The lack of Unity in Diversity recruitment - A qualitative study on the adoption of diversity recruitment practices

Abstract: The importance of having a diverse workforce has increased in contemporary organizations, which has led to a vast number of organisations adopting diversity recruitment practices. In this article, attention is dedicated to an organisation that is renowned for working with multiple diversity initiatives and has started training managers in diversity recruitment to reach their diversity targets. Data was collected through internal documents and by conducting 31 interviews with respondents in the organisation. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the adoption of diversity recruitment practices is unfolding and how it affects the power positions and relationships in the organisation, as well how the new practices give rise to resistance and unexpected developments through the interactions between different actors in the process. By applying concepts from Institutional work studies, the study reveals that the adoption of new diversity recruitment practices implies an erosion of power and status divide between actors in the process, and that trust based relationships decrease the resistance from actors eager to maintain the pre-existing recruitment practices. The study also highlights how adaptations and ambiguities change the diversity recruitment practices in unexpected ways and contributes to new insights in the research field since previous research has focused less on the adoption of diversity recruitment practices but rather on the outcomes of these practices.