professionalizing diversity and inclusion practice: should ......best practice advice offered in...

Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 6 (2013), 193–205.Copyright © 2013 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 1754-9426/13

FOCAL ARTICLE

Professionalizing Diversity andInclusion Practice: Should VoluntaryStandards Be the Chicken or the Egg?

ROSEMARY HAYS-THOMASUniversity of West Florida

MARC BENDICK JR.Bendick and Egan Economic Consultants, Inc., Washington, DC

AbstractWorkplace diversity and inclusion (D & I) practices today are based to a great extent on unevaluated experienceand intuition rather than empirical evidence. Would voluntary professional practice standards in this field helpto raise the level of current and future practice? Or would they be premature? If developed under 4 principles wedescribe, we predict the former. However, this positive outcome will also require industrial and organizational(I–O) psychologists to join their D & I colleagues in expanding research on D & I practices, strengthening theskills of D & I practitioners, assisting employers to avoid self-incrimination, and enhancing employer commitmentto D & I itself. I–O psychologists should also be aware of other implications of D & I practice standards fortheir work.

Diversity and inclusion (D & I) initiativesare now prominent among the employmentpractices with which many industrial andorganizational (I–O) psychologists work. Itis rare to attend a workplace-oriented con-ference without meeting multiple providersoffering diversity training; to view anemployer’s website without encountering a‘‘diversity’’ link; or to complete a consult-ing assignment without hearing about theclient’s ‘‘employee resource groups,’’ cele-brations of diverse cultures, and ‘‘businesscase for diversity.’’ At least half of all U.S.companies with over 100 employees have

Correspondence concerning this article should beaddressed to Rosemary Hays-Thomas.E-mail: [email protected]

Address: University of West Florida, Pensacola, FL32514

The authors are members of the Society for HumanResource Management’s Diversity and InclusionStandards Task Force. Mary Lou Egan, Patricia C. Pope,and Kevin Murphy contributed important insights.However, the authors alone are responsible for allfindings and conclusions.

some form of D & I program, including morethan 75% of the largest firms, with expen-ditures on these activities estimated to total$10 billion annually. An estimated 5,000practitioners deliver these services (Ben-dick, Egan, & Lofhjelm, 2001; Forbes, 1997;Society for Human Resource Management[SHRM], 2010b), a number rivaling Societyfor Industrial and Organizational Psychol-ogy’s (SIOP) own 7,000 active members.

Unfortunately, many D & I activities arenot equal to the scale and complexity ofthe problems they are intended to address.These problems include conscious andunconscious workplace discriminationagainst women, racial/ethnic minorities,older persons, persons with disabilities,and other groups (Bendick, 2007). Theyalso include widespread employer failureto engender employee engagement andfully utilize talent among employees ofdiverse backgrounds (Macey, Schneider,Barbera, & Young, 2009).

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In some cases, employers initiate D & Iactivities primarily for public relationsbenefits or ‘‘feel good’’ reasons, with littleconcern about their effectiveness. In moretypical situations, however, employers aresincere, but their efforts are to some majordegree ineffective (Hirsh & Kmec, 2009;Kalev, Dobbin, & Kelly, 2006; Kochanet al., 2003).

As this article will discuss, in large part,this weak performance reflects a shortageof solid, evidence-based information toguide these initiatives. D & I programsare commonly based on practitioners’unevaluated experience and intuition, withthe primary rationale for each employer’sD & I strategy often little more than ‘‘that’swhat other employers are doing.’’ Bestpractice advice offered in books, the tradepress, and conference presentations is oftenloosely described, seldom formally evalu-ated, sometimes contradictory, and almostalways problematic to transfer amongworkplaces. Although a more rigorouslyconceptual, evidence-based state of the artis slowly emerging, this body of researchis only beginning to accumulate, let aloneinfluence D & I practice.

In this article we argue that in these cir-cumstances, properly-developed voluntaryprofessional standards for D & I practicecan significantly advance the effectivenessof D & I activities in both the short and thelong run. These standards would therebypromote the fair, efficient workplaces towhich I–O psychologists are professionallycommitted.

In reaching this conclusion, we firstbriefly review the current state of D & I prac-tice. We then propose four principles for thedevelopment and implementation of volun-tary professional standards for this field that,if followed, are likely to produce standardsthat are effective in raising the level of pro-fessional practice. However, we also iden-tify four barriers that must be overcome tosupport standards’ effectiveness. In closing,we enumerate opportunities for I–O psy-chologists to participate in addressing thesebarriers, as well as other ways in which D & Istandards are likely to affect their work.

