Diversity Management und soziale Schließung in Betrieben in Deutschland: Ergebnisse aus Experteninterviews

The current migration of refugees will challenge the German labor market in new ways. Firms will be facing a heightened degree of cultural diversity. Having to deal with new employees of probably unknown cultural origin will most likely test firms' organizational and social skills. This puts new emphasis on the task of managing diversity. The initial goal of diversity management was to establish equal chances for minorities in the labor market. Interpreting social diversity as an economic resource has by now (also) rendered diversity management an instrument to increase a firm's productivity. Based on expert interviews in German firms, this report describes the motives for and different kinds of diversity management that can be identified empirically and how they relate to different degrees of social closure in hiring processes. The theoretical backdrop is the connection between diversity and social closure in a firm. Analyzing the interviews results in a typology of firms that differ in attitude towards and motive for diversity management as well as in how they handle diversity and how socially closed they are, and thereby expanding a typology of diversity management by Thomas and Ely (1996) by two types. The results suggest that a sustainable usage of diversity benefits of two factors: A confrontation with diversity brought about by political or historical circumstances on the one hand and an idealistically motivated positive appreciation of diversity on the other.