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Leadership, Diversity Perspectives and Work Outcomes

A qualitative study of the role that leadership and diversity perspectives play in making diversity work at Leiden University

Master’s thesis for Public Administration: Economics and Governance Student: Jasper Bitter

Student number: 0880795

Supervisors: Dr. Tanachia Ashikali and prof. dr. Sandra Groeneveld Institute of Public Administration

Leiden University, Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs Date: 1 May 2019

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2 Contents

1. Introduction 3

1.1 Theoretical and practical relevance 4

1.2 Research setting 4

1.3 Structure of this research 5

2. Theory 6

2.1 Background of diversity research in the public sector 6 2.2 Cultural identity and workplace diversity 8 2.3 Which factors make diversity work? 8

2.4 Diversity perspectives 9 2.5 Transformational leadership 12 2.6 Work outcomes 16 2.7 Conceptual framework 17 3. Methods 18 3.1 Research design 18 3.2 Data collection 19

3.3 Measurements and analysis 22

3.4 Reliability and validity 23

4. Analysis 23

4.1 Central Diversity and Inclusion Work Plan 23

4.2 Institute 1 25

4.3 Institute 2 31

4.4 Institute 3 38

4.5 Comparison between the institutes 44 4.6 Consulted literature in retrospect 47

5. Conclusion and discussion 48

References 52

Appendix A: topic lists 54

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3 1. Introduction

In Europe’s major cities, “the city as a place consisting only of minorities is [...] becoming manifest reality” (Crul et al., 2013: 18). Following the changing configuration of modern society, the composition of the workforce is also shifting. This means that groups in organizations “become more diverse in terms of their demographic composition”, a development that is likely to continue in the future (Van Knippenberg et al., 2004: 2008). This means that diversity and diversity policies are of growing concern to policymakers in organizations, both public and private. The topic of diversity is not new to them, as it has been appearing on political and organizations’ agendas for decades. Many policies have been adopted to improve work outcomes in diverse workplaces. Yet, little is known about the role of leaders in diverse workplaces and how people’s views on diversity have an effect on these outcomes.

Diversity in the workplace does not always lead to good work outcomes. It can enhance work outcomes, but it can also cause lower employee morale and worse work outcomes. This is what Guillaume et al. (2017: 276) call the double-edged nature of workplace diversity. It is also possible that diversity has no impact at all in some organizations and at certain levels (Pitts and Jarry, 2007: 248). It is unclear which factors lead to success stories regarding diversity in the workplace and which ones lead to conflict, a decrease in employee morale, absenteeism, and weaker performance (Guillaume et al., 2013). New research should therefore take the meaning of explanatory factors influencing the effectiveness of diversity into consideration. Diversity may have different consequences under different circumstances, and the perception of diversity as a one size fits all remedy for all sorts of managerial problems, like innovation, is outdated (McGrandle, 2017: 528). Andrews et al. (2015) therefore propose to investigate which factors cause an improvement of work outcomes.

The first aim of this qualitative research is to analyze two explanatory factors on which the success of diversity may be contingent and that have surprisingly not been studied extensively in relation to diversity and in relation to each other yet, namely leadership style and diversity perspectives. By studying these factors, we aim to generate theory regarding the under-researched relationship between diversity, leadership style, diversity perspectives and work outcomes.

The second aim of this qualitative research is closely related to the first: to add to the literature on diversity in the workplace in the public sector. The research’s setting is therefore Leiden University. This university is a front runner in the Netherlands regarding diversity policy. At this university, an all-embracing diversity policy was adopted in 2014, but the role of leaders and diversity perspectives has not been studied yet at this university.

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Following these aims, the central question of this study is What is the role that diversity

perspectives and leadership style play in determining work outcomes at Leiden University?

1.1 Theoretical and practical relevance

A large part of the literature on diversity concerns the private sector. In Public Administration literature, a distinction between private and public organizations is generally acknowledged (for example, see Perry and Rainey, 1988). It is therefore important to improve our understanding of the workings of diversity and leadership in the (semi-)public sector (Andrews et al., 2015). Also, a lot of diversity research has been conducted to analyze management and HRM policies and interventions, without paying much attention to leadership style (Guillaume et al., 2017: 287). Leadership style, however, is often mentioned as a relevant explanatory factor for making diversity in the workplace work (Guillaume et al., 2013: 130). Additionally, at the end of their influential paper, Ely and Thomas (2001: 270) recommend future research to “learn more about how and under what conditions work groups develop and change their perspectives on diversity, and, in particular, how they change to the more promising one of integration and learning”. This research has been inspired by Ely and Thomas’ paper and aims to add to our understanding of diversity and diversity policies. By studying leadership and diversity perspectives, this study hopes to enrich the field of diversity research and it may also help to improve diversity policies (and consequently work outcomes) in diverse workplaces.

1.2 Research setting

This research is set within a specific context, namely at Leiden University, which is a semi-public sector organization in The Netherlands, according to the definition that all non-commercial services, such as government, care and education, are part of the public sector (Groeneveld and Verbeek, 2012: 363). The reason behind choosing this setting is that we want to improve our understanding of the relationship between diversity and work outcomes in the public sector.

As can be found on the university’s website, “Leiden University was founded in 1575 and is one of Europe’s leading international research universities. It has seven faculties in the arts, humanities and sciences, spread over locations in Leiden and The Hague. The University has over 6,700 staff members and 29,520 students”.1 Three institutes of three different faculties have been selected for this research. 27 institutes are located in seven faculties. Institutes are managed by their Institute Boards. At two of the institutes that have been studied for this research, the board consists of a chair (the Scientific Director) and two other members. At the

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other institute selected for this research, the board consists of a chair (the Scientific Director) and a second member. At institutes, professors can become the Scientific Director for three years and this position is considered an extra task next to the professorship. Two of the studied institutes have over 150 employees, one has around 50 employees.

In its Institutional Plan 2015-2020 (2015: 16-17), the university’s mission regarding diversity is described:

Leiden University is an open community where all those who wish to contribute to its ambitions and to everything that it stands for will feel at home and have equal opportunities. Inclusiveness and diversity are among the core values of the University. The University promotes diversity within the academic community and wishes to enable everyone to develop their talents to the full, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, cultural background, sexual orientation or any functional disability. Through this open community, the University wishes to draw out talents that would otherwise be lost. First-generation students and students from a migrant background can rely on us for support where necessary so that they are able to realise their full potential. We firmly believe that innovation and creativity flourish in a climate of openness and diversity, where students and academics from different backgrounds contribute a wide range of perspectives. To make optimum use of this diversity, the University will develop and implement a broad University strategy on diversity. This strategy relates to teaching, research, internationalisation and staffing policy. The faculties and institutes will be given the opportunity to develop their own approach to specific problems. This will make the University more attractive for new target groups, for people who will enrich the University community. This strategy will also allow the University to create equal opportunities for all, and hence to become more accessible for groups that are currently under-represented. With an inclusive and diverse university community, we are able to offer students a learning environment that will both inspire them and broaden their horizons. This diversity should also be clearly visible in our staff profile. The under-representation of women and minorities, particularly in the most senior academic and managerial positions, warrants considerable further attention.

This paragraph on diversity and inclusion demonstrates that diversity is one of Leiden University’s core values. This university also has an extensive central diversity policy (the Diversity and Inclusion Working Plan 2014-2016, from now on abbreviated as central DIWP) and a central Diversity Office, consisting of a Diversity Officer and two policy advisers.

1.3 Structure of this research

In the second chapter, an overview of the literature on diversity research in the public sector will be presented first, in order to clarify the position of this research. Then, the theories on which this research is based will be formulated, namely 1) theories on diversity perspectives, 2) theories on transformational leadership, and 3) theories on work outcomes. They will ultimately be brought together in a conceptual framework that guides the rest of this research. The third chapter presents the research methods. The analysis of the results from the

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interviews is central in chapter four. The closing chapter draws conclusions from these results, discusses its limitations and provides a number of recommendations for future research.

2. Theory

In this chapter, attention will first be given to the background of diversity research in the public sector. Then, cultural identity and workplace diversity are defined. In the third subchapter, the importance of explanatory factors will be discussed. The two explanatory factors that will be introduced next are diversity perspectives and transformational leadership. Work outcomes are defined subsequently. Lastly, the conceptual framework is explained.

2.1 Background of diversity research in the public sector

Literature on diversity originates from the strand of literature on representative bureaucracy. The concept of representative bureaucracy was introduced in political literature by Kingsley (1944). At that time, representative bureaucracy was used as a strategy by elites to maintain control over the state’s territory and neutralize rival powers by incorporating them. This dimension of representative bureaucracy is known as “representative bureaucracy as power” (Groeneveld and Van de Walle, 2010: 242). In this epoch, the politics-administration dichotomy was, at least to a large extent, still intact and bureaucrats were presented as “distant Weberians” (ibid.: 245).