D & I as an Evolving WorkplacePractice

In early usage during the 1980s, theterm ‘‘diversity’’ typically referred todemographic differences among peoplein the workforce on visible characteristicssuch as gender, race, age, and disability.This approach reflected the evolution ofdiversity work out of the Civil Rights eraof the 1960s, which granted dramaticnew legal protection against employmentdiscrimination for these groups.

Even in those early days, however, thenascent diversity movement looked beyondthis legal focus. In fact, some observersattribute the emergence of diversity man-agement in the corporate world duringthe 1980s directly to the weakening of thelegal approach at that time, reflecting anincreasingly conservative political climate,court decisions unfavorable to affirmativeaction, and the sometimes-discouragingunintended consequences of litigation.‘‘Diversity programs came into being in partas a response to this legal vacuum. Astutebusiness people realized there were prob-lems of discrimination in the workplace,and the law was not then a significant forcein addressing them’’ (Paskoff, 1996, p. 47;see also Dobbin, 2009).

In contrast to a legal orientation, D & Ipractitioners emphasized the role of D & Iefforts in supporting employers’ operationalneeds and business goals. Initially, thesepractitioners’ ‘‘business case for diversity’’emphasized demographic trends that wereinterpreted (or misinterpreted) to predictthat women and minorities would soonoutnumber white males in the labor force,instead of among its net new entrants(DiThomaso & Friedman, 1995; Johnston &Packer, 1987). Because employers wouldincreasingly have no choice but to rely onsuch supposed ‘‘newcomers’’ as their work-force, it was argued, employers needed tolearn how to manage them productively(Kochan et al., 2003; Robinson & Dechant,1997). In addition, advocates of diversitymanagement argued that employee diver-sity would open doors to new customers

Diversity and inclusion standards 195

and expanded sales, and that diversity inwork teams would enhance employees’productivity and creativity (Cox, 1997;Thomas & Ely, 1996).

Since the 1980s, the concept of work-place diversity has evolved in both scopeand sophistication. On the simplest level,this evolution has added demographiccharacteristics to be considered in theworkplace—for example, religious prac-tices, family status, and sexual orientation.In a more complex way, and not withoutcontroversy, some D & I efforts now encom-pass ‘‘invisible’’ differences among individ-uals on dimensions such as educationalbackground, functional specialty, workstyle, personality traits, and thinking styles(Ferdman & Sagiv, 2012; Hays-Thomas,2004). In this spirit, we offer a contempo-rary, expansive but functional definition ofdiversity as the mixture of attributes withina workforce that in significant ways affecthow people think, feel, and behave at work,and their acceptance, work performance,satisfaction, or progress in the organization.

The last part of this definition—recognizing that personal attributes arelikely to affect employees’ acceptance, per-formance, satisfaction, or progress—signalsa profound reorientation in diversitythought: the emerging insight that whatmatters in managing workforce diversity isnot only employee characteristics per sebut also the way others—such as fellowemployees, customers, and the managers ofthe employing organization itself—respondto those characteristics. Since the 1990s,that shift in thinking has commonly led topairing the term ‘‘inclusion’’ with ‘‘diver-sity’’ in everything from scholarly writing(e.g., Holvino, Ferdman, & Merrill-Sands,2004) to the titles carried by employers’diversity staff. In this pairing, diversitycontinues to draw attention to the char-acteristics of an employer’s workforce,whereas inclusion focuses new attention onthe policies, practices, and climate of theworkplace—the workplace culture—thatshapes the experiences of employees withthose characteristics. For example, one cur-rent definition describes inclusion as ‘‘the

degree to which an employee perceivesthat he or she is an esteemed memberof the work group through experiencingtreatment that satisfies his or her needsfor belongingness and uniqueness’’ (Shoreet al., 2011, p. 1265).

This emphasis on employers’ responsesto employee characteristics in large partarose out of the shortcomings of manyearly D & I efforts, with their emphasison employee recruitment and on visibleemployee characteristics. Early efforts at tar-geted recruitment for women and minoritiesoften did not produce sustainable changein workplaces’ demographic composition,let alone the increased productivity,creativity, and sales that these changes inworkforce demographics were supposed tounleash (Davidson, 2011; Thomas, 1990).Concurrently, early efforts at ‘‘diversityawareness’’ training for supervisors andemployees often engendered resentmentand created intergroup conflict rather thanthe intended workplace harmony (Cross,2000; Hemphill & Haines, 1997).

