ABSTRACT
This chapter embarks an overview of the types of critiques of diversity management which have been found in the literature over recent years. The critiques are set out in order of the severity of their implications for diversity management. One critique identifies diversity management as representing the sectional interest of one particular occupational group. Others find that the benefits of diversity have been exaggerated, and that diversity in a workforce or workgroup should not be assumed to be beneficial in all circumstances. From a number of sources come criticisms of various practices that have taken place under the name of diversity management. The diversity approach has been criticised for allowing people to choose the parts of the diversity mix that they like and under-emphasising or disguising what they don't like. The implicit 'essentialism' within diversity management discourse is one of the points made in a major critique of diversity management by Lorbiecki and Jack.
