Connecting Diversity to Management: A Study of Career Development Patterns of Library Managers in Selected ARL Member Libraries and ARL LCDP Participants

This study focuses on diversity in library management. The impetus for our study is based on Thomas and Ely’s Paradigms for Managing Diversity. The first paradigm addresses the “discrimination-and-fairness” issues in business management and measures success in diversity initiatives in terms of how well a company does in recruitment and retention of minority employees. This paradigm aims to increase the number of minorities employed and correct any discrimination and unfairness in the hiring and promotion process. The Spectrum Scholars Initiative is a good example of this. The second paradigm focuses on the aspects of “access-and-legitimacy” of workforce diversity. Employees are hired because of their multicultural or bilingual abilities to serve the clientele better. The third paradigm includes the first and second paradigms but goes beyond those two widely accepted approaches and focuses on “learning-and-effectiveness”. This paradigm connects diversity to management and personnel development perspectives and seeks to integrate cultural backgrounds and skills as necessary strategy for organizational development in order to maintain competitiveness in an economy of globalization