Representative bureaucracy entered public administration discourse in 1968. In this year, Mosher published his classic work “Democracy and the Public Service”, in which he presented a distinction between active and passive representation. Mosher claimed that “passive representation, or the extent to which a bureaucracy employs people of diverse social backgrounds, leads to active representation, or the pursuit of policies reflecting the interests and desires of those people” (Selden and Selden, 2001: 308). As Meier and Morton (2015: 95) put it: “passive representation […] is a characteristic while active representation is a process”. In the same year, the Minnowbrook Conference was held and the politics-administration dichotomy was finally “effectively eliminated” by New Public Administration (NPA) (Denhardt, 2011: 107). At this momentous conference, scholars argued that public administration needed to formulate answers to social changes and issues as “poverty, racism, and war”, and that administrators should “take matters into their own hands” (ibid.). The NPA movement “sought to shift the locus of public administration away from efficiency and toward social equity” and presented a normative perspective on public officials: they had to participate actively in the making of policy (Riccucci, 2010: 13-14). Opposed to Weberian bureaucracy, “humanistic views of bureaucracy […] tend to incorporate more normative incentives such as the values that affect decision” (Meier and Morton, 2015: 96). In this

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period, Equal Opportunities (EO) policies and Affirmative Action (AA) policies arose in order to decrease underrepresentation of several minorities in the public service. Demographic characteristics, such as gender, race and ethnicity, became central in both research and practice, instead of socioeconomic characteristics, like education and social class, previously central in representative bureaucracy. EO's policy instruments include “the formal announcement of EO policies and EO pledges, quotas for the employment of certain groups, recruitment targets, and monitoring ethnic minority representation in organizations” (Groeneveld and Verbeek, 2012: 356).

In the 1990s, during the rise of New Public Management (NPM), the Diversity Management (DM) approach became dominant as a reaction to demographic changes in the workforce, shifting the focus “from providing equal opportunities and representing disadvantaged groups to managing diversity in organizations” (Groeneveld and Van de Walle, 2010: 247). DM could make the transition from private to public sector thanks to the New Public Management reforms, bringing “private sector management techniques”, such as Human Resource Management (HRM), “into the public sector” (ibid.; Andrews et al., 2015: 2). DM, as a current HRM instrument to deal with diversity, “promotes the recruitment, hiring, retention, and active participation of a diverse workforce with the goal of achieving equality, while at the same time improving organizational efficiency, effectiveness, and performance” (McGrandle, 2017: 526). The phrase “managing diversity” was invented by Roosevelt Thomas, who thought that the underlying assumptions of EO and AA had become obsolete (1990). He argued that a new method was needed to utilize the maximum potential of a changing workforce, in which the relative share of minorities is increasing and the relative share of white males is decreasing. The strand of DM literature fuelled the popularity of the business case for diversity, which stresses that “a well managed, diverse workforce holds potential competitive advantages for organizations” (Cox and Blake, 1991: 45).

Whereas EO and AA policies found their origin in the public sector and had moral and democratic purposes, such as pursuing fairness and equity, DM sprang to life in the private sector, focusing on organizational performance and following an economic and apolitical line of reasoning. Another important difference between EO and DM is that EO “upholds an essentially assimilationist vision in which white culture remains the dominant culture” and endorses color blindness, whereas DM urges the organization to value diversity and change itself (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 258; Thomas and Ely, 1996). Hence, DM approaches “are more focused on the inner workings of organizations and on behavioral change” in order to maximize organizational performance and are not based on a moral or legal rationale (Groeneveld and Verbeek, 2012: 356). However, organizations in the public sector still often use techniques related to EO and AA approaches. Their legitimacy and efficacy are often

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measured accordingly “by the number of women and ethnic minorities within the organization”, meaning that there is a focus on descriptive representation rather than economic output (Groeneveld and Van de Walle, 2010: 249). Policy instruments typically associated with DM include “diversity training aimed at countering stereotyping and increasing awareness of cultural biases, networking programmes and mentoring programmes” and “education and training for ethnic minority employees” (ibid.: 253; Groeneveld and Verbeek, 2012: 356).

2.2 Cultural identity and workplace diversity

In its simplest form, the theory of representative bureaucracy holds that the public benefits from the decisions of a bureaucracy, if that bureaucracy “is broadly representative of the public it serves” (Meier, Wrinkle and Polinard, 1999: 1026). Presently, the demographic characteristics that are mostly used in assessing representation are gender, race and ethnicity, as was already suggested by Krislov (1974). These are considered as “the most salient characteristics because numerous politically relevant attitudes and values are defined along these […] dimensions” (Selden and Selden, 2001: 312). Since such attitudes and values cannot be fully erased by organizational socialization, they are supposedly reflected in the decision-making of the servant. This, in turn, increases the “perceptions of accessibility to power for groups in society”, possibly improving organizational performance (Andrews et al., 2015: 2). Although it is possible to list many more characteristics (e.g. see Wise and Tschirhart, 2000: 387), this research focuses on the traditional characteristics gender, race and ethnicity. These variables all “contribute to cultural identity”, which people bring with them to the workplace (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 230). Meier and Morton (2015: 94) define identity as something “that includes individual characteristics such as race, ethnicity, and gender; characteristics that are difficult for an individual to change in the short run and that are often highly visible”. We can define workplace diversity “as differences between individuals at work on any attribute that may evoke the perception that the other person is different from the self” (Guillaume et al., 2013: 124). There is workplace diversity as soon as two or more people, who differ on one or more demographic variables, form a group in the workplace.

2.3 Which factors make diversity work?

While diversity has since the 1990s been presented as an asset of organizations in the so-called business case for diversity, it is now becoming clear that it would be more appropriate to treat diversity as an intrinsically neutral factor. Diversity may work or may not work: the success of diversity is dependent on several factors that are not fully comprehended yet (Andrews et al., 2015; Guillaume et al. 2013). Reviews of the literature correspondingly conclude that work

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group diversity can lead to positive, non-significant and negative outcomes (Jackson et al., 2003; Milliken and Martins, 1996; Williams and O’Reilly, 1998). It is therefore necessary that new research on diversity pays attention to factors that influence the effects of diversity in the workplace and make diversity work or fail.

Previous studies in the field of diversity research have already included different explanatory factors that may affect the relationship between diversity in the workplace and outcomes. A factor that may affect work outcomes is the “diversity perspective” that is communicated, for example by a leader (for a study on diversity perspectives, see Meeussen et al., 2014). Diversity perspectives are paradigms that contain normative beliefs and expectations regarding diversity and these have not yet been explored in relation to leadership style (Selden and Selden, 2001: 309; Ely and Thomas, 2001: 234). It is argued, however, that diversity perspectives have impact on work outcomes: “recent studies of factors that moderate the relationship between cultural diversity and work group effectiveness have begun to make some sense of these findings, suggesting that when group members share common goals and values, cultural diversity leads to more beneficial outcomes” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 234). The leader’s diversity perspective may be directly communicated to employees, or is communicated implicitly through “decision making and other behaviours” (Meeussen et al., 2014: 632).

The second explanatory factor studied here and that may determine the outcomes of diversity in the workplace is leadership style (Andrews et al, 2015: 15). A stupendous amount of literature has been published concerning the multiple types of leadership in the workplace. The type of leadership often associated with diversity and inclusion is transformational leadership (Kearney and Gebert 2009). It is therefore this type of leadership that is considered in this research.

2.4 Diversity perspectives

The first explanatory factor we take into consideration is the type of diversity perspective that is dominant within each of the three institutes. According to Selden and Selden (2001: 309) diversity perspectives are “theoretical paradigms for understanding diversity”, and have been defined as “group members’ normative beliefs and expectations about cultural diversity and its role in the workgroup” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 234). The several underlying assumptions that influence the way diversity is perceived and managed in organizations can be categorized in three different perspectives that were identified by Thomas and Ely through qualitative research (1996). These are 1) the discrimination-and-fairness perspective, 2) the access-and-legitimacy perspective, and 3) the integration-and-learning perspective. Ely and Thomas find that, although all perspectives are successful in motivating managers to diversify their staffs,

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each perspective brings about different results for organizations, as they each have “different implications for a work group’s ability to realize the benefits of its cultural diversity” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 229). In other words, these perspectives moderate the outcomes of diversity within groups.

