Promoting organizational diversity and preserving socioemotional wealth: can family businesses balance the two?

PurposeA key characteristic for a family firm, preservation of socioemotional wealth, may appear to be at conflict with the concept of organizational diversity. The authors investigate how organizational diversity, captured through heterogeneity in ownership structure, diversity in the senior management team, interfaces with the concept of the socioemotional wealth of family businesses in an emerging economy, when these firms pursue inorganic growth strategies.Design/methodology/approachDrawing on the concepts of socioemotional wealth, behavioral agency theory and bifurcation bias, the authors develop perspectives on how ownership structure, family influence in executive management and institutional shareholding influence a family firm's internationalization strategies captured through propensity to pursue cross-border M&A – an activity that may threaten the preservation of socioemotional wealth. The authors also explore the role of business group affiliation, another organizational diversity construct, and contingent parameters like past financial performance and export intensity in this study. The authors take pooled data over 15 years, involving 346 large firms from India, which are family-controlled, to carry out the study.FindingsThe authors’ empirical analysis shows that family stake in the company and family members' presence in the executive team negatively influence the propensity to pursue cross-border M&A activities. A firm's affiliation to a business group moderates these negative relationships. On the other hand, the presence of institutional shareholders, positive past financial performance and export intensity positively influence cross-border M&A propensity.Originality/valueThe results establish that family businesses' attempts to preserve socioemotional wealth may come at the cost of promoting organizational diversity.

An Approach to Diversity and Cultural Competence Curriculum in Public Administration

There are a variety of approaches that can be utilized to facilitate public administration students and practitioners using culturally responsive approaches in their professional lives. The importance of understanding cultural diversity extends not only to individual interactions but also the structure of organizations and organizational decision making. The chapter presents one approach to providing students with a diversity-focused curriculum in a graduate-level public administration program. This approach includes an overview of the historical legacy of diversity in public administration, legally required and voluntary approaches to organizational diversity, models that can be used to assess the diverse cultural experiences of individuals for more personalized practice, and activities that can be utilized and adapted to educate public administration students and practitioners on issues of diversity and cultural competency.

Innovation Through Diversity and Inclusion

IT leadership involves technology, but it is mostly about people. This chapter discusses how organizational diversity has a critical impact on innovation and the role of leaders to create an environment where everybody feels a sense of belonging and where all kinds of people can flourish through safety, awareness, hiring, mindsets, and listening. Leaders are sometimes unsure how to achieve a more inclusive culture. This chapter provides research, definitions, details, and actionable recommendations for change so that leaders can create an organization where diverse employees can thrive and innovate for the benefit of the university and its community.

Work characteristics and occupational health: validation and proposal of a shortened version of the Work Design Questionnaire

Interest in the study of work characteristics to explain how an individual's relationship with the work environment can lead to maladaptive responses has taken on renewed importance in the light of increasing concern for the development of healthy organizations and organizational diversity. This study aims to develop a shortened version of the Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) with a view to facilitating its use and interpretation. The psychometric properties of this shorter questionnaire were tested in a multi-sectoral sample of workers in Spain, with due consideration given to the gender measurement invariance. For this purpose, we applied the questionnaire to a sample of 500 workers and analyzed the relationship between the answers provided to WDQ and specific occupational health variables (satisfaction, well-being and emotional exhaustion). Results showed adequate reliability and criterion-oriented validity for the shortened version of the WDQ, that is, the WDQ18-S, as well as evidence of factorial invariance across gender. We then discuss the results and their implications for the application of the WDQ in further research and the field of occupational health and psychosocial risks prevention. El interés por el estudio de las características del trabajo para explicar cómo la relación de un individuo con el entorno laboral puede conducir a respuestas desadaptativas ha cobrado una importancia renovada a la luz de la creciente preocupación por el desarrollo de organizaciones saludables y por la diversidad organizacional. Este estudio tiene como objetivo desarrollar una versión abreviada del Work Design Questionnaire (WDQ) con el fin de facilitar su uso e interpretación en este contexto. Las propiedades psicométricas de este cuestionario reducido se probaron en una muestra multisectorial de trabajadores en España. Para ello, aplicamos el cuestionario a una muestra de 500 trabajadores y analizamos la relación entre las carácterísiticas del trabajo y las variables seleccionadas de salud ocupacional (satisfacción, bienestar y agotamiento emocional). Los resultados mostraron una fiabilidad y una validez orientada al criterio adecuadas para la versión abreviada del WDQ, esto es, el WDQ18-S, así como evidencia de invarianza factorial de género. Posteriormente se discuten los resultados y sus implicaciones para el uso del WDQ en el ámbito aplicado e investigador de la salud ocupacional y la prevención de riesgos laborales.

Organizational diversity and competency-based performance: The mediating role of employee commitment and job satisfaction

Diversity amongst the workforce within central Europe has experienced some form of evolution. This occurrence will incessantly manifest even further in the not-too-distant future. As a result, citizen-dominated societies are gradually tilting towards an increasingly diverse and minority population, broadly of African and Asian descent. Again, demographers suggest the influx of women, minorities, people of different ethnic backgrounds, aging workers, and people with alternative lifestyles within the European employment space, just as the various organizations and schools are filled with these groups. Studies on organizational diversity abound, however, findings from past research on diversity and performance relationships have been equivocal. Thus, the main objective of this study is to assess the mediating role of commitment and job satisfaction in the relationship between diversity and performance. Results from 237 samples drawn from the Czech Republic, Europe and analyzed through partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) suggest that diversity does not have a significant relationship with competency-based performance. However, both commitment and job satisfaction play notable roles in the relationship between diversity and competency-based performance. Given these results, we discuss the theoretical and managerial implications.

Mixed Reactions to Multicultural (vs. Colorblind) Diversity Approach Signals: A Lay Theories of Culture Perspective

Despite its popularity, signaling a multicultural approach to racial-ethnic diversity is often faced with both positive and negative reactions. In this article, we sought insights into what may contribute to the mixed reactions and why. Drawing on social categorization theories and mindset research, we proposed that an underexplored factor influencing stakeholders’ reactions to organizations’ diversity approach was their lay theories or mindsets of culture. Specifically, we argued that those who believe that racial-ethnic groups represent unchangeable deep-seated essences—a fixed (vs. malleable) cultural mindset—would react negatively toward the intergroup differentiations and comparisons evoked by multicultural approach signals. Three experiments manipulated organizational diversity approach signals. Results consistently showed that a fixed cultural mindset was negatively related to organizational attraction (Studies 1 and 2) and support for diversity promoting policies (Study 3) in reaction to a multicultural (vs. colorblind) approach. In addition, Study 3 tested and showed that ethnocentrism, a self-protective mechanism, mediated the negative reactions. Together, the findings support lay theories of culture as a moderating factor that affects reactions toward a multicultural approach. Organizations should take individuals’ theories of culture into consideration in their efforts to maximize attraction and support for diversity.

Three-Dimensional Assessment of the Knowledge Production System: Region-City-Organization

Conceptualization of the region as an integral territorial system of knowledge production has formed a widely used research strategy for innovation studies within regional boundaries. Regional level studies are supported by detailed innovation statistics, which is unavailable for smaller administrative-territorial units, such as municipalities or settlements. The development of spatial scientometrics gave impetus for a new round of research on knowledge and innovation geography with a closer approximation in the context of cities and urban agglomerations. The scope of recent research also includes individual organizations that generate new knowledge or innovation. Despite the topic prominence, the entire array of studies is fragmented, and connections between different levels are not established: region – city – organization. Whereas this is critically important for the implementation of an effective innovation policy. In this regard, in this study, we test the hypothesis that the aggregate data obscures a wide variety of knowledge nodes, which are represented by a dominant knowledge centre. In the case of the region, such centres are often the largest cities, and in the case of cities – the largest organizations. The research design is focused on assessing the knowledge production at a multiscale level – organization, city and region, using the method of spatial scientometrics. The example of the Russian Federation illustrates well the territorial and institutional diversity in the distribution of knowledge production centres of different levels due to its great length and complexity of the structure of the national innovation system. This fact determines the high degree of heterogeneity of the Russian innovation space at the interregional, intercity and inter-organizational levels. The research results show a strong correlation between the knowledge profiles of regions and their primary knowledge-generating cities (KGCs). In cases of a strong central-peripheral structure of the regional knowledge production system, the regional profile completely coincides with the profile of its primary KGC. The knowledge capacity of second-tier cities remains hidden. At the city level, the identified trend is exacerbated. The absence of a pronounced leader among knowledge-intensive organizations (KIOs) against organizational diversity leads to a strong blur of the effectiveness of the knowledge production capabilities of a city. The example of Khabarovsk shows that the research profile of a city in a given situation may not repeat the most productive KIO, but, on the contrary, a weak one. Thus, the three-dimensional region-city-organization approach captures local specifics and organizational diversity, encompassing the entire set of elements of a regional knowledge production system. The study concludes with recommendations for a knowledge management policy at a tiered level.

“Protein” Industry Convergence and Its Implications for Resilient and Equitable Food Systems

Recent years have seen the convergence of industries that focus on higher protein foods, such as meat processing firms expanding into plant-based substitutes and/or cellular meat production, and fisheries firms expanding into aquaculture. A driving force behind these changes is dominant firms seeking to increase their power relative to close competitors, including by extending beyond boundaries that pose constraints to growth. The broad banner of “protein” offers a promising space to achieve this goal, despite its nutritionally reductionist focus on a single macronutrient. Protein firm strategies to increase their dominance are likely to further diminish equity in food systems by exacerbating power asymmetries. In addition, the resilience of food systems has the potential to be weakened as these strategies tend to reduce organizational diversity, as well as the genetic diversity of livestock and crops. To better understand these changes, we visually characterize firms that are most dominant in higher protein food industries globally and their recent strategic moves. We discuss the likelihood for these trends to further jeopardize food system resilience and equity, and we make recommendations for avoiding these impacts.

Coalitional Lobbying and Intersectional Representation in American Rulemaking

Interest groups representing the marginalized regularly neglect advocacy on behalf of their most vulnerable constituents—those with intersectional disadvantage. Yet, they claim that such advocacy is central to their missions. I argue that interest groups representing women, people of color, Native nations, and the poor strategically conduct intersectional advocacy through coalitional lobbying. I test this claim using a new dataset of cosignature patterns within public comments on proposed federal agency rules submitted by a set of such groups between 2004 and 2014. I find that these groups are significantly more likely to pursue intersectional advocacy in coalitions but that coalition work, alone, does not relate to influential intersectional advocacy. Rather, it is particular coalition characteristics, including organizational diversity and financial capacity, that predict such influence. I conclude that collaborative lobbying is an effective tactic for mediating representational bias in interest group advocacy and promoting more pluralistic administrative policy making.