A relational framework for international transfer of diversity management practices Jawad Syed a * and Mustafa O ¨ zbilgin b a Kent Business School, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK; b Norwich Business School, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK The aim of this paper is to propose that a relational framework, which is underpinned by a contextual and multilevel conceptualisation of diversity management, can help international transfer of diversity management policies and practices. We argue that the mainstream single-level conceptualisations of diversity management within the territory of legal or organisational policy fail to capture the relational interplay of structural- and agentic-level concerns of equality. Consequently, individual choices, organisational processes, and structural conditions – all of which collectively account for unrelenting power disparity and disadvantage within social and employment contexts – remain generally under explored. The paper proposes a relational frame- work that bridges the divide between macro-national, meso-organisational and micro- individual levels of analyses to arrive at a more comprehensive, realistic and context- specific framing of diversity management, which can overcome the difficulties of international transfer. Keywords: context; diversity management; equal employment opportunity; intersectionality; relational perspective Introduction The concept of ‘diversity management’ originated in the US and has been widely adopted in the industrialised countries of the West including the UK, Canada and Australia (Agocs and Burr 1996; Jain and Verma 1996; Teicher and Spearitt 1996; Liff 1997). The concept is shaped by the demographic, socio-cultural and economic realities in the US and other Western contexts. However, there are concerns that a US-centric approach may not hold well for diversity management in other national contexts due to differences in socio- economic conditions, national legislation, culture, demography, history – plus a host of other factors (Jones, Pringle and Shepherd 2000; Syed 2008a). In addition, there are concerns regarding the theoretical rationale, and the practical outcomes of the extant approaches to diversity. For example, in their recent review of the diversity literature, Syed and Kramar (2007) critique the ‘narrow capitalistic emphasis’ on the business benefits case of diversity management which, despite its impressive rhetoric, has been unable to achieve equitable employment outcomes for diverse employees. Similarly, in his recent article on ‘the fatal flaws of diversity’, Noon (2007) argues that diversity is ‘essentially a concept that marginalises the importance of equality and suppresses the significance of ethnicity in the workplace’ (p. 780). Although we do not necessarily agree that diversity may inevitably prove fatal to equality, we do, however, recognise that the concept must be refined in order to improve its efficacy – not only in ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online q 2009 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/09585190903363755 http://www.informaworld.com *Corresponding author. Email: j.syed@kent.ac.uk RIJH 436553—30/10/2009—SEKARC—354062———Style 2 The International Journal of Human Resource Management, Vol. 20, No. 12, December 2009, 2435–2453 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49