Social equity, multiculturalism and the productive diversity paradigm: reflections on their role in corporate Australia

This chapter argues that, while there is some merit in 'managing diversity' policies, particularly the emphasis on building inclusive organisational cultures which value and accept a wide range of human differences, both this term and 'productive diversity' have serious practical and theoretical deficiencies. We aim to illustrate some of these deficiencies, first, by sketching a brief overview of the debates in the literature on diversity management, and second, through discussion of two organisational case studies we conducted in Australian companies in early 2000