diversity was contradictory to the prevailing views of Diversico’s management and employees. Sara described the audience reactions: They love when I talk about diversity of perspectives and when I say that . . . the aim is not . . . to focus on getting more women and foreigners into Diversico, but it’s to get

different perspectives. . . . I think they feel very comfortable when I talk about the business case from a marketing sales point of view. . . . it is valuable information to them . . . Then they are trusting: ‘‘Okay, her agenda is a good one . . .’’ [Sara, 011122:13]. In Sara’s understanding, ‘‘business’’ seems to be an acceptable term in discussions about diversity but words such as ‘‘feminism’’ or ‘‘racism’’, which are not particularly business-oriented, may cause discomfort among the participants in these discussions. She interpreted the negative responses to her presentations as follows: I think feminism is a word that makes people jump in their seats and racism does as well. If I would say: ‘‘Within Diversico we have racism’’, I think people would feel uncomfortable . . . Also talking about the environment . . . It can cause them to close down and say: ‘‘Okay, she’s bringing a diverse perspective, but it’s useless. It’s a perspective that is not going to help our business, it’s going to confuse us’’. [Sara, 011122:13]. Sara’s daily contacts with her co-workers have probably also influenced her approach to diversity. People often said to her that diversity has very negative connotations and some people thought she was only going to talk about quotas. For instance, some human resource colleagues offered the following advice: Be careful because the people are not going to like this [diversity]. [Sara, 020109:9]. Or the following comment(s): Foreigners are not working hard enough or they don’t understand the culture. [Field notes, 020313]. Also, the majority of people at Diversico had only heard of it (diversity) as a charity project: Let’s help the poor-people who need help, or women who can’t get the job done . . . [Field notes, 020313]. Comments such as these affected, directly and indirectly, how the meaning of diversity was produced and changed as time went on. As such, ‘‘diversity’’ became restricted in various ways when it became reproduced in Diversico’s Diversity Programme. Realizing that some participants in the discussions viewed several diversity terms as contradictory, Sara and her coworkers tried to find ways of resolving these contradictions. Her presentations on the diversity proposal became more and more business-oriented. At the end, the company’s diversity programme was named and framed as a business development programme, a moment of discursive closure which eventually discouraged, and in fact disqualified, the expression of ‘‘uncomfortable’’ concerns by employees about social welfare, equality, and discrimination. However, it is interesting to observe how the diversity door was narrowed at this time under premises which appeared to be opening it even wider.

Informational diversity prevails: The Corporate Diversity Business Development Programme In October of 2001, Diversico’s management approved its Corporate Diversity Business Development Programme that

Opening and closing the door to diversity identified three areas of interest to Diversico: social/demographic diversity (age, cultural/ethnic origins, gender, and sexual orientation); informational diversity (educational background, international experience, and professional experience and skills); and value diversity (life style choices, motivations, work values, and work style preferences). The presentation of diversity in these very broad terms, which included many human differences, was similar to the concept of diversity management introduced in some mainstream studies that claim everyone should be included (e.g., Thomas, 1990, 1991). In those studies, diversity management is viewed as a tool that uses people’s differences to achieve economic goals. In so doing, ‘‘diversity’’ appeared as a universal value. However, there was a fundamental contradiction in Diversico’s Programme. ‘‘Diversity’’ so broadly presented was actually fostering an individualizing approach to the ‘‘diverse’’ which diluted the original Sweden 2000 Institute structural goal of social and demographic diversity–—a goal to which Diversico as a founding member of the Institute had become publicly committed. In addition, Diversico put its primary emphasis upon the informational aspect of diversity by stressing that Diversico’s business gains came from the diverse experience, knowledge, and perspectives its employees possessed, based upon their exposure to different countries around the world, their education and professional expertise, and their various personal interests and preferences. By choosing to prioritize this kind of diversity, (similar to how it was defined in the CCP-Report 2000) the meaning of diversity was once again interpreted and further institutionalized as a business goal. Insofar as the company had many employees with different types of important business information, it was a business gain; even if they were not necessarily diverse in terms of different nationalities or gender. Thus the central aim of Diversico’s diversity programme ended up being to hire more people with ‘‘different points of view’’ rather than to hire a more ethnic, racial, or gender diverse workforce. The production of diversity ideas/interests was again closing the door to social and demographic concerns, in particular those that could be associated with social justice, such as promoting social equality or reducing discrimination.

Diversity pays: a supersalesman After launching the diversity programme the goal became to build a Diversity Team at the corporate level. Each of the company’s nine units chose one person, called Diversity Champions, to co-ordinate the diversity work and to set unit objectives. The objectives, however, had to relate directly to the company’s business goals. At this point, such interests were also assumed to be in everyone’s interests, independent of the Diversity Champions’ potential different ideas/interests in diversity. Signalling from the company’s highest-level, the Vice President explained why business arguments in the promotion of the diversity were important: Diversity is important for our business. We need to support our business by having a clear business case for diversity because it can allow us to make money. [Field notes, 020221].

93 In order to show that ‘diversity pays’, a story about Dino, the company’s ‘‘super-salesman’’, based on a journalist’s interview, was re-constructed and then frequently presented in meetings and recorded in company documents. As the story went, in order to sell more products, Diversico had to identify and value its non-traditional customer groups. The company realized that the immigrant population in Sweden was one of these non-traditional customer groups. Although 20% of Swedish residents are either born outside Sweden or have foreign-born parents, they buy relatively few Diversico products. Therefore, Dino’s story was presented to show how Diversico could sell more products to the Swedish immigrant population. Dino, who was born in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), moved with his parents to Sweden in 1969 at age twelve. In 1989 he became a salesman at a Diversico dealership. Several years later, he was responsible for 14% of Diversico’s sales to people in Sweden with a foreign background. The Diversity Director, estimated that if the company had seven more ‘‘Dinos’’, Diversico could increase its sales by 12,000 products annually. During my research, Dino learned about the way the company was using his story, and he was both flattered and surprised that the company prized him so highly since by this time he had lost his ranking as ‘‘supersalesman’’. According to Dino (020408:9), when he was ‘‘promoted’’ to ‘‘supersalesman’’ by the organization, he was either second or third in sales rankings. The ‘‘Dino success story’’, however, seemed to be one of systematically distorted communication (see Deetz, 1992). For instance, Dino was never invited to diversity meetings to give examples of the sales strategy he used with customers, and particularly with those of immigrant backgrounds. Rather, the story about the ‘‘super salesman’’ became reified and disembodied. Dino became a symbolic stand-in for increasing sales to immigrant populations through generalized ‘‘multicultural skills’’ — the narrowed diversity door — which many others in the organization could actually develop.

Diversity is tolerated: A magazine article As diversity production became further institutionalized, Sara and her co-workers also tried to have at least one article related to ‘‘diversity’’ published in each issue of Views, Diversico’s internal magazine. The articles featured stories about company employees working in different ways, with different experiences, backgrounds, and/or perspectives. According to Sara, the goal of these articles was to expose Diversico’s employees to diversity thinking and its effect on the company’s business. An article published in the magazine’s February 2002 issue was of particular interest for this research. The article–— ‘‘Why immigrants boycott Diversico’s products’’–—was written by Per Ahmadi, a project leader in Diversico’s Department of Analysis and Verification. In it, Ahmadi expressed views that differed significantly from the company’s official policy, explaining how the company tolerates ‘‘diverse’’ thinking about diversity while simultaneously distancing itself from ideas for organizational and social change. Ahmadi, a graduate engineer and a doctoral student from a Middle Eastern country, had lived in Sweden since 1991. He had changed his given first name in the belief that with a

94 Swedish name (‘‘Per’’), he ‘‘could more easily find employment in the Swedish economy’’. For the same reason, he restudied engineering at a Swedish technical high school. He stated that an immigrant in Sweden must ‘‘have contacts, Swedish qualifications, and a Swedish name. Without these, in principle, it is impossible [for an immigrant] to make a career at Diversico’’ (Views, February, 2002, p. 26/27). As the article reveals, Ahmadi is generally positive toward Diversico but sometimes he is also disappointed. For example, he described the discrimination he experienced when visiting some company dealerships with his Swedish girlfriend, posing as potential customers while pretending to not know each other. In general, Ahmadi notes, sales people approached his girlfriend first no matter who was the first to arrive. In one account, his girlfriend pointed to him, indicating he was there first, but the sales person’s response was, ‘‘Never mind, I will attend to him after you’’. The article concluded with advice to the decision makers (‘‘those in power’’) at Diversico about how to gain the trust of immigrants. One recommendation was that, similar to the company’s objective of increasing the proportion of women in managerial positions, it would be important to adopt a goal of increasing the proportion of immigrants in managerial positions. Other recommendations included instituting a sales training programme for immigrants and encouraging immigrants to participate in the company’s diversity policy and decision-making processes. In fact, the publication of this article within the company’s official magazine could be interpreted as strongly pushing the diversity door wide-open through the social activism of one of its employees.

Diversity as consumer relations: The Company President Yet, if anything, Ahmadi’s article was seemingly in strong contradiction with the now institutionalized ‘‘diversity as business case’’ adopted by the company. Thus, how to reconcile these contradictions? The interpretation of the article by Diversico’s President is revealed in his speech at the second GDC meeting also in February 2002. Mostly constructed on economic rhetoric and on the expectation of creating better market conditions, the president correctly interpreted a section in the article noting that many Swedish immigrants boycott high profile Swedish products, including Diversico’s products. The reason was, as he said and as Ahmadi wrote, people with non-Swedish backgrounds often do not feel integrated into Swedish society. In that way, the president continued, Diversico has experienced difficulties in reaching this customer group and thus has missed an opportunity to increase its profit. However, in this interpretation the problem was not Diversico’s programme but the immigrants’ lack of social integration. To support this interpretation, the president suppressed several other issues raised by the article. For instance, he did not mention the difficulty that Per Ahmadi and immigrants like him have in obtaining the ‘‘qualifications’’ required for a job at Diversico. He also did not refer to Ahmadi’s story about the discriminatory behaviour of sales people at Diversico’s dealerships. Finally, the president said nothing about Ahmadi’s suggestions for increasing the proportion of competent immigrants in management positions or

V. Omanovic´ for allowing their participation in debates about diversity at Diversico. It may seem like a contradiction that Diversico’s President engaged in these acts of discursive closure, disqualifying, i.e., silencing, ideas of diversity that presumably could have reiterated the company’s aims toward promoting ‘‘diverse thinking’’—i.e., as sanctioned through the company’s business case. Nonetheless, he was also reconciling his contradiction: by explicitly recognizing in a formal meeting the existence of Ahmadi’s article in the company’s magazine, the president exemplified the company’s posture of ‘‘tolerating diverse thinking’’—even if his aim was to further open the door to market-driven meanings of ‘‘diversity’’ while closing the door to most other possible understandings.

Discussion In the above re-constructed chronology of dynamics producing and reproducing ‘‘diversity’’ in various contexts within Diversico over a three-year period, there are contradictions and praxes, as captured in Table 1 below. Contradictions appear and are resolved through the entire dialectical process of diversity production — simultaneously opening and closing the door to diversity — rather than just in individual events. Generally, a contradiction lies at the heart of the company’s vision: opening the door to most differences when developing its diversity programme while at the same time incrementally emphasizing only one meaning for ‘‘diversity’’ — informational diversity — and its attendant business case as its key rationale. In the midst of these dynamics, and the social production processes that inform them, we observe how contradictions contribute to praxes that are identified as particular outcomes for opening or closing the door to diversity (see Table 1). However, these identified outcomes/ praxes in general do not have a transformative character in the sense that they actively mobilize organizational participants in the reconstruction of (existing) organizational arrangements using alternative institutional logics. Although these particular human actions do not cease to be praxes, they are limited to repetitive and imitative praxes. More specifically, they are characterized by an increasing acceptance of what is seen as ‘legitimate diversity interests’ and an increasing exclusion of all other possibilities. Yet this organizational context — observed throughout the case — is a whole with multiple interpenetrating levels and sectors, with parts tied together in intricate ways while in constant flux and interplay (Benson, 1977). Thus, in the subsections of the discussion below I attempt to unravel some of these complexities by addressing the issues through a series of different analytical angles.

Contradictions and praxes as things moved on Despite its new American ownership, Diversico continued its praxis of dialogue emanating from its original participation in the Sweden 2000 Institute, — i.e., sharing knowledge, experiences and actions towards diversity in organizations — within and outside the company. The GDC, the Diversity Team and the articles in Views are examples of this praxis. As a result, Diversico was widely praised. It was seen as an example of how a Swedish company could address diversity issues positively. However, this same praxis contributed to institutionalizing a

A chronology of diversity dynamics at diversico.

Time

Actors/Milieux

Ideas

Interests

Actions

Linkages to the larger societal system

Contradictions Discursive Closure (Universalization, Naturalization, or Disqualification)

Praxes Outcome for opening or closing the door to diversity

The mid-1990s

The Sweden 2000 Institute

Social diversity as a term for cultural, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity

Reduction of discrimination; Promoting EEO; Social welfare

Political; Legal

The Council of the European Commission’s initiative against racism and intolerance; Swedish Government’s integration policy

Rhetoric and expectation in the signed manifest versus its implementation in ‘reality’ of business world

Opening the door Governmental action influencing large companies & public sector legitimates and increases Diversico’s survival prospects.

Opening and closing the door to diversity

Table 1

CONTRADICTION Universalizing economic interests 2000

Diversico’s first CCP-Report

Diversity as multicultural experience

Economic: to increase the volume and the profit growth

Managerial

Increasing competition within the industry; Change to foreign ownership

Narrowing the opening Status quo competitive advantage but CCP makes public; company’s social impact Opening the door to some aspects of diversity (multicultural experience), while simultaneously closing the door to others (social justice)

January of 2001

The Diversity Director, Sara

(Diversico) being aware of the changes (in the World/ market). . .

. . . in order to continue its success

Managerial

Changes in the World; Market rules

Welcoming ‘‘diversity’’ while searching to capitalize on it CONTRADICTION Naturalizing the business case for diversity

Adaptions to and reactions on the changes

95

96

Table 1 (Continued )

Time

Actors/Milieux

Ideas

Interests

Actions

Linkages to the larger societal system

May of 2001

Diversico’s GDC

Social/demographic diversity (cultural/ ethnic/gender)

Social equality (human rights and anti-discrimination); Environmental (environmental policies); Business (diversity as key for ‘quality’)

Social; Managerial

External knowledge sharingdialogues authorities and organizations

Contradictions Discursive Closure (Universalization, Naturalization, or Disqualification)

Praxes Outcome for opening or closing the door to diversity Stretching the narrowing Alternative understandings/ visions of diversity and its management

Offering visions and objectives related to increasing diversity without having the formal decisionmaking power May—October of 2001

October of 2001

From October 2001

Comfortable (business-oriented); Uncomfortable (social justice-oriented)

‘Diversity’ as a resource–—an asset necessary for financial gains

Anti-social; Managerial

Negating ‘‘uncomfortable’’ linkages

Informational diversity (international experience, and professional experience) prevails

Managerial

Market rules

A story about the ‘‘super-salesman’’, Dino

‘‘Diversity pays’’

Employees’ exposure to different countries, education and professional expertise, and interests and preferences. Selling more products to immigrants

Managerial

Market possibilities and rules

Universalizing business-oriented diversity; Disqualifying ‘‘uncomfortable’’ diversity Opening the door to most differences, while at the same time emphasizing only one difference (the informational diversity)

Narrow understanding that disqualifies alternatives

(Systematically) distorted communication

(Still) searching to capitalize on the stretching of narrowing

(Continuing) moving away from various social and demographic concerns.

V. Omanovic´

The predominant reactions of employees on the Diversity Director presentations of a diversity proposal The Diversity (Business) Programme; The Diversity Director

Per Ahmadi’s article, published in Diversico’s internal magazine, Views

To gain the trust of immigrants

To increase the proportion of immigrants in managerial positions; To institute a sales training programme for immigrants; To encourage immigrants to participate in the company’s diversity policy and decisionmaking processes.

Social activism; Managerial

Immigrants advancement

Alternative diversity thinking needed to promote organizational change

Criticism of existing praxes, and the search for alternatives

CONTRADICTION Tolerating ‘‘diverse’’ thinking while simultaneously distancing from ideas for organizational and social change February of 2002

Diversico’s President’s interpretation of Ahmadi’s article at the second GDC meeting

Diversity as consumer relations

Increasing profit and market share

Managerial

Market possibilities and rules

Opening and closing the door to diversity

February of 2002

Domination over particular sectoral interests and a control of the direction of diversity production. Increasing sales; An interpretation and a dialogue or an ideology?

97

98 myth of Diversico as committed to (corporate) social responsibility. Internally, the company was far less committed to social goals than these activities and documents would lead one to believe. As a contradiction, thus, it may as well be that its ‘public’ success made it easier to curtail social diversity goals within the company. These social goals gradually decreased and, at last, almost disappeared, for in the eyes of many-inside and outside the organization, Diversico was already doing ‘the right thing’. The broadening of the original idea of ‘‘quality’’ to include ‘‘diversity’’ is a significant sequence for observing how this happened. First, Diversico’s interest in quality shows linkages between the company and the larger context of society. Thus events occurring in society (increasing competition) are related to the development of the company’s values (Benson, 1977). This relational dynamic is crucial to identifying the appearance of ‘‘diversity’’ in company policy and to understanding the motive(s) for Diversico’s interest in diversity. Notably, the apparently broad scope of the modified conception of diversity — multicultural skills — was easily related to quality through individual performance — e.g., Dino as ‘‘supersalesman’’ — and gradually limited the company’s production of diversity as a social goal. This narrowing process could have been countered by the GDC’s more inclusive recommendation of diversity as a social and an economic issue, but it did not. Why not? As explained by Sara (Diversity Director), it was clear that ‘‘diversity’’ if expressed in terms of ethnic, gender or other demographic characteristics, including any which might be associated with social justice, was ‘‘uncomfortable’’ for many employees. Therefore, even when in principle the creation of the Corporate Diversity Business Development Programme followed recommendations from the GDC report, it was easier to emphasize the business aspects. As reflected by its name, the programme was primarily a business development programme. This reframing of the GDC’s recommendation reflects a ‘‘transformation of intentions’’ (Placier, Hall, McKendall, & Cockrell, 2000: 260), in the sense of modifying the GDC’s recommendation. The GDC’s original intention in the development of Diversico’s diversity programme was thus re-shaped by various vested interests and by unequal power relationships between organizational participants (see Jewson & Mason, 1986), considering — in particular — that despite the apparent importance of its constituents, the GDC had no formal decision-making power. Meanwhile, the president’s interpretation of Ahmadi’s article may exemplify missed opportunities for alternative constructions of diversity ideas/interests, which could have indeed opened the door to social diversity issues so far left unattended. Yet, both Ahmadi as well as Dino further embody the contradictions within the company’s diversity policies. Their images as ‘‘the diverse’’ are highlighted or tolerated as mythic exemplars of ‘‘valuing diversity’’ but their actual voices cannot be heard nor their actual bodies be seen. They can only ‘‘speak’’ through ‘ventriloquists’ capable of articulating their surplus value for making the business case. While Diversico’s President (and the fact that he was speaking at the GDC meeting — a friendly territory for social diversity issues) — could provoked a discussion about actual tensions with immigrants in Swedish society, he did not. For instance, he could have brought up Ahmadi’s article by asking: Why are some immigrants in Sweden still unemployed despite having

V. Omanovic´ lived in Sweden for more than ten years? Are these people discriminated against? Has our company discriminated against these people? What can we do about barriers immigrants believe hold them back in the labour market and in our company? Actually, Ahmadi’s story and the president’s silencing and reinterpretation of it illustrate more than missed opportunities for alternative constructions of ‘‘diversity’’ within the company. In fact, it rather illustrates a moment of stabilization for the company’s choice regarding the meaning of ‘‘diversity’’. It illustrates how views that differ from those of the company’s upper management may be both tolerated and marginalized–—that is, the practice of repression through tolerance (Young, 1990). In this way, apparently neutral and formally democratic spaces fostering diversity as social/ organizational change — e.g., encouraging employees to ‘‘speak’’ in Views — provide content for reflecting experiences and perspectives of dominant groups, while silencing or diminishing those of other groups. In so doing, the dominant version of reality is further reiterated (see also Liff and Dale, 1994, on the myth of equal opportunity in the UK; and Essed, 1991, on everyday racism in the Netherlands and the United States). So far in this discussion, I have emphasized the dialectical process of opening and closing the door to diversity. Specifically, by further explaining this process with examples from the case, the discussion illuminates how — despite contradictions — the company’s original commitment to social diversity becomes transformed into a narrow business case for ‘‘diversity’’ as a matter of course—there is no drama, nor explosive moments in any of it. In this regard, then, this discussion also helps reveal other processes — fundamentally ideological — concealing contradictions that might have led to conflict. Of particular importance, there are two processes of domination at work here: First, there is discursive closure in attempts to control the direction of diversity production (Deetz, 1992); and, second, there is domination by particular sectoral interests (Benson, 1977). These processes of domination help further explain how contradictions were promptly ‘swept under the carpet’, reiterating the apparently ‘rational’ agreement about the business meaning of ‘‘diversity’’ throughout the company. Interrelated with these two processes of domination, there is also a sub-structural condition of modernity — technical rationality — underlying organizational rationality and mundane activities within the company. This condition provides additional explanations for Diversico’s ability to steer the production of ‘‘diversity’’ into a one-dimensional view (Marcuse, 1994) with little conflict. In that way, technical rationality dominates conceptions of what is relevant, important and legitimate, and allows little room for questioning more basic conditions and suggesting qualitative differences (e.g., Alvesson, 1997).

Discursive Closure: processes of universalization, naturalization, and disqualification Throughout the case, I have already noted clear evidence of discursive closures. As indicated in the introduction, Deetz (1992:189) describes discursive closure as ‘‘quiet, repetitive micropractices [. . .] which function to maintain normalized

Opening and closing the door to diversity conflict-free experience and social relations’’. One of these processes, universalization, refers to ways of presenting information about the interests of particular groups as if it were in everyone’s interests (e.g., Alvesson & Deetz, 2000; Deetz, 1992; Mumby, 1988). In this case one could observe several moments when processes of universalization were controlling the production of ‘‘diversity’’ and suppressing conflict. For instance, ‘‘multicultural skills’’ was made equivalent to ‘‘diversity’’ when presented in the CCP Report (2000). It was presented as a common understanding, which only needed qualifications to emphasize its overarching meaning–—i.e., ‘‘ethnic origin’’ was only a rough measure. Articulating ‘‘ethnic origin’’ as a more limited case of a universal — i.e., ‘‘multicultural’’ — resulted in the generalization of the latter as the ‘true’ measure of ‘‘diversity’’: a business interest that should be in everyone’s interests, thus diminishing criticism of the established order. Naturalization, another process of discursive closure, works in lockstep with the process of universalization. In one of its manifestations, it is the treatment of the socially produced as given in nature (Deetz, 1992). Through this process, the company’s business interest in diversity is presented as objectively perceived and experienced — i.e. reified — and independent of the people who created it. ‘‘The objective order of things’’ (such as economics, laws, and the market), or just ‘‘common sense’’, tells us that this is ‘‘the way things are’’ (Mumby, 1988:73). However, the ‘‘objective order’’ and ‘‘common sense’’, as the case shows, are themselves the result of social processes–—choices made between different alternatives and dominant interests in the specific organizational context at the time. For instance, Sara’s explanation about what made the diversity programme be defined in a particular way hinges on her description that talking about anything else made people ‘‘uncomfortable’’. Here, to be ‘‘uncomfortable’’ becomes a natural explanation (i.e., people have feelings) that leads to no further discussion–—it is what it is. Yet, not discussed is that people were uncomfortable because they did not want to confront what may have been their own biases: the social conditions to which non-business notions of diversity applied. Thus, the business case for diversity — also supported by the most of academic and other literature already developed about it — was clearly ‘the natural thing’ to do. Finally, in the stories of Per Ahmadi and the ‘‘supersalesman’’ Dino an additional process of discursive closure — disqualification — is at play. This process is basically about who has the right to have a say. It occurs, for instance when people are excluded and denied access to speaking forums explicitly or implicitly. Often this is associated with who is deemed to have the expertise and qualifications to determine and question (Deetz, 1992). For instance, in this case, a potential discussion about alternative/transforming diversity praxes could have occurred if Dino had been invited to present his approach for selling to immigrants. Yet, ‘‘his story’’ circulated without him and without his knowledge that this was happening. In the denial of access to events where fundamental decisions in regard to diversity were made, Dino was denied an equal opportunity to express his view. Similarly, Diversico’s President disqualified Ahmadi by silencing his ideas about how to improve the company’s diversity business case. Specifically, if taken seriously, Ahmadi’s ideas were clearly oriented to connecting the treatment

99 of immigrants — both as customers and as potential employees who could contribute good ideas — to what the company was already promoting: more sales, and better quality through multicultural skills. Yet, he was not taken seriously. Evidently, he (like Dino) was ‘‘out of place’’ — not qualified — to offer business-oriented suggestions. In this case, thus, discursive closures as processes of domination suppressed conflicting interests and limited the possibility of conceiving alternative/transforming diversity praxes that might have been opposed to those already established. In several instances, it further reiterated them. Yet, paradoxically, this is also a form of praxis where change means affirming the existing order by systematically ending the discussion just where it probably should begin. Thus, this form of praxis does not transform the organizational arrangements; rather, the praxis conforms them.

Domination by particular sectoral interests Another way to understanding the social production of diversity in this case — and in organizations more generally — requires observing another process of domination. Typically, organizations work as political systems (Morgan, 1997), where diverse groups of actors mobilize their interests promoting some ideas while excluding others (Benson, 1977). If the variety of sectoral interests represented by organizational actors is expressed through equivalent positions of power within the organization, conflicting demands or other forms of resistance would appear. This could lead to criticism of previously accepted assumptions and beliefs, thereby challenging the status quo (Foster & Wiebe, 2010: 279). Such criticism could potentially change a given course of action. In this case, the criticism could have changed the direction of diversity production from being mostly informational diversity to other possibilities. However, there was no clear criticism by strong actors. Rather, there was an almost implicit acquiescence by most actors to the business rationale that supported the favoured meaning of diversity. This may seem strange if one considers that most Western societies acknowledge ideas such as equal opportunities and discrimination as social and even legal concerns, Sweden being no exception; and that Diversico subscribed to all those ideas from the start through its participation in the Sweden 2000 manifesto. Why were these not sufficient reasons for also fostering ‘‘social diversity’’ in the organization? Sara’s telling episode about ‘‘uncomfortable’’ ideas of diversity could again shed some light on this question. This is not a simple case of sectoral interests and power relations embedded in formal positions within the organization–—e.g., hierarchical power relations, or the interests of professional elites. It is not that ‘‘informational diversity’’ was forced upon most people in the organization by the hierarchical powers or claims of superior expert knowledge by those establishing the programme. Rather, Sara’s dialogue with multiple constituencies within the company offers important cues when reporting that people ‘‘love when I talk about diversity of perspectives and when I say . . .the aim is not . . . to focus on getting more women and foreigners into Diversico, but it’s to get different perspectives’’. She reports that in fact most people she addressed associated ‘‘diversity’’ with immigrants (not very productive) and women ‘‘who couldn’t get the job done’’, and also with ‘‘the poor’’ as charity issues.

