Speaking up about Diversity: Moderating Role of Inclusion

Abstract

To foster equality and increase productivity, many organizations have gender diversity policies in place and seeking for effective ways to promote it. Recently, scholars proved that whether employees support or resist these measures is crucial for their effectiveness. This paper contributes to the growing literature body by researching the role of perceived individual inclusion in translation of attitudes towards gender diversity policies into behavior. The online survey was conducted among employees of European companies with ongoing gender diversity policies. Results confirmed the positive relationship between endorsement of gender diversity policies and activism, while inclusion could not be confirmed as a moderator of this link. On top of it, Jansen et al. (2015) framework about four inclusion states was exploratively tested and partially confirmed using cluster analysis. The importance of gender diversity policies in organizations is emphasized, implications and limitations of the study are discussed.