The diversity of the workforce and the implications for management continue to be the focus of a great deal of interest. This is partly because of the importance and urgency of the issues that diversity entails and also because of a growing recognition that many of the dilemmas of diversity management are not proving amenable to easy solutions. Indeed, recent research demonstrates that Britain and the US are, in many ways, becoming more, rather than less unequal societies. This book suggests that metaphor and dialectic play a powerful role in shaping our understandings of ourselves and each other. It draws on original research in organizations and in management education to explore how we can become more aware of these processes within ourselves and challenge those assumptions and stereotypes that contribute to maintaining people in disadvantaged positions.

Metaphor and dialectic are modes of thinking that influence the ways in which we identify what we have in common with others, how we differ and how we manage this diversity to achieve organizational goals. This book explores how we can become more aware of these unconscious processes and challenge stereotypes.