100 Thus, the dominant sectoral interest here was represented precisely by an association already made at the larger Swedish social scale, where ethnicity, gender, and age were related to historically disadvantaged people in Sweden (immigrants, women and young people in general) — even if they were employees — seen as the objects of equal opportunity programs. These ideas extended to most notions of ‘‘social diversity’’. Seen in this light, the people to whom ‘‘social diversity’’ referred were minorities within the organization — regardless of hierarchical or professional position — and their voices were disqualified from the start as ‘less than’ voices, both in numbers and in value. In appearance, the dominant majority (most people in the organization) not only acquiesced but further promoted ‘‘informational diversity’’. However, doing so did not imply they were supporting top management and the formal hierarchy — who after all at the start of the case seemed to sympathize with social and economic arguments for diversity. Rather, for most employees it was a way to support their own social (ethnicity, gender, class) hierarchy as the legitimate members of the organization and the legitimate members of the Swedish society. As such, they needed no charity.

Modernity’s sub-structure: technical rationality One may say that in modern societies ‘‘business rationale’’ dominates even the most intimate spaces of social life. This form of rationality is part of a larger condition of modernity–— technical rationality. Here, technological determinism and reification of its capabilities for efficient action becomes the core of instrumental rationality and modern technological society. Observing the critique of this condition by theorists of the Frankfurt School, Feenberg (2010) describes it as incorporation of human beings into the technical system as producers and consumers, deskilled and passive, whose resistance to social injustice is suppressed and thus perpetuates a destructive competitive social pattern. It is a form of life that appears natural and unavoidable, such that conformity to the system becomes the experiential fact of everyday life. From this perspective, forms of business rationality promoting ‘‘diversity’’ as a business case can strongly contribute to excluding and/or a marginalizing social diversity, both actively under efficiency premises, and through indifference to social injustice when competition is all that matters. Technological rationality makes other aspects of diversity invisible and/or unrealistic, for ‘‘rationality’’ becomes that which is, and that which can be, within a given reality. Technical rationality is thus one-dimensional (Marcuse, 2001) since it does not permit questioning the lived experience of organizational members or potential alternatives to it. Interrelated to the above, a structural condition underlying technical rationality under modern capitalism provides additional explanations for favouring business interests and suppressing alternative understandings and interpretations of diversity. The capitalist producer constantly searches for new products and new markets in order to find ways of beating the competition (Morgan, 1997). Historically, this competition always requires constant innovations and new customers. As well, in capitalist organizations, the nearly universal goal, individually and collectively, is to become dominant in a business sense (e.g., promotions, more compensation, more sales, increased profitability).

V. Omanovic´ In this scenario, existing business interests in Diversico defined ‘‘diversity’’ as part of processes of innovation for competitive advantage, and as a form of evaluating individuals’ worth in the organization. ‘‘Diversity’’ in short, became instrumentalized and objectified within the organization. But for all this to work, ‘‘diversity’’ had to be efficiently coordinated and managed, and any conflict had to be suppressed, made as invisible as possible, so that it seemed there was no conflict at all. Diversico’s Diversity Programme and the Diversity Champions’ Team seemed primarily designed and designated to promote the company’s business interests. They were indeed important and efficient managers of all these events! As a result, the rationalizing aspects of themes on diversity — using Marcuse’s (1994) terminology — took on a totalitarian character. It was a one-dimensional way of thinking that reflected powerful interests and narrowed and dominated the diversity discussion that reflected the dominant rationality in society at large. It appeared there was no way to significantly change this one-dimensional way of thinking about diversity. The ‘‘normal mode of being in the world’’ fostered efficiency and rational decision-making — linked to profitable practices — over enrichment of values/perspectives and conceptions of rationality related to the welfare of diverse groups.

Conclusion In taking a dialectical approach to Diversico, the paper is a response to recent calls for more dynamic, longitudinal, and contextual research on diversity in organizations (e.g., Cala ´s et al., 2009; Merila ¨inen et al., 2009; Prasad, 2006; Zanoni, Janssens, Benschop, & Nkomo, 2010). Through its analysis of dialectical processes, this ethnographic study shows how a social production process — opening and closing the door to diversity — shapes and prioritizes, and concurrently suppresses and marginalizes, ideas about and interests in diversity in organizations. Conceptualizing diversity as a contradictory process produced through everyday organizational dynamics, this study illustrates how a company may both exhibit an appreciation for ‘‘diversity’’ as a socially acceptable concept in advanced Western societies, while simultaneously distancing itself from its implications in concrete organizational practices. The study builds on existing diversity studies inspired by critical discursive traditions, examining diversity as a socially-constructed phenomenon and focusing on dominant ideas and interests. It advances beyond those studies in its grounding in ethnographic and process-oriented longitudinal research, capturing the process of diversity production in a chronology of events. Thus, the paper approaches ‘‘diversity’’ as a dialectical production process unfolding over time in workplace dynamics, producing contradictions and praxes. The paper also explores the particularities of the social location where diversity practices acquire their meaning.

Implications for practice For practitioners concerned with diversity issues, this paper describes a diversity production process that has implications outside its Swedish setting. The chronological narration of

Opening and closing the door to diversity dynamics producing ‘‘diversity’’ reveals the (potential) contradictions that can arise in the process. Those contradictions illustrate how new organizational directions for diversity policy, and possibly for other policies, may be diverted and weakened. Who controls the meaning of ‘‘diversity’’ in organizations may be decided on a contested terrain. A dialectic view of change in organizations shows that such contradictions are inevitable (Morgan, 1997). They reflect the ‘‘struggle of opposites’’ since any change always contains elements of a counter development as each position tends to generate its opposite. In the process of diversity production Diversico was unable to overcome contradictions that arose almost from the start between ‘‘diversity as social structural change’’ and ‘‘diversity as a business case’’. As time went by there were more forces supporting the latter while submerging the former; however, these were not hegemonic forces, but fragmented interests, not easily recognizable until they seemed to coalesce in an apparently common understanding. Therefore, for practitioners who are concerned with diversity issues, the study shows that efforts trying to reconcile business interests with equality and demographic interests may be easily co-opted. Processes of co-optation may be identified and evaluated, so that contradictions and struggles are brought into the open. The aims of ‘‘diversity’’ would not be served if some interests are weakened, even ignored, at the expense of others, but dialectical analyses — which practitioners may use — may facilitate our understanding of how this process occurs. This understanding may facilitate the implementation of various practical strategies that act as catalysts for change (Foster & Wiebe, 2010: 272).

Implications for future research This study is a dialectical analysis focusing only on one organization located in a Western society. Insofar as dialectical analysis is viewed as a way to study processes emerging out of everyday relations in any society, this is not a limitation. As well, the fact that this is the study of only one organization is not a limitation insofar as dialectical analysis presupposes the studies of totalities, meaning that ‘‘people produce social structure, and they do so within a social context. The produced social world always constitutes a context which influences the ongoing process of production’’ (Benson, 1977: 4). Thus, the organizations, could in themselves be seen as totalities/wholes that are understood as specific social contexts that cause the interaction of the parts ‘‘in continuous transformation. This transformation is never definitively established, and always unfinished’’ (Gadotti, 1996: 18). From this perspective, therefore, dialectical analysis of one organization in any one society is not a limitation but part of the expected analytical approach. However, the use of this approach can be enhanced, and knowledge about variety in processes of diversity production could be obtained, through comparative analyses in, for instance, other Western and non-Western societies (e.g., Barros, 2010). Further, it could be important to observe through dialectical analysis the impact of transnationalization of ‘‘diversity practices’’ in subsidiaries of multinational corporations. In such research, key questions would consider how ‘‘diversity practices’’, an apparently generalizable phenomenon that ‘‘travels’’ around the world, acquires its local

101 characteristics and meanings, and becomes practiced in different ways. Such research directions would contribute to a proliferating debate about diversity and its management as contemporary phenomena under neoliberal globalization (e.g., Cala ´s et al., 2009; Cala ´s, Smircich, Tienari, & Ellehave, 2010). Also, future research should engage in an active search for new, emancipatory forms of organizing. In this regard, a particularly relevant area for research on diversity in organizations concerns (un)reflective and socially embedded actors, in particular less powerful and marginalized actors who are often identified as the diversity subjects. How do these actors learn that social/business arrangements do not meet their interests? When do they stop taking their reality for granted? What would be consequences of such awareness? Do they mobilize other similarly situated actors to take collective action for organizational change? In short, how can we bring about real emancipatory/transforming organizational praxes? In fact, the research for this case shows how dialectical analysis can contribute in this regard. By giving a ‘‘voice’’ to Dino and to Per Ahmadi and by highlighting how their contributions to Diversico were disqualified, I question the established order at Diversico and suggest possibilities for another perspective in the organization. The broader contribution of this research is its illustration that dialectical analysis continues to be an important and viable approach for critical and emancipatory organizational research.

Acknowledgements For their comments and suggestions, I wish especially to thank Marta Cala ´s and Linda Smircich. Kenneth Benson’s comments in an earlier stage of this paper also aided my thinking. I also benefited from comments from two anonymous reviewers and the journal editor. I am also grateful to the Research Foundations (Jan Wallander, Tom Hedelius and Tore Browaldh) for their support of my research.

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