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Beyond the Business Case: An Ethical Perspective of Diversity Training
Author(s) -
Jones Kristen P.,
King Eden B.,
Nelson Johnathan,
Geller David S.,
BowesSperry Lynn
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
human resource management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.888
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1099-050X
pISSN - 0090-4848
DOI - 10.1002/hrm.21517
Subject(s) - diversity (politics) , diversity training , perspective (graphical) , extant taxon , value (mathematics) , training (meteorology) , engineering ethics , business ethics , presentation (obstetrics) , sociology , psychology , epistemology , knowledge management , public relations , political science , law , computer science , engineering , artificial intelligence , medicine , physics , radiology , evolutionary biology , machine learning , meteorology , biology , philosophy
Abstract Extant literature on diversity training programs continues to yield little evidence of their overall effectiveness. Whereas the most common approach to diversity training entails justifying the value of diversity on the basis of its contribution to the organization's bottom line, we argue that approaching diversity training from an ethical perspective may bolster the effectiveness of traditional approaches. Specifically, to the degree that traditional bottom‐line justifications are enhanced with social justice arguments, training effectiveness will increase. In the following article, we discuss traditional approaches to diversity training, provide a general overview of ethics, discuss how theory and research from behavioral ethics literature might help to address some of the challenges faced in diversity training, and draw from ethics literature to make specific, novel suggestions about the implementation and presentation of diversity training.