ABSTRACT
In the late 1980s and 1990s, a number of scholars documented the demographic and social changes occurring in workplaces (e.g., Johnston and Parker 1987; Morrison and Von Glinow 1990). Scholars such as Cox and Blake (1991) and Thomas (1991) provided a vision and agenda for the workplace diversity movement. Their visions and agendas emphasized the competitive advantage that organizations that managed diversity well would have and the potential disadvantages for organizations that were not willing to accommodate the diversity in the emerging workforce. According to Cox and Blake (1991) and Mathews (1999), organizations that managed diversity well would reduce turnover, increase productivity, gain an edge in attracting talented women and minorities, increase successful marketing to underserved populations, and increase the potential for creative problem-solving and innovation. Also, these organizations would improve their ability to adapt to other inevitable forces of change. This forecast, coupled with actual demographic changes, helped spark a revolution in the nature of research and practice relating to equal employment opportunities and diversity management (Mathews 1999; Rice 2007).
