80 April 2002 Volume 39 Number 4 Inclusion: What Can I and My Organization Do About It? Martin N. Davidson University of Virginia Bernardo M. Ferdman Alliant International University Two years ago, at Rice University, one of us (Bernardo) facilitated a session at a small conference attended primarily by organizational and social psychologists on prejudice and discrimination in organizations. The title of the session was “Dialogue for Envisioning the Inclusive Workplace,” and the goal was to involve conference participants in describing the components of inclusion. After spending 2 days talking about discrimination, it was important to consider what might replace it. Partici- pants were asked first to interview each other in pairs regarding their visions of inclusion and their hopes for organizations regarding the creation and fos- tering of inclusion, and then to extract key themes in small groups. Many excellent ideas were generated but what was most notable about the session was the great energy and emotion that emerged. This was an intense session; some people cried as they talked about the pain and frustration they experi- enced in their own careers as academics and their hopes for a better and more inclusive future. People need to feel and be included in their profes- sional environments. What needs to happen to make this a reality? Evidence is growing that inclusion matters to organizational effective- ness (see, e.g., Brickson, 2000; Cox, 2001; Creed & Scully, 2000; Davidson, 1999; Gasorek, 2000; Gilbert & Ivancevich, 2000; Meyerson, 2001; Mor- Barak, 2000; Robinson & Dechant, 1997; Wah, 1999). Inclusion opens the pathway for a variety of different individuals to marshal their personal resources to do what they do best. Based on their recent study, for example, Ely and Thomas (2001) argue for the importance of feeling valued and of being able to express one’s social identity at work as antecedents to building effective group functioning in organizational contexts. This is consistent with other studies, including those on quality, job enrichment, work motiva- tion, and organizational development, that confirm similar relationships between utilizing one’s full range of talents and perspectives and the capa- bility to commit to and to accomplish organizational objectives. We believe simply that the glue between these two is inclusion.