Antecedents and Outcomes of Managing Diversity in a UK Context: Test of a Mediation Model

Extant research on diversity management has primarily examined the main effects of diversity management practices on outcomes from an organizational perspective. Meta-analysis in this field corroborates the conclusion that this approach is unable to account for the outcomes of diversity management effectively. The current study extends the literature by examining organizational antecedents of diversity management practices (DMP). This study also examines the mediating influences of perception of overall justice (POJ) and social exchange with organization (SEWO) on the relationships between DMP and work outcomes of career satisfaction and turnover intention. Results of data obtained from a cross section of 191 minority employees in UK revealed: (i) the reasons why organisations adopted and implemented DMP influenced employees’ outcomes of turnover intention and career satisfaction; (ii) the relationship between diversity management and social exchange with organization is mediated by perception of overall justice; (iii) social exchange with organization relates to increased career satisfaction; and (iv) DMP related positively to career satisfaction through perception of overall justice and SEWO

Intercellular Transfer of Oncogenic H-Ras at the Immunological Synapse

Immune cells establish dynamic adhesive cell–cell interactions at a specific contact region, termed the immunological synapse (IS). Intriguing features of the IS are the formation of regions of plasma membrane fusion and the intercellular exchange of membrane fragments between the conjugated cells. It is not known whether upon IS formation, intact intracellular proteins can transfer from target cells to lymphocytes to allow the transmission of signals across cell boundaries. Here we show by both FACS and confocal microscopy that human lymphocytes acquire from the cells they scan the inner-membrane protein H-Ras, a G-protein vital for common lymphocyte functions and a prominent participant in human cancer. The transfer was cell contact-dependent and occurred in the context of cell-conjugate formation. Moreover, the acquisition of oncogenic H-RasG12V by natural killer (NK) and T lymphocytes had important biological functions in the adopting lymphocytes: the transferred H-RasG12V induced ERK phosphorylation, increased interferon-γ and tumor necrosis factor-α secretion, enhanced lymphocyte proliferation, and augmented NK-mediated target cell killing. Our findings reveal a novel mode of cell-to-cell communication—allowing lymphocytes to extend the confines of their own proteome—which may moreover play an important role in natural tumor immunity

The Perils of Gender Beliefs for Men Leaders as Change Agents for Gender Equality

This article examines the potentially damaging role that gender beliefs can play in hindering women's equal representation in leadership positions. Based on a secondary analysis of a large‐scale EU‐wide survey (Eurobarometer 76.1), the article shows that essentialist gender beliefs lower support for equality interventions such as quotas or targets, particularly among men as leaders. The results show that discriminatory gender beliefs partially mediate this relationship and produce a more negative effect among men leaders. The paper contributes to understanding the role essentialist gender beliefs often lay the groundwork for gender discriminatory beliefs. Those in turn hinder support for effective gender equality measures. Gender essentialist beliefs can be held by everyone but are more prevalent among men leaders. We conclude that greater gender balance in leadership cannot be achieved without tackling underlying gender beliefs, particularly among men leaders since they are called upon to enact change. We thereby argue that simply asking for men to become change agents for gender equality is not an effective strategy if underlying gender beliefs are left unchallenged

Evaluating the quality of social work supervision in UK children's services: comparing self-report and independent observations

Understanding how different forms of supervision support good social work practice and improve outcomes for people who use services is nearly impossible without reliable and valid evaluative measures. Yet the question of how best to evaluate the quality of supervision in different contexts is a complicated and as-yet-unsolved challenge. In this study, we observed 12 social work supervisors in a simulated supervision session offering support and guidance to an actor playing the part of an inexperienced social worker facing a casework-related crisis. A team of researchers analyzed these sessions using a customized skills-based coding framework. In addition, 19 social workers completed a questionnaire about their supervision experiences as provided by the same 12 supervisors. According to the coding framework, the supervisors demonstrated relatively modest skill levels, and we found low correlations among different skills. In contrast, according to the questionnaire data, supervisors had relatively high skill levels, and we found high correlations among different skills. The findings imply that although self-report remains the simplest way to evaluate supervision quality, other approaches are possible and may provide a different perspective. However, developing a reliable independent measure of supervision quality remains a noteworthy challenge

Why organizational and community diversity matter:Representativeness and the Emergence of Incivility and Organizational Performance

Integrating sociological and psychological perspectives, this research considers the value of organizational ethnic diversity as a function of community diversity. Employee and patient surveys, census data, and performance indexes relevant to 142 hospitals in the United Kingdom suggest that intraorganizational ethnic diversity is associated with reduced civility toward patients. However, the degree to which organizational demography was representative of community demography was positively related to civility experienced by patients and ultimately enhanced organizational performance. These findings underscore the understudied effects of community context and imply that intergroup biases manifested in incivility toward out-group members hinder organizational performance

Duality and fallibility in practices of the self: The 'inclusive subject’ in diversity training

The concept of ‘inclusion’ has been gaining ground in a field known as equality and diversity work. Scholars have begun to both theorise what this concept means as a normative goal and to critically examine how it is mobilised in organisational practice. This paper contributes to the latter conversation by asking what comes to count as ‘doing inclusion’ at the level of the individual. I examine the practices of diversity training in United Kingdom organisations, in which diversity practitioners seek to transform their trainees into people who will act inclusively toward others, asking: Who is the ‘inclusive subject’ that is being constructed – imagined, sought and legitimised – through diversity training? What are the conditions of possibility that shape the emergence of this subject? And what are the possibilities that this subject affords to marginalised groups struggling for recognition within organisations? The analysis mobilises Foucault’s notions of power/knowledge, discipline, and practices of the self to describe and discuss the performance of inclusive subjectivity in the context of diversity training in the UK. The practices described are found to be facilitated by two key forms of knowledge about how the subject is characterised: duality and fallibility. The discussion of these two forms of knowledge leads us to consider the relations of both discipline and freedom that take place in diversity training.</p