Leadership-promoted diversity climate and group identification

Purpose – Besides diversity\u27s positive effects, groups of "we" against "them" may form in accordance with social categorization theory, showing diversity\u27s negative consequences. The authors aim to reconcile these results and examine their boundary conditions. Design/methodology/approach – The authors studied 584 working professionals from five contexts (transnational companies dealing with multicultural interactions) and analyzed data using moderated-mediation procedures. Findings – A leader-promoting diversity climate plays a crucial role in moderating the negative relationship between perceived dissimilarity and group identification, which is mediated by value dissimilarity. Originality/value – This study mainly contributes by treating dissimilarity as a multicomponent construct, emphasizing the crucial differences embodied in various conceptualizations of dissimilarity - namely visible and value dissimilarity. For dissimilarity to result in group identification, the results highlight leaders\u27 crucial role, beyond that of organizations and individuals, in stimulating a diversity-embracing climate in work units