Launch of a new Public-Private Platform cluster on Diversity & Difference

Launch of a new Public-Private Platform cluster on Diversity & Difference

The CBS Public-Private Platform has decided to form a cluster on Diversity & Difference. Based on an initiative from a group of CBS scholars who are working within this field, the Platform has identified interesting PPP potential in the area of diversity and difference.

Questions of diversity in the workplace have a long history of being placed at the intersection of public and private concerns. When diversity issues, e.g. inclusion of minorities in the workplace, were first voiced, they were mainly seen as public concerns and handled as such through, for example, anti-discrimination laws. A private discourse of diversity as a business case was, however, quickly adopted. More recently, a discussion of diversity as a question of negotiating public and private identities has also emerged. Diversity at the workplace, in its varied guises, continues to be a pressing issue to public as well as to private companies just as it is a field of growing scholarly concern. The synergies and frictions of theory and practice continue to provoke new hands-on insights and to generate further research questions.

At CBS, diversity and difference research situated at these various public-private intersections has been carried out for a number of years. “Scholars identifying fully or partially with the themes of diversity and difference have been meeting on a regular basis for a couple of years, writing papers together, and organizing events. During this time we have also discovered more and more colleagues with similar interests, leading to the gradual expansion of the group. The Public-Private Platform offers the perfect setting from within which to continue our work,” says Sine Nørholm Just, one of the cluster facilitators.

There has also been an increase in teaching activities within the field of diversity and difference over the years. “We have moved from the occasional lecture on diversity management across a variety of programmes through electives on the theme to the establishment of the Diversity and Change Management profile of BLC MSc (cand.merc.int) in 2013,” Annette Risberg, another cluster facilitator, explains.

The cluster already has a number of research and dissemination activities planned for the coming year, most importantly:

• A one-day conference targeted at practitioners to be held in March 2016

• A half-day event on Women and Equality that will take place on the 4th of March 2016 and is co-organized by CBS and the EU parliament’s information office in Denmark.

• An EIASM workshop on Diverse Talent, co-organized by Sara Louise Muhr & Dana Minbaeva, to be held in October 2016.

The cluster is also developing a seminar/lecture series with world-class diversity researchers that is to begin in the spring of 2016; the first of these will function as the official launch of the cluster.

“We are very excited about this opportunity to consolidate and expand the research on diversity and difference that is conducted at CBS. We define the issues of diversity and difference broadly and dynamically and invite anyone with an interest in these issues to join the conversation,” Sara Louise Muhr, the final cluster facilitator, concludes.

Besides the three facilitators, Sine N. Just (DBP), Sara L. Muhr (IOA), and Annette Risberg (ICM), the cluster currently includes Florence Villesèche (INT), Ana Maria Munar (INT), Jawwad Raja (OM), Minna Paunova (IBC), Mikkel Marfelt (IOA), Lotte Holck (IOA), Elizabeth Benedict Christensen (IBC), and Lauren McCarthy (ICM). It also has a number of external affiliates, including Patrice Buzzanell (Lamb School of Communication and the School of Engineering Education), Laurence Romani (Stockholm School of Economics), Mustafa Özbilgin (Brunel University London), Karen Ashcraft (University of Colorado), and Ann Rippin (University of Bristol).

CBS researchers are always welcome to join one or more of the Platform’s clusters. Please contact us at publicprivateplatform@cbs.dk or the facilitators, if you are interested in joining the Diversity & Difference Cluster.

The cluster will be directed by three co-facilitators: