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JMS SPECIAL ISSUE:

Diversity Perspective on Management: Towards more complex conceptualizations of diversity in management studies

Submission Deadline: Friday, 30 November 2018

Guest Editors:

Dries Faems, University of Groningen, Netherlands

Daniel Muzio, Newcastle University, UK

Corinne Post, Lehigh University, USA

Andrea Prencipe, LUISS University, Italy

Riikka Sarala, University of North Carolina – Greensboro, USA

Li-Qun Wei, Hong Kong Baptist University, China

Background to Special Issue

Diversity is a particularly pertinent issue due to a combination of established long-term trends and sudden political events. Organizations, their stakeholders, and communities face more forms and levels of diversity than before because of many societal developments, such as mass migration, aging populations, changing career patterns, same sex marriage legislation, and new generational life-styles and preferences. There are many more 'others' to take account of and this affects organizational issues ranging from career structures and HR strategies to customer expectations, investor relations, and strategy formulation. However, recent political events such as Brexit in the UK and Donald Trump's election in the US have generated increasing calls for cultural cohesiveness, the celebration of 'nativist' and dominant identities as well as increase in the nationalistic rhetoric. As such, whilst diversity on the ground may be increasing, it is simultaneously confronted by new discourses of cohesiveness, coherence, nationalism and integration that emphasize local interests, values and identities.

This special issue seeks to help establish a foundation for further development on our knowledge about diversity. We hope that research on both the forces towards and against diversity will be addressed by scholars. Furthermore, we hope that, by bringing together new theoretical and empirical contributions, the special issue will (1) elucidate more comprehensively how diversity affects individuals, groups, networks, organizations, fields and the "nested complexity of real organizational life," (2) develop pertinent and highly applicable insights for practice; and (3) set an agenda for a new wave of diversity research.

Whilst there is little doubt that this is a particularly timely juncture to be concerned with diversity, existing scholarship presents significant conceptual and methodological limitations. For instance, existing theories tend to focus on a single level of analysis, on a limited range of usually Anglo-Saxon research settings, and despite the agenda around intersectionality, on a relatively narrow range of types of diversity. Diversity research has tended to prioritize visible forms of diversity, such as racial or gender diversity, with less emphasis on diversity in culture, values and attitudes or even ideological orientations. This is particularly important as ideological differences, such as the distinction between liberals and conservatives, is likely to become an increasingly important source of conflict within and across organizations, communities, and societies. This also poses distinctive methodological challenges in terms of identifying new data sources, measures and approaches, which could account for a fuller range of diversities. Furthermore, whilst the literature has tended to focus on evaluating the outcomes of diversity, we know much less about the mechanism through which diversity impacts various stakeholders and how different factors or conditions support or hinder the beneficial or detrimental effects of diversity within and across organizations.

In line with the broad mandate of Journal of Management Studies as a general management journal, the special issue aims to embrace a broad, multilevel view of diversity. At an individual level, diversity can be conceptualized as an intra-person phenomenon; at the group or team level it captures composition of the unit in terms of differences along meaningful characteristics (e.g., demographics, culture). At the organizational level, diversity may refer to cultural, demographic, ideological, or strategic differences between different stakeholders. Furthermore, at the network or inter-organizational/inter-unit level-including, but not limited to phenomena, such as alliances, mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, outsourcing, multinational companies-inter-organizational diversity captures differences in the backgrounds, strategies, and resources of the organizations or units. Finally, diversity is also a relevant construct at a field, industry, institutional, national, or even supra-national level.

We seek empirical and conceptual papers, which address a diverse set of issues that include, but are not limited to:

•             How is the role of diversity changing within and across organizations?

•             How does diversity influence individual, group, organizational, and inter-organizational outcomes and what are its mediating mechanisms and boundary conditions?

•             What are the societal forces for and against diversity and how do they affect organizational policies and practices?

•             How are the discourses and narratives for and against diversity socially constructed, and what is the role of the media?

•             How can we incorporate intellectual diversity and ideological diversity in our theories of management studies?

•             How does diversity impact business and entrepreneurial activities?

•             In what ways do conceptualizations and appreciation of diversity differ or agree between East and West, North and South?

•             How can corporations incorporate diversity in their strategies?

To begin answering questions like the ones above, we encourage the development of new frameworks; theory building based on current phenomena or tensions (e.g., Brexit, America First); the levelling up and levelling down of diversity concepts and constructs; multi-level and cross level theory development; the integration of diversity theory with theory from other fields; efforts to improve taxonomies of diversity; rich work that improves our understanding of diversification processes; as well as syntheses and reviews of existing diversity literatures. We are open to quantitative, qualitative, theoretical papers, reviews, and meta-analyses.

Submission Process and Deadlines

•             Manuscripts will be reviewed according to the JMS double-blind review process.

•             Submissions should be prepared using the JMS Manuscript Preparation Guidelines (see: http://www.socadms.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/JMS-Manuscript-Preparation-Guidelines.pdf )

•             The deadline for submission is Friday, 30 November 2018. Papers may be submitted prior to the deadline and will be processed as and when they arrive.

•             Manuscripts should be submitted by e-mail to business.jms@durham.ac.uk

•             For informal inquires related to the Special Issue, proposed topics and potential fit, please contact the guest editors.

Best wishes,

Joanne