“Statistical correctness”: Do demographic-based strategies bring about corporate diversity?

Abstract

Questioning the usefulness of naïve conceptions of gender and diversity that run in much of the managerial literature, the authors used a series of qualitative interviews with women in top managerial positions in large French corporations to examine corporate gender diversity discourses and strategies. They found that recruiting women in top management positions does not systematically produce the sort of diversity targeted by corporate strategies. Moreover, evidence shows that the corporate diversity strategies and gender conceptions in play tend to reproduce gender stereotypes and fail to democratize access to high-ranking positions. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.