While the backbone of today's global economy is an increasingly diverse workforce, many individuals still perceive themselves as outsiders, according to a new book by University of Southern California Professor Michàlle Mor Barak.

In Managing Diversity Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace (SAGE Publications), Mor Barak, of the USC School of Social Work and Marshall School of Business, says many organizations pay lip service to a culture of acceptance, but few have adopted measures for a truly inclusive workplace. She suggests the organizations that ultimately will thrive are those prepared to divest themselves of their prejudicial attitudes and effectively unleash the potential embedded in a heterogeneous workforce.

Coined by Mor Barak, the term 'inclusive workplace' refers to a model work environment that welcomes diversity on all levels. She developed the concept after seven years of research that included interviewing corporate executives, business leaders and employees from around the globe. She also relied on findings from a Rockefeller Foundation-funded international think tank.

"Invariably, the employees who were more included in the organization's decision-making and information networks were more satisfied, more committed to the organization and felt more productive than those who were not," Mor Barak said. "After several interviews with women and members of ethnic and racial diverse groups repeatedly telling me how they felt, it finally dawned on me - inclusion was the key."

To help corporate leaders, human resource managers and management consultants understand and manage the dynamics of diversity, Mor Barak advocates a set of strategies for instilling inclusive policies and practices, especially for corporations struggling with the harmful effects of discrimination and exclusion on their moral reputation, legal standing and bottom line.

Mor Barak uses a global lens to examine trends in diversity. She notes the combination of business internationalization, worker migration and workforce diversity creates a challenge for companies engaged in international business. The increasingly more open economic markets create opportunities for the counties with surplus workforce and underdeveloped economies to come together with countries that can finance economic endeavors and provide jobs. Due to consistently low birth rates and increased longevity, virtually all the industrial countries will need larger waves of immigrants just to keep their current ratio of workers to retirees. At the same time, developing countries are experiencing an unprecedented surge of young people with economies that are too small to provide jobs to such large cohorts. Thus, both push and pull factors are working toward the same outcome: a more diverse workforce.

"This book introduces a unique and refreshing prism that is highly useful for managers and scholars alike," said Alan D. Levy, chairman and CEO, Tishman International Companies, and a participant in the Rockefeller Foundation-funded international think tank. "It is a 'must-read' for managers who need to effectively manage today's diverse workforce in order to survive and thrive in the global economy."

Mor Barak believes the inclusive workplace starts with valuing and respecting the perspectives and contributions of a company's individuals and groups of employees versus the exclusionary workplace that promotes employees conforming to organizational norms.

"Part of the challenge of managing workforce diversity is managing the diversity of people's preconceived notions about those outside their own mainstream culture," she said. "Workforce diversity is about being susceptible to employment consequences as a result of one's association within or outside certain social groups."

The inclusive work organization is also active in the community, she says, participating in socially responsible activities that support education, for instance, and collaborating across cultural and national boundaries. The resulting tangible benefits to companies adopting the constructs of an inclusive workplace include improved employee retention and recruitment, enhanced company image and stock price, as well as goodwill from employees and customers, which Mor Barak supports with numerous case studies of best practices from leading corporations.

"It gives many practical examples and very useful illustrations that make it very interesting for both the conceptual researcher and the practitioner," said Cordula Barzantny, another participant in the international think tank and an associate professor for the Groupe Ecole Superieure de Commerce at Toulouse Business School, who credits the book for its global perspective and outlook.

"Clearly, in democratic countries where equal opportunity is an important national value, promoting fairness and economic advancement for disenfranchised members of society is the right and ethical thing to do," Mor Barak said. "It also constitutes good business by giving corporations a competitive advantage. If more organizations do not adapt to become more multicultural and learn to remove barriers to full participation of minority groups, worldwide social and economic tensions are inevitable."

About the Author
Mor Barak holds the Lenore Stein-Wood and William S. Wood Professor in Social Work and Business in a Global Society Professorship at the USC School of Social Work, where she chairs the industrial/occupational social work concentration. In addition to founding the International Center for the Inclusive Workplace at USC, Mor Barak is the recipient of a Fulbright Award, University of California Regents Fellowship and the Lady Davis Award for international exchange scholars. Mor Barak has published extensively in the area of diversity and inclusion, including articles in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences and Administration in Social Work, and is the author of Social Work Networks and Health and Social Services in the Workplace.