Diversity perspectives include four characteristics. First, in a diversity perspective we find the “rationale that guides people’s efforts to create and respond to cultural diversity in a work group” (ibid.: 234). Second, a diversity perspective includes the normative beliefs “about the values of cultural identity at work” (ibid.). As discussed earlier, cultural identities can be shaped by gender, race and ethnicity, or one of the other dimensions on which people differ. Third, it includes “expectations about the kind of impact, if any, cultural differences can and should have on the group and its work” (ibid.). Fourth, it includes “beliefs about what constitutes progress toward the ideal multicultural work group” (ibid.).

Diversity perspectives can be both explicit and implicit (ibid.). Formal diversity plans, for example, are explicit statements about the desired diversity climate. Also, diversity statements can be made explicit by verbal statements by leaders. They can also be implicit, “as in the unstated assumptions that underlie the way a person manages his or her subordinates or the way a group structures its work” (ibid.). Similarly, diversity perspectives can be found at both the individual and the collective level.

The first perspective, discrimination-and-fairness, is based on notions of equality and justice, often leading to AA and EO strategies. It is “characterized by a belief in a culturally diverse workforce as a moral imperative to ensure justice and the fair treatment of all members of society” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 245). As Selden and Selden (2001: 310) put it, “the primary goals of organizations adhering to this paradigm are to provide access and equal opportunity in the recruiting and hiring processes”. According to Ely and Thomas (2001: 247) progress in diversity is measured by “how well a work group achieves its recruitment and retention goals”. Selden and Selden (2001: 310) add that “success is determined by the number of minorities and women holding positions within the agency”. The disadvantage of this perspective for organizations is that, due to its color blindness and gender blindness, differences between employees are not explored to “improve organizational processes and outcomes”, because in this perspective there is a focus “on descriptive representation and assimilation of persons into the [dominant] organizational cultures” (ibid.: 311). Selden and Selden (2001: 310) therefore refer to this perspective as the assimilating perspective in their alternative classification of diversity perspectives. A consequence of the discrimination-and-fairness perspective is that diversity does not influence the organization’s functioning in a fundamental way, as “there is no instrumental link between diversity and the group’s work” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 246).

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The second perspective, access-and-legitimacy, is “based in a recognition that the organization’s markets and constituencies are […] diverse” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 243). According to this perspective, “the virtue of diversity is based on the fact that each group can offer knowledge about group members and can better serve their needs because of such knowledge and shared group experiences” (Selden and Selden, 2001: 314). As Groeneveld and Van de Walle (2010: 249) put it: “a diverse workforce appeals to a wider customer base and in that way would contribute to the performance of the organization”. Diversity is thus used as a means to reach more markets. The competencies that follow from diversity are not incorporated into the “core functions” of the workforce (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 243). Employees working in organizations where this perspective is dominant “may sometimes feel exploited and devalued” (Selden and Selden, 2001: 314). Selden and Selden (2001: 314) refer to this perspective as the differentiating perspective, as organizations working with this perspective aim to represent different cultural identity groups for the abovementioned reasons of market access and legitimacy. Ely and Thomas note that assimilating mechanisms are also at work in groups that have adopted this perspective (2001: 267).

The third perspective, integration-and-learning, values “the insights, skills, and experiences employees have developed as members of various cultural identity groups” and views these as “potentially valuable resources that the work group can use to rethink its primary tasks and redefine its markets, products, strategies, and business practices in ways that will advance its mission” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 240). This means that valuable information can be shared in a group that is open to learning from all its members, even when they have various backgrounds and identities. By learning from each other, new competencies within the group can be developed and internal processes can be improved. The integration-and-learning perspective incorporates “uniqueness (through viewing diversity as a resource) and belongingness (through members feeling valued and respected)” (Shore et al., 2011: 1265). Since this perspective is able to link “diversity to work processes – the way people do and experience the work – in a manner that makes diversity a resource for learning and adaptive change”, it is now used for developing theories on inclusion (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 240). Selden and Selden (2001: 315) refer to this perspective as the integrating perspective, as it aspires to integrate diverse individuals rather than assimilate or differentiate them. Based on the preliminary findings, it is expected that the integration-and-learning perspective has a positive effect on work outcomes. Ely and Thomas (2001: 260) found “that the perspective on diversity a group of people held influenced how they expressed and managed tensions related to diversity, whether those traditionally underrepresented in the organization felt respected and valued by their colleagues, and how people valued and expressed themselves as members of their cultural identity groups” and that “these, in turn, influenced people’s sense of

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efficacy and work group functioning”. Of these three perspectives, only the “integration-and-learning perspective provided the kind of rationale and guidance people needed to achieve sustained benefits from diversity” (ibid.). So, in order to make diversity work, it seems essential that cross-cultural learning is facilitated by the organization (ibid.: 243).

