Diversity management

Abstract

This paper uses Habermas’ model of dialogue and the public sphere to provide a critical examination of organizational diversity management. The paper argues that, in spite of the dialogic and inclusive claims made by the diversity movement, its basic framework and methods serve to limit and repress productive dialogue on race rather than produce effective organizational change. The diversity movement represents an important ideological strategy that seeks to re‐assert the privacy of the corporate sphere and its employment decisions, making its emergence a significant element of the general social‐political attempt to manage and contain racial conflict and social contradiction.