Ethnic Diversity at Work Diversity Attitudes and Experiences in Dutch Organisations

Demographic changes in Europe and the United States have created an impetus for a large number of publications on how an ethnically diverse work force can best be managed. In popular as well as scholarly diversity literature, employers are regularly encouraged to engage in diversity management activities. Typically, the aim of such activities is to facilitate the entry and advancement of minority employees in organisations, and to create an organisational climate in which ethnic minority and majority members value differences and work harmoniously together. So far, however, little is known about the diversity attitudes and experiences of ethnic minority and majority employees and managers.

This book reports on a study in fifteen Dutch organisations with an ethnically diverse staff. It explores the following general questions: How do minority and majority employees and managers think about employing minority members, and about affirmative action policies? How do they think about interethnic differences, and about the interethnic relations at work? How do they think about the accommodation of cultural and religious differences? In-depth analyses are presented, describing people?s implicit theories and experiences, as well as multilevel analyses, examining which different factors contribute to more positive or negative attitudes and experiences. The outcomes presented in this book are valuable for those seeking to understand how a diverse work force can be managed.