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This symposium aims to deepen and expand our understanding of the relationship between the way organizations and managers understand and provide narratives related to inequality and their subsequent diversity practices. The four papers presented in this symposium offer new theoretical insights and mechanisms for the conditions under which organizations are more (less) apt to redress inequality. This symposium brings together strategic management scholars, economic sociologists, and organizational behavior scholars investigating, with a wide range of methods (qualitative, observational, and experimental), inequality in the workplace. We believe this symposium will generate an insightful discussion and fuel further inquiry into the role organizational narratives play in perpetuating inequality. From Self-Diagnoses to Change: Organizational Narratives and the Gender Pay Gap. Presenter: Mabel Abraham; Columbia Business School. Organizational Responses to Diversity Disclosures. Presenter: Daphné Baldassari; U. of Toronto. Presenter: Sarah Kaplan; U. of Toronto. Presenter: Aaron Dhir; York U. What about the Managers? Means-ends decoupling of work policies and the actors liable for their use. Presenter: JoAnne Delfino Wehner; Stanford VMware Women's Leadership Innovation Lab. Presenter: Kristine Kilanski; UC San Diego. Presenter: Alison Tracy Wynn; Stanford U. Intervening to Advance Equity in Tech. Presenter: Robin J. Ely; Harvard Business School. Presenter: William A. Kahn; Boston U. Presenter: Sanaz Mobasseri; Boston U. Questrom School of Business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organizational scholars have devoted substantial attention to the challenges and weaknesses of diversity initiatives. However, we still lack a clear understanding of how to design effective diversity policies, especially initiatives that will engage those in power or who otherwise may not see a benefit for themselves. How can organizations design more effective policies that successfully engage people in powerful and privileged positions? This symposium presents work that suggests avenues for positive change in diversity and inclusion policy. Together, these presentations show how different approaches to diversity affect the way people in dominant societal positions (e.g., men, Whites, the wealthy) receive and engage with diversity issues in organizations. Further, this symposium identifies how organizations can engage those in power not only to increase diversity and inclusion, but also to inspire meaningful participation from groups otherwise often excluded or even threatened by diversity conversations. This symposium also provides practical solutions and interventions to help make diversity efforts more effective - thereby making organizations truly meaningful. Talks integrate research from psychological, sociological, and organizational sciences to move beyond the challenges identified by previous researchers and suggest new ways of improving diversity and inclusion in organizations. Overall, such work can deepen our understanding of organizational approaches to diversity, while helping researchers and practitioners create better policies that successfully engage people in powerful positions. First, L.T. Phillips develops a theoretical approach to understanding how those in power react to diversity initiatives and inclusion efforts; dual concerns of maintaining power and resources and achieving a sense of personal merit drive the responses of the powerful and privileged to diversity policies. Using this lens, she provides empirical evidence that addressing maintenance and security concerns can encourage the powerful to engage positively in diversity efforts within their organizations. Second, Martin, K.W. Phillips, and Sasaki use experimental methods to test how different ideologies about gender can influence inequality outcomes. They find that gender-blind approaches (downplaying differences and focusing on similarities between men and women) cause men to stereotype women colleagues less and treat women more respectfully compared to gender-aware approaches, which contrasts with recommended approaches for reducing racial bias in organizations. Third, Wynn uses a one-year ethnographic case study to analyze high-level organizational leaders' engagement with gender equality initiatives; she finds that leaders combine the rhetoric of the initiative with their preexisting views about gender to conceptualize diversity and its importance to the organization. Finally, Romero, Emerson, Johnson, and Malahy draw from their practitioner experience at Paradigm, a strategy firm that partners with companies to build more diverse and inclusive organizations. They outline three strategies from the field for engaging organizational leaders in diversity initiatives and discuss how these leadership engagement strategies contribute to sustainable positive change in organizations. By exploring ways of successfully diversifying organizations, this symposium suggests how organizations can increase their social value and contribute positively to the inclusiveness of marginalized groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much attention has been paid to the challenges of designing effective diversity initiatives (Kalev, Dobbin, & Kelly, 2006). Yet one challenge that remains relatively unexplored is the problem of change agent departure: what happens to a change initiative when the primary change agent leaves the organization? Even change initiatives with substantial money, resources, and publicity often suffer dissolution after the departure of a primary change agent (e.g. Peterson, 2013). What factors help an initiative survive change agent turnover? How can a diversity change initiative become embedded in the larger organization, rather than remaining tied to specific individuals? To explore these questions, I use unique case study data from two sites--an academic medical center and a technology company. Both organizations implemented gender-related change initiatives, and both organizations lost their primary change agent midway through implementation; however, in one case, the initiative continued to thrive, while in the other case, the initiative was subsequently discontinued. Analyzing a combination of interviews (68 interviews conducted with 55 people), observation (76 meetings), and primary source data (29 recorded conversations), this paper builds a new theoretical model to identify the factors that help embed a change initiative into the larger organization, thereby reducing the risk of dissolution following the departure of a primary change agent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]