Diversity: A key idea for business and society. By Mustafa F.Özbilgin, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 2024. pp. 156. £35.99 (pbk). ISBN: 9780367423605
Year: 2024
Type: book-review
Abstract: A Key Idea for Business and Society" is a book, part of the Key Ideas Series of Routledge that explores the term 'diversity', how it manifests itself, and how different disciplines impacted and shaped the way it is studied in social sciences.The book centers on workforce diversity, its management, consequences, and regulatory aspects of diversity.Each chapter concludes with illustrative diversity cases.In these seven illustrative cases, the readers can see the real-time implications and use of diversity in various contexts.For instance, examples span from the case of the COVID-19 pandemic and its adverse impacts on diverse groups in societies of Western and Asian countries to the migration of the diversity concept over time from North America to different contexts and shaped new meanings across the world.This is also how the author brings forth why diversity is key for societies and businesses across the globe.Özbilgin employs a language accessible to diverse audiences beyond academia, including industry practitioners, policymakers, and others interested in delving into the subject without overwhelming technical details.The book is structured into seven chapters accompanied by an introduction.Özbilgin initiates the discussion in the introduction by framing the global context through a dystopian lens, highlighting the imperative to reconceptualize human diversity amidst emerging challenges in other diversity categories, such as biodiversity and technodiversity.He prompts readers to ponder the beacon of hope amidst the current pessimism.The author illustrates this pessimistic and dystopian context as the unprecedented power and dominion of humans leading to the destruction of ecology and natural environment (e.g., climate crisis).At the same time, the world witnesses a decay in institutional diversity due to the uptrend of neoliberal ideology.In brief, the first part of the book centers on workforce diversity, and the second part focuses on managing and regulating diversity, especially emphasizing bio-and technodiversity.Chapter 1 primarily delves into the origins of diversity.In this chapter, the author provides definitions of diversity and discusses various framings.These framings include, for instance, numerical, relations of power, psychological, institutional, organizational, processual, and relational frameworks proposed by Syed and Özbilgin (2009).Although diversity and its origins are adequately covered, I believe the book would have a more holistic perspective on the agenda if the author gave voice to the definitions of inclusion.Plus, the relevance and connection of inclusion to diversity.In the book, i't is unclear why inclusion is detached from diversity's conceptual developmental journey.Chapter 2 explores manifestations of diversity.These diversity manifestations encompass etic (e.g., gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, age, techno, and biodiversity) and emic (e.g., India's caste system) categories.At the same time, the author cautions against studying a single dimension of diversity, which may cause the negligence of a broader complexity of inequalities deriving at the intersection of several forms of diversity (see Tatli & Gender Work Organ.
Source: Gender Work and Organization
DOI: 10.1111/gwao.13189
Author: Ece Gürsoy
Institution: Copenhagen Business School
Language: English
Subfield: Gender Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Reduced inequalities
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4402286838