Intention or Action, the Effect of Managerial Support for Diversity and Inclusivity Policies on the Perceived Climate for Inclusion

Abstract

The climate for inclusion is the way in which employees, irrespective of their background, are fairly treated, valued for who they are, and included in core decision making. When employees perceive this as high, it has various benefits to both employees and employers. To ensure this employers can employ various diversity and inclusion policies to establish this climate for inclusion, however this is not always effective due to a lack of support within the organization itself. An important factor in this can be the level of managerial support for the D&I policies. This research aims to explore the existing theories on the influence of managerial support for D&I policies on the perceived climate for inclusion, and expands further on this by exploring the moderating role of the personal values towards diversity of employees. This was explored through an experimental vignette study. In total 252 participants were included in the research. As predicted, the condition with high managerial support for D&I policies lead to a higher perceived climate for inclusion. However, there was no support found for the moderating effect of the personal values towards diversity. Future research should expand more on the relationship between the level of managerial support D&I policies and the perceived climate for inclusion, by looking at the support for D&I policies within the high level managers and explore the personal values towards diversity even further. Organizations and research should focus on finding avenues to increase managerial support for D&I policies to ensure a more effective implementation.