Diagnosing these disappointing results,it was observed that in these efforts,‘‘newcomer’’ employees were commonlyexpected to assimilate to the norms of thedominant group and the existing workplaceculture. The failure of these initiativessuggested that to maintain and benefitfrom workforce diversity, employers hadto create a more inclusive workplace bychanging their own perceptions, attitudes,practices, and behavior in ways that wouldlead people of difference to become fullyaccepted and equitably rewarded in theemployment setting (Cox, 1997; Ferdman &Sagiv, 2012; Ross, 2011).

All this activity, including both successesand failures, has attracted some of therigorous evaluations and careful researchthat I–O psychologists and other workplaceadvisors would hope to have to guide suchefforts. Some studies have used laboratorysimulations or analogues of the workplaceto infer the likely workplace effects of D & Iinitiatives (e.g., Dovidio, Hewstone, Glick,


& Esses, 2010). Other research has imple-mented quasi-experiments and other struc-tured research designs in real workplaces.For example, several studies have soughtto measure the impact and identify corre-lates of success for the most common D& I initiative, diversity training (e.g., Ben-dick et al., 2001; Bezrukova, Jehn, & Spell,2012; Kalev et al., 2006). Other work hasattempted the same for other common D & Iactivities such as demographically targetedrecruitment and mentoring or improveddiversity climate (e.g., Kulik & Roberson,2008; McKay, Avery, & Morris, 2009; Pitts,2009). Still other studies have analyzedthe effects on employee absenteeism andturnover, productivity, innovation, sales, ormarket share of a workforce’s demographiccomposition (e.g., Ely, 2004; Frink et al.,2003; Herring, 2009; Jackson & Joshi, 2004;Leonard, Levine, & Joshi, 2004).

Within this final group, the boldest,although not necessarily the most rigorous,research has investigated the relationshipbetween companies’ workforce demo-graphics and those firms’ ‘‘bottom line,’’measured by profitability or stock prices.For instance, one study of Fortune 500publicly traded companies found that thetop 25% of these firms in terms of womenin senior management generated returnsto their stockholders that were more than30% higher than the returns generated bytheir peers in the bottom 25% (Catalyst,2004; see also Hersch, 1991; Wright, Ferris,Hiller, & Kroll, 1995).

Unfortunately, such quantitative, con-trolled empirical analyses represent aminority of work within the current D & Istate of the art. In designing and implement-ing their initiatives, most employers relymore on personal experience, theoreticalreasoning, and case studies of ‘‘success sto-ries’’ in other workplaces. Such guidanceis readily available from trade magazines(e.g., DiversityInc, Diversity Executive, andProfiles in Diversity), how-to books (e.g.,Cox, 2001; Ross, 2011; Theiderman, 2008),case studies (e.g., Anand & Winters, 2008),textbooks (e.g., Bell, 2007; Carr-Ruffino,2009; Mor Barak, 2011), and conferences

and training organized by consultants orhuman resource professional organizations(e.g., Society for Human Resource Manage-ment, the Conference Board). Instant accessvia the Internet to a proliferating numberof D & I blogs and chat groups furtherexpands this flood of unscreened advice.

Anyone seeking to draw on these variedsources of information to design practicalD & I policies and practices faces diffi-culties in separating correct recommenda-tions from incorrect ones, identifying whichadvice is based on hard evidence, andunderstanding under what conditions theadvice will apply. This final consideration isparticularly important and yet widely over-looked. I–O psychologists are well awarethat the effects of any employer action mayvary depending on the organizational con-text into which it is introduced. Yet diversitycase studies seldom explicitly examine theconditions for transferability of one success-ful experience to other workplaces.

One mechanism for improving knowl-edge and practice in such situationsis development of formal standards forprofessional practice. We now turn to thatapproach.

Standards as a Strategy toImprove D & I Practice

A conclusion that might be drawn from theprevious section is that setting standards forD & I practice at this time is premature. Untilthe field has developed a more extensive,rigorous body of knowledge, promulgat-ing standards might enshrine folklore ratherthan science and proliferate rather thaneliminate inefficient, ineffective, or harm-ful activities. Moreover, conformity to thesestandards might discourage experimenta-tion that could lead to new, better prac-tices. Alternatively, employers might tendto ignore the standards because compliancewill often require significant expenditures ofdollars, staff time, and managerial attentionfor which there is little definitive evidenceof a positive return. Voluntary standardswould seem to be particularly vulnerable tothe fate of being ignored.


However, the process by which stan-dards exercise their influence on profes-sional practice is more complex than suchsimple predictions assume. Even suppos-edly mandatory standards are often ignored.For example, in many states psychologylicensure is legally required to engage incertain types of work in the field of I–O psy-chology. However, some I–O psychologistsappear to consider this process applicableonly to clinicians, even when state law doesnot recognize that distinction. Conversely,supposedly voluntary standards sometimescommand essentially universal compliance.For instance, although accreditation of uni-versities and other programs in higher edu-cation is nominally voluntary, it is oftende facto necessary when students in unac-credited institutions may not have access tofinancial aid and graduates of unaccreditedprograms may not be eligible for certifica-tion, licensure, or employment in their fieldof study.

The findings of research on past stan-dards-setting efforts are similarly com-plex. When establishing consistencyor compatibility on technical issues inwell-established fields such as accountingor engineering, many of these effortshave been judged both influential andbeneficial (Murphy & Yates, 2009; see alsowww.iso.org/iso/home/standards/benefitsofstandards). In more emergent fields suchas corporate social responsibility, environ-mental stewardship, or international laborstandards, the record is more mixed. Insome corporations, efforts to meet suchstandards have triggered major improve-ments in the firms’ policies and practices,but other corporations have obtainedthe public relations benefits of meetingstandards despite essentially no changes intheir behavior (Edmonds & Pavcnik, 2005;Egan, Mauleon, Wolff, & Bendick, 2009;Helms, Oliver, & Webb, 2012; Koehler,2007; Yin & Shmeidler, 2009).

Particularly in a relatively immature fieldsuch as D & I, there is some potentialfor practice standards to perpetuate errors,be ineffectual, or lead to some combina-tion of both these undesirable outcomes.

Nevertheless, on balance, we believe thatthe opposite can be achieved. The authorsare members of a task force of the SHRMthat since 2011 has been crafting standardsfor D & I programs, D & I metrics, andchief D & I officers. On the basis of thisexperience and on other recent instances ofstandard-setting in the behavioral sciences,we propose four general principles that,if followed, should increase the likelihoodof producing successful standards in fieldssuch as D & I.

Participant qualifications and resources.The first principle concerns the qualifica-tions of the individuals who participate inthe standards-setting deliberations. Ideally,standards are developed by individuals withconsiderable breadth and depth of profes-sional knowledge in the field for whichthe standards are being developed. Collec-tively, the group should have direct experi-ence in the variety of settings to which thestandards may be applied, including thesesettings’ competitive pressures, economicchallenges, and political forces. The groupshould also include persons familiar withempirical research relevant to the standardsand capable of judging the credibility of thisresearch. Participants should also collec-tively possess an awareness of deficienciesor problems in the field for which newstandards may be a quality improvementstrategy. The group therefore needs to belarge enough to encompass all these diverseperspectives. The Guidelines for Educationand Training developed by SIOP for doc-toral (SIOP, 1999a) and masters education(SIOP, 1994 [1999b]) illustrate the inclusionof a wide and representative group in thestandards development and review process.

Information beyond that possessed byindividuals on the standard-setting team isoften also required. The personal knowl-edge of task force members may notencompass all relevant empirical evidencefrom scientifically controlled studies. Inmedicine, for example, new research fre-quently causes panels of experts to overridetheir personal clinical practices in settingstandards for patient treatment. Therefore,


systematic reviews of relevant researchare typically an appropriate part of thestandards-setting process. In this spirit, ourworking group on D & I metrics commis-sioned a literature survey (Ramsay, 2012b)to ensure broad, unbiased exposure to rel-evant research and current practices onrelevant metrics and the conditions for theireffectiveness. This survey helped our groupform shared understandings concerning thecurrent state of the art and what was neededto foster improvement.