Naturally, elements from more than one diversity perspective can be present in a work group or institute, as valuing individual differences (which is also a part of DM) and prevention of discrimination (which is also an important aspect of the EO approach) often come together and are considered as interdependent (Rowley and Jackson, 2011: 62). However, it is likely that one of the perspectives will be dominant in a group.

2.5 Transformational leadership

The second explanatory factor that may influence work outcomes is leadership style. It is one of the conditions “under which diversity might have an effect (positive or negative) on outcomes” (Guillaume et al., 2013: 130). For leadership, we use the definition that has been formulated by Guillaume et al. (2017: 278): it is “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members”. The style of leadership regularly associated with diversity is transformational leadership (TL) (Kearney and Gebert, 2009: 77). One of the reasons for this is that two aspects of TL, namely individual consideration and social cohesion, are also relevant in literature on diversity. Shore et al. (2011), among others, have also asked for more research on inclusive practices, such as promoting cohesion. According to Cascio (1995: 930) “culturally diverse organizations require transformational leadership [...] to transform followers to bring out their creativity, imagination, and best efforts”. In recent studies it is suggested that “when group members share common goals and values, cultural diversity leads to more beneficial outcomes” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 234).

It is hard to define TL specifically, as an appropriate conceptualization and definition are lacking, and because TL is often defined on the basis of this style’s (positive) consequences (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013). Moreover, it is complicated to distinguish TL from other leadership styles empirically. However, if we do not use TL as a monolithic concept and use it as a conceptual tool to look at leadership instead, it makes it possible to discern leadership styles that are more focused on stimulating followers and adapting to changing circumstances from styles that are closer related to transactional leadership or laissez-faire (or delegative) leadership. Elements of TL may be well-suited for making sense of leadership behavior. For exactly this purpose, this subchapter discusses what is known about TL from literature.

Originally, TL was introduced by Burns in his book about political leadership, where he “identified two types of leadership: transactional and transformational” (Kuhnert and

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Lewis, 1987: 648). Whereas transactional leadership is focused on exchange, TL involves “shifts in the beliefs, the needs, and the values of followers” (ibid.). Subsequently, Bass introduced these ideas in organizational management literature and described transformational leaders as leaders who “succeed in raising colleagues, subordinates, followers, clients, or constituencies to a greater awareness about the issues of consequence” (1985: 17). In other words, only a leader with vision can affect followers’ beliefs and increase the performance of followers beyond their expectations.

Transactional leadership is focused on self-interest only and is limited to giving followers something they require in order to make them do something the leader wants them to do. It involves “contingent reinforcement”, meaning that “followers are motivated by the leaders’ promises, praise, and rewards, or [that] they are corrected by negative feedback, reproof, threats, or disciplinary actions” (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999: 184). Leaders can actively manage by monitoring and correcting followers, or they can passively wait until followers make mistakes and need to be corrected “with negative feedback or reprimands” (ibid.). Moreover, “laissez-faire leaders avoid leading” at all (ibid.). TL, instead, could be defined as a “leadership model that integrates a commitment to values and outcomes by optimizing the long-term interests of stakeholders and society and honoring the moral duties owed by organizations to their stakeholders” (Caldwell et al., 2012: 176). It is a type of adaptive leadership, meaning that transformational leaders are able to respond to a changing environment and complex problems (Bass et al., 2003: 207). In organizations, more specifically, TL “occurs when leaders broaden and elevate the interests of their employees, when they generate awareness and acceptance of the purposes and mission of the group, and when they stir their employees to look beyond their own self-interest for the good of the group” (Bass, 1990: 21). This is also why TL is often linked to making diversity work: by making followers aware of the shared mission of the group, followers with different backgrounds can be motivated to work together. In order to align the motivations and beliefs regarding diversity in an organization, a role model can set the example and help employees adopt the necessary diversity perspective. Adopting the appropriate kind of diversity perspective is an intrinsic need that “transcends short-term goals”, a characteristic of TL (Judge and Piccolo, 2004: 755). For this reason, TL can presumably be differentiated from other sorts of leadership, such as transactional leadership or laissez-faire leadership, even though there are limitations regarