Organizing Inclusion

Organizing Inclusion brings communication experts together to examine issues of inclusion and exclusion, which have emerged as a major challenge as both society and the workforce become more diverse. Connecting communication theories to diversity and inclusion, and clarifying that inclusion is about the communication processes of organizations, institutions, and communities, the book explores how communication as an organizing phenomenon underlies systemic and institutionalized biases and generates practices that privilege certain groups while excluding or marginalizing others. Bringing a global perspective that transcends particular problems faced by Western cultures, the contributors address issues across sub-disciplines of communication studies, ranging from social and environmental activism to problems of race, gender, sexual orientation, age and ability. With these various perspectives, the chapters go beyond demographic diversity by addressing interaction and structural processes that can be used to promote inclusion. Using these multiple theoretical frameworks, Organizing Inclusion is an intellectual resource for improving theoretical understanding and practical applications that come with ever more diverse people working, coordinating, and engaging one another. The book will be of great relevance to organizational stakeholders, human resource personnel and policy makers, as well as to scholars and students working in the fields of communication, management, and organization studies.

This book provides practical guidance for managers, leaders, diversity officers, educators, and students to achieve the benefits of diversity by focusing on creating meaningful, inclusive interactions. Implementing inclusive interaction practices, along with accountability practices, enhances performance outcomes for the organization and improves equity for members of historically underrepresented and marginalized groups. The book highlights the need to challenge existing approaches that have overemphasized representational—that is, numerical—diversity. For many decades, the focus has been on this important first step of increasing the numbers of underrepresented groups. However, moving beyond representation toward a truly inclusive organizational culture that produces real performance and equity has been elusive. This book moves the focus from achieving numerical diversity to achieving frequent, high-quality, equitable, and productive interactions that enable individuals to leverage their distinctive talents and provides the steps to do so. The benefits of this approach occur at the individual, workgroup, and organizational levels. Real-life examples of good inclusive practices are provided from across the for-profit, nonprofit, and governmental sectors and in various organizational contexts. The book is ideal not only for those charged with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in organizations but also for organizational leaders and managers who can create and/or support the implementing of inclusive organizational practices and also for postgraduate and undergraduate students studying human resource management, organizational behavior, management, or diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Why are some white, middle-class activists experiencing difficulty creating alliances across racial and class differences? What are the obstacles and what is being done to overcome them? What type of movement structures, cultures, and practices can best facilitate inter-racial, inter-class solidarity? Stories of Inclusion? explores these questions through an ethnographic study of a predominately white, middle-class contemporary peace and justice network that is working to create a racially and class diverse community of activists. Addressing a very significant and greatly under researched topic, Stories of Inclusion? raises important and critical questions for the peace movement as well as larger society. In accessible prose, this study bridges the literatures of social movement theory, critical race studies, and feminist theory, and offers new insight into how power and privilege can affect the process of creating inclusive communities. Drawing on data the author collected through in-depth interviews, interpretive focus groups, and over two years of participant observation, this study explores how white, middle-class privilege influences political analyses, definitions of peace work, and approaches to alliance building. The findings are compelling and reveal that even those who have developed an oppositional political consciousness and have pledged to work across racial and class divides can still foster exclusive organizing practices. This study also offers examples on how some activists are acknowledging privilege, transforming their worldviews, and beginning to establish fruitful relationships across differences. This important work emphasizes the continuing importance of race for those collective actors attempting to construct inclusive movements across diverse groups, while also offering important practical solutions on how to bridge differences. The conclusion offers a framework for building a new agenda for the peace and justice movement.

Providing comprehensive coverage of the field of diversity, equality, equity and inclusion (DEI), this timely Encyclopedia addresses significant developments in diversity management. Entries adopt both theoretical and critical approaches to construct a complete picture of this crucial approach to business practice.

This book presents the proceedings of the Working Conference on the societal and organizational implications for information systems of social inclusion. The contributed papers explore technology design and use in organizations, and consider the processes that engender social exclusion along with the issues that derive from it. The conference, sponsored by the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group 8.2, was held in Limerick, Ireland, in July, 2006.

Research has shown that having a diverse organization only improves and enhances businesses. Forbes and Time report that diversity is an $8 Billion a year investment. However, poorly implementing diversity programs have damaging effects on the organization and the very individuals these programs attempt to help. Poorly implemented programs can cause peers and subordinates to question decisions and lose faith in leadership. In addition, it can cause even the most confident individuals to doubt their own skillset and qualifications. Many organizations have turned to training to solve this complex issue. Yet still, other organizations have created and filled diversity and inclusion positions to tackle the issue. The effects of these poorly implemented programs are highlighted during strenuous times such as the latest COVID-19 pandemic. Marginalized people are more marginalized, and resources and support do not reach everyone. Tasks such as providing technical support, conducting large group meetings, or distributing work obligations without seeing employees on a daily basis becomes more challenging. Complex problems cannot be solved with simple solutions. Using organization development (OD) to develop a comprehensive change initiative can help. This book outlines how properly conducting an OD change initiative can effectively increase an organization’s diversity and inclusion -- it is grounded in research-based literature on diversity and OD principles. Many organizational leaders realize the key importance of diversity, equity, inclusion and multiculturalism in modern organizations. It is only through such efforts can organizations thrive in a networked world where much work is done virtually—and often across borders. But a common scenario is that leaders, recognizing the need for a diversity program, will pick someone from the organization to launch it. Perhaps the person identified for this challenge is in the HR department but has had no experience in launching diversity efforts—or even in managing large-scale, long-term, organization wide change efforts. But these are the challenges to be faced. This book quickly identifies some reasons why diversity programs fail and how to avoid those failures. The majority of the book highlights how to use OD to improve organization culture and processes to not only increase diversity and inclusion but develop overall organization talent and prevent personal preferences and biases from hindering the selection of the best talent for positions.

The social and political changes of this era have created a climate change and fundamental shift in how businesses view the impact of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in the workplace. It is essential to understand how leaders make significant, sustainable changes utilizing communication abilities, envisioning, conflict management skills, and innovative DEIB initiatives. However, leaders must be careful not to rely on anecdotal evidence as it does not always reflect DEIB realities. Implementing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Management in Organizational Change Initiatives analyzes how leaders implement DEIB organizational change initiatives. It provides an interdisciplinary perspective of how issues and challenges pertaining to DEIB management affect organization performance. Covering topics such as inclusive organizational identity, socio-intercultural entrepreneurship, and supplier diversity programs, this book is an indispensable resource for business leaders, managers, entrepreneurs, academic administration, students and educators of higher education, government officials, researchers, and academicians.

This book unites the latest research in diversity, inclusion, and positive organizational scholarship (POS), to investigate diversity and inclusion dynamics in social systems. Comprised of succinct chapters from thought leaders in the field, this book covers both micro- and macro-levels of analysis, covering topics such as authenticity, mentorship, intersectional identity work, positive deviance, resilience, resource cultivation and utilization, boundary-spanning leadership, strengths-based development, positive workplace interventions to promote well-being, inclusive strategic planning, and the role of diversity in innovation.