Group processes. Rich participant back-ground and information is of little use,of course, if the deliberative process doesnot ensure that a multiplicity of voicesis heard and that available information issystematically considered. Ideally, the indi-viduals involved in standards setting possessthe organizational and interpersonal skillsneeded to participate effectively in a col-laborative process in which consensus maynot be easy to achieve. In addition, thestandards development process itself mustapply effective procedures for conductingcomplex group interactions. For example,explicit ground rules should be developedin advance to ensure that that dissentingvoices are heard, knowledge of group mem-bers is cooperatively shared, and the finalproduct represents an uncoerced consensusof the group, at least on major points. If thestandards development task is so large that itmust be subdivided among subcommittees,the work of the various groups must be coor-dinated so that it can be readily combined.Structured deliberative processes such asexplicit agreement on definitions and crite-ria, timelines for specific accomplishments,and procedures for voting, as well as publicposting of drafts for review and comment,should be helpful. Careful deliberative con-sideration of dissenting views can help tocontrol tendencies for groupthink, in whichpressure for conformity can lead to poordecisions (Baron, 2005; Janis, 1982).

Times, methods, and places for partic-ipation should be chosen to allow thewidest participation by members. If the

number and geographic distribution of par-ticipants precludes face-to-face interaction,then user-friendly electronic means of con-ferencing, communicating, and documentreview should be used. The challenges ofmanaging full and meaningful participationwhen the group is large, widely distributedacross time zones, and varying in perspec-tive should not be underestimated.

In the case of SHRM’s current work onD & I standards, the standards-setting pro-cess is overseen by the American NationalStandards Institute, ANSI (www.ansi.org), anonprofit organization governed by orga-nizations from the public, private, andnonprofit sectors. Since 1918, ANSI hasconvened the U.S. standards and uniformityassessment community in establishing stan-dards on topics ranging from safe handlingof dangerous chemicals to procedures forcalculating the impact of industry restruc-turing on energy prices. It is the UnitedStates representative to the InternationalStandards Organization (ISO). This longexperience has been distilled into a set offormal ANSI procedures that address manyof these issues (SHRM, 2010a).

Relationships with stakeholders. A thirdprinciple of standards developmentconcerns the relationship between thestandards developing group and thestakeholders to whom the standards, whenpromulgated, will be relevant. For stan-dards to be accepted in practice, multiplestakeholders typically must recognize thelegitimacy of the development group andthe ‘‘value added’’ by their expertise.

At the time they were developed, SIOP’sGuidelines for Education and Training(1994, 1999a) were seen as an appropriateand helpful contribution within the grad-uate training community. This conclusionwas probably a result of legitimacy andrespect for SIOP’s Education and Train-ing committees and their members in thisarea of activity. In the case of the cur-rent SHRM work on D & I standards, thisobjective is advanced by the fact that theprocess has been organized by the largesthuman resources professional organization


in the United States, SHRM, under the aegisof a long-established, widely recognizedstandard-setting organization, ANSI.

On human resource management mat-ters such as D & I, credibility to stakeholdersoutside the human resource managementfield is particularly important. Within theorganizations that employ them, D & Ipractitioners typically rank relatively lowin the organization’s hierarchy both for-mally and informally. It is common forD & I practitioners to be subordinate tohuman resources (SHRM, 2011), whichitself is typically not a major center of powerand influence. That placement makes theimpact of D & I efforts strongly dependenton general management’s approval andsupport.

Contemporary thinking about how tobe persuasive with general managementoften emphasizes managers’ responsivenessto the multiple networks of stakeholdersin which they are enmeshed (Egan et al.,2009; Springman, 2011). Instead of con-sidering an organization such as a corpo-ration as an autonomous decision maker,this perspective focuses attention on theinfluence of other actors on corporate deci-sions. For D & I, influential stakeholderstypically include current employees, poten-tial employees, public policy advocates,unions, customers, and clients, investorsand investment advisors, government reg-ulators, litigators, insurers, and the newsmedia.

These stakeholders can be particularlypersuasive in supporting initiatives whenthe stakeholders have clear, manageable‘‘litmus tests’’ to articulate their preferencesto employers and judge employer com-pliance. Within psychology, for example,states commonly use graduation from anAPA accredited program as a substitute fordirect assessment of a licensure applicant’seducational background. ‘‘Are you meetingthe SHRM D & I standards?’’ can providethat same sort of quick, clear stakeholder-empowering test.

The SHRM approach to D & I standardscontrasts sharply with currently availablealternatives for identifying good D & I

performance, including widely publicizedrankings such as those of DiversityInc.,Black Enterprise magazine, or WorkingMother magazine. Investigations of thevalidity of such rankings have found them‘‘more often an exercise in reputationbuilding than they are an illustrationof diversity as a tool for organizationaltransformation’’ (Metzler, 2012, p. 42). Therankings often lack clear conceptualization,transparent standards, and verified data.Some rankings may also be biased by finan-cial considerations for their sponsoringpublications (although systematic evidenceof this point remains elusive).

Public review of draft standards offersparticularly significant opportunities todevelop support among important stake-holders. However diverse the groupinvolved in drafting standards, initial draftsoften fail to take full account of all relevantperspectives. For instance, the Diagnosticand Statistical Manual (DSM) promulgatedby the American Psychiatric Associationis widely used outside psychiatry (Ameri-can Psychiatric Association, 2012b). It wastherefore appropriate that after revised stan-dards had been drafted by persons withinthe psychiatry profession, the standardswere opened to review by persons withbackgrounds outside psychiatry. As a resultof this broader review, some changes weremade (American Psychiatric Association,2012a; Szalavitz, 2012). But of equal impor-tance is the fact that, through this reviewprocess, the availability of the revised stan-dards was widely announced and credibilityamong a wide range of potential users wasenhanced.

Continuous improvement. A fourth princi-ple for successful development of standardssuch as those for D & I is to consider thepotential of initial standards for acceleratingdevelopment of new knowledge improvingthose standards over the long run. Oppor-tunities to incorporate research findingsinto improved standards create an incen-tive for academics and other researchersto focus their attention on these issues.Explicit standards can be translated directly


into hypotheses to be tested in rigorousevaluation studies. Adoption by multipleemployers of standards-conforming prac-tices can be coordinated to create quasi-experiments in which the effects of a single‘‘treatment condition’’ can be comparedin different organizational environments. Itis essential that standards in a relativelynew, rapidly evolving field such as D &I offer opportunities for innovation andexperimentation, including provisions formeeting the standards in alternative ways.The standards-setting process should alsocall for periodic review and revision ofthe standards as knowledge and experiencecontinue to accumulate.

Amplifying the Benefits of D & IStandards

Assuming the four principles just describedare adhered to, we would predict that majorbenefits should result from setting voluntarystandards for D & I professional practicesnow. However, to ensure that the resultingstandards generate these benefits, at leastfour circumstances related to D & I willneed to be addressed simultaneously withthe standards-setting effort itself.

The quality of existing research. The firstcircumstance is the predominantly softstate of existing research on D & I. Asthis article has discussed, and multiplereviews or compilations of this materialconfirm (e.g., Bendick & Nunes, 2012;Brief, 2008; Chrobot-Mason, Konrad, & Lin-nehan, 2006; Davidson, 2011; Dipboye& Colella, 2005; Egan & Bendick, 2008;Ferdman & Sagiv, 2012; Henry & Evans,2007; Ramsay, 2012a; Ramsay, 2012b;Stockdale & Crosby, 2004; Thomas, 2008;Wentling & Palma-Rivas, 2001), conceptu-ally clear, empirically rigorous research inthis field is relatively limited.

One review (Chugh & Brief, 2008, p. 4)attributes this dearth to researchers’ percep-tions that research on D & I is ‘‘touchy,’’‘‘difficult,’’ ‘‘unimportant,’’ and ‘‘abstract.’’Certainly the adjective ‘‘touchy’’ is oftenappropriate. Almost anything related to

race, gender, and other demographic faultlines in American society remains highlycontroversial in individual workplacesas well as national politics. Boundariesof political correctness and safety fromlitigation are easily inadvertently crossed.

The description ‘‘difficult’’ is also oftenjustified. The most influential D & I researchtends to be conducted in real workplaces,and obtaining employer cooperation forthose studies often requires a prolongedsearch for willing employers and complexnegotiations with these employers. Equally,in actual workplaces, it is typically difficultto control the multiple complex andoften unpredictable factors confounding theexperimental treatment.

However, the two remaining researcherperceptions—‘‘unimportant’’ and ‘‘abst-ract’’—are definitely not justified. Cor-porate CEO’s surveyed in 2012 aboutthe greatest challenges their organizationswill face over the next 12 months namedefficient mobilization of human capitalamong their top three challenges, equalto global political/economic risk and thedizzying pace of technological innovation(Mitchell, Ray, & van Ark, 2012). Given thereality of ongoing and even acceleratingdemographic changes in the Americanworkforce, D & I is an unavoidableaspect of that mobilization. Researcherswho move D & I from the margins to aprominent place in their studies will finda strong market among senior managers forevidence-based findings.

Practitioner skill. A second circumstancethat requires addressing is the limited skillsets of many D & I practitioners. In partic-ular, many practitioners have very limitedbackgrounds in the rich behavioral scienceliterature, including that in I–O psychol-ogy, that provides the conceptual founda-tions of effective D & I practice (Lahiri,2008). To the extent that these practitionershave formal coursework relevant to D &I, the content of that training has typicallyemphasized the circumstances of individ-ual demographic groups (e.g., historic andcontemporary sources of racial and gender


disadvantage) rather than analytical toolsfor use in practical organizational devel-opment work. This emphasis is clear fromperusing most contemporary D & I text-books (e.g., Bell, 2007, or Carr-Ruffino,2009) and course syllabi (division.aomonline.org/gdo/teaching_syllabi_g.htm).

Typical gaps in practitioners’ analyticand conceptual background include statisti-cal analysis beyond the rudimentary, tech-niques for validating employee selectionand assessment practices, the constructionor evaluation of psychometrically soundmetrics, the psychology and sociology ofstereotyping and in-group bias, and bestpractices in fomenting organizational devel-opment. For these practitioners to becomeinformed implementers of the more concep-tually based approaches to D & I practicethat standards should promote, these skillsneed upgrading through relevant degreeprograms as well as more rigorous shortcourses, conference presentations, and in-service training.

Litigation concerns. A third circumstanceto be addressed is the legal issue of self-incrimination. For employers, any analysis,policy, or practice having to do withthe employee characteristics prominentlyaddressed in D & I, such as race andgender, raises concerns about liability forviolating employment discrimination laws.In particular, employers commonly fear thatgathering and analyzing data to motivateand guide D & I initiatives may documentemployment problems that help potentialplaintiffs build a case against them. More-over, when these analyses are reported tosenior management and remedial actionsare not taken, the fact that management wasmade aware but did not act may be citedas evidence that alleged discriminatoryacts were intentional, potentially creatingadditional legal liability and enhancedmonetary damages. In the deliberationsof our SHRM D & I working group, ourcolleagues recounted multiple incidents inwhich, to avoid such situations, employersrestrict D & I analyses, for example by dis-allowing cross-tabulation of the responses

to employee engagement surveys by therace and gender of respondents.

Four decades ago some courts beganto recognize the adverse effects of suchconcerns on the public policy objective ofhaving individuals and organizations con-fidentially evaluate their own legal com-pliance and self-correct problems withoutoutside intervention. These courts enunci-ated a so-called ‘‘self-critical analysis privi-lege,’’ exempting some self-revelatory dataand candid assessments from being used asincriminating evidence in litigation. Initiallyenunciated in the context of medical peerreview, this doctrine has, in some cases,been extended to employment practices aswell (Pollard, 1999; Simpson, 1996).

However, many courts have been hesi-tant to offer this privilege in the employmentcontext. For example, the demographicprofile of an employer’s workforce con-tained in annual EEO-1 reports requiredof larger employers or affirmative actionplans required of federal contractors aregenerally open to discovery by plaintiffs.So, often, are voluntary D & I analysesby employers—for example, the results ofthe popular ‘‘implicit association’’ tests formeasuring unconscious bias among man-agers (Banaji & Greenwald, 2013; Pollard,1999).

We by no means advocate indiscrimi-nately privileging all employer self-analyseson D & I issues and employment practices.That would create perverse incentives toanalyze issues on which the employer hasno intention of taking action merely to placepotentially damaging information underwraps. But we do feel that the pendulumhas perhaps swung too far in the oppositedirection. D & I work, in particular, oftenrequires probing, candid analyses to moti-vate employers to act and to identify appro-priate actions. Particularly with respect tovery complex D & I issues—for example anorganization’s overall corporate culture ormanagers’ unconscious biases—the appro-priate remedial actions are often not simpleor obvious, and more latitude in protectingself-critical analyses would be productive(Pollard, 1999).


Perceived importance of D & I. The fourthcircumstance that requires addressing is thecredibility of the D & I field itself amongthe senior managers who decide what roleit will play in their organizations. Accord-ing to one recent survey, only 53% ofthe CEOs in a representative sample ofemployers believed diversity is important.Concurrently, only 28% of senior diver-sity managers in these organizations agreedthat diversity enhances their organization’scompetitiveness, and only 16% believedthat it enhances their organization’s ‘‘bot-tom line’’ (SHRM, 2010b). In apparent con-tradiction, a different survey cited earlier(Mitchell, Ray, & van Ark, 2012) showedthe relative importance granted to ‘‘effi-cient mobilization of human capital.’’ Thissuggests a need for framing D & I workand its rationale and benefits in a broadercontext.

Still, given the discussion throughout thisarticle about the generally suboptimal stateof D & I practices today, managerial skepti-cism undoubtedly has some basis in reality.To raise the level of D & I practice is, ofcourse, the principal goal of the standardswe are advocating. However, the currentlevel of skepticism could catch D & I stan-dards in a chicken and egg dilemma, withlow effectiveness reflecting low standardsand therefore reducing organizations’ will-ingness to invest in meeting the standardsthat would enhance effectiveness.

Perhaps the most promising way tobreak this paralyzing cycle of skepticism isto continue to recast D & I itself, distancingit even further from its historic associationwith antidiscrimination law and emphasiz-ing even more forcefully its foundations inmanagerial and behavioral science disci-plines such as I–O psychology. This wouldrequire even more aggressively shifting theemphasis, described earlier in this article,from workforce diversity toward workplaceinclusion. In turn, this change would requiremajor changes in attitudes throughout theD & I community, including abandonmentor modification of some well-establishedD & I practices such as the content of thebusiness case for diversity (e.g., Bendick,

Egan, & Lanier, 2010; Kochan et al., 2003;Litvin, 2006; Thomas & Ely, 1996). D & Istandards can play a powerful role indefining and disseminating this shift.

Relevance of These Standards toI–O Psychologists

We suggest that direct participation of I–Opsychologists in the development of D &I standards would enhance the quality ofcriteria that emerge from standards-settingprocesses such as those of the current SHRMtask force.

In addition, I–O psychologists canadvance the standards development processby helping to address the four circum-stances just discussed:

• I–O psychology researchers can put D& I issues at the center of their researchagendas.

• I–O faculty can encourage D & Ipractitioners to take I–O courses orobtain I–O degrees, perhaps by addingto I–O curricula courses explicitlylabeled D & I.

• I–O trainers can repackage theirmaterials and messages to makeexplicit the relevance to D & I andreach out to D & I audiences inconference and in-service settings.

• I–O practitioners can thoughtfullydebate the proper scope of theself-assessment privilege and becomepublic spokespersons for appropri-ate revisions. SIOP and the fieldof I–O psychology have substan-tial credibility on such subjects withdecision makers such as the courts,congressional committees, and theEqual Employment Opportunity Com-mission, and this credibility can bemobilized in this effort.

• I–O thought leaders can bring theirdiscipline’s well-developed concep-tual perspectives to bear as activeparticipants in the debate within the D& I field about issues such as the properbalance between ‘‘diversity thinking’’and ‘‘inclusion thinking.’’


Even I–O psychologists who do notactively direct their work in these waysshould be prepared to have emergent D & Istandards affect their work in importantways. For example:

• Those engaged in organizational con-sulting may be asked to advise clientorganizations on whether to undertakethe work necessary to meet D & Ipractice standards and to assist indoing so. This latter effort would likelyrequire development of new measure-ment and analysis techniques.

• Those engaged in research may seeexpanded opportunities for high-quality field research, perhaps inmultiresearcher consortia (e.g.,Kochan et al., 2003). Many intriguingresearch questions have alreadyemerged from the standards-settingprocess: Where do concepts suchas D & I fit in the nomologicalnetwork of established constructssuch as fairness, social identity, andin-group status? What characterizesorganizations that aspire to meetvoluntary D & I standards? Whatorganizational consequences ensuewhen an employer seeks to meet suchstandards?

• Those engaged in education may becalled on to rethink what curricula andacademic experiences best preparestudents to work in the field ofD & I, how high-quality learningcan be made available to graduatesalready employed in D & I, and whatlinkages can be developed betweenscholarly I–O literature and the real-world challenges facing organizationsaddressing issues of D & I.

In grappling with these multiple chal-lenges, I–O psychologists can importantlyadvance the professional goals they sharewith D & I practitioners: workplaces thatare both efficient and equitable, and greatplaces to work for employees of all back-grounds.

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