Diversity Beyond The Numbers:
Business Vitality, Identity & Ethics in the 21st Century
This book takes a critical look at the practice of Diversity Management in its current approach and presents a more comprehensive methodology that incorporates knowledge recently gained in other sciences such as identity theory, complex adaptive systems, and critical social theory. The book is aimed specifically at giving the practitioner, both internal Diversity Champions and external consultants, more powerful tools that are solidly grounded in theory to build an inclusive work environment.

This book is based on over 10 years of high impact consulting for major corporations and argues that current approaches to diversity issues tend to treat the symptoms and in many ways promote the status quo. Gary Adkins addresses the entire social constellation of forces in a business culture, looking for signs of disenchantment, chaos or rigidity. He offers the reader a combination of insights and applicable tools to optimize diversity and build business vitality.

Diversity Praxis: A Journal of Organizational Vitality and Individual Autonomy
A quarterly journal providing an ongoing blend of theory and practice for dedicated practitioners to dialogue with and learn from one another. Articles and features relevant to core topics will regularly appear.

For access to the current edition of Diversity Praxis, click on the title above. Due to the significance of diversity issues which have emerged or intensified since publication of our first edition in November 2003, the editors have made the decision to continue providing Diversity Praxis on a complimentary basis for the entire first publication year. For access to the introductory edition of Diversity Praxis, Click Here.

PUBLISHED ELSEWHERE

Globalisation and Creative Abrasion: Impact on Performance
by Richard Vicenzi

Published in Proceedings of the 11th World Congress for Total Quality Management
Wellington New Zealand, 4-6 December 2006
Abstract: The diffusion of technology has fostered rapid growth over the last 15 years in numerous emerging economies, leading to significant changes in business and trading relationships around the world. The results of Globalisation have been a two-edged sword that has seen both opportunity from increased access to lucrative markets, cost effective resources and rapid knowledge acquisition as well as threats from increased pressure by unprecedented sources of competition and lowered barriers to entry. Both organizations and individuals are required to continuously adapt to rapidly changing competitive landscapes in order to achieve and retain success. Globe-spanning partnerships with vendors, customers, and even competitors are multiplying. Potential obstacles to performance lurk in this unprecedented attempt to integrate cultures, languages, world-views and ethical systems.

This paper focuses on the quality of relationships as a key factor in the pursuit of organizational goals and the challenges presented by the arrival of a sizable global component into today's workforce. It looks at two established constructs for effective integration of a diverse or culturally heterogeneous workforce through the lens of a dynamic model of the adaptive learning organization, and discusses implications for quality, customer relationships, innovative capability, and employee performance and retention.

Bibliography
Summary Slides

A Tool to Assess Organizational Vitality in an Era of Complexity
by Richard Vicenzi and Gary Adkins

Published in Technological Forecasting and Social Change Fall 2000: 64, 101-113
Abstract: The evolution toward a post-industrial, or knowledge-based, economy brings previously unrecognized predicators of organizational health into focus. The authors integrate concepts from complexity theory, post-modern organizational theory, and "Knowledge Management" as a source for innovation into a diagnostic tool to measure the comparative health of an organization in terms of successfully competing in the emerging 21st century economy. Factors such as the character of leadership and trust evident in the organization, the relative influence of expertise over "position power," the level of connectivity between work groups and people allowing for the meaningful exchange and flow of information, the amount of cultural and cognitive diversity among agents in the work system, and the degree to which anxiety and stress are contained to positively impact performance levels are included in the assessment. The diagnostic tool is outlined and a case study described where the tool is used to identify appropriate interventions in different organizations that are attempting to adapt to their changing market places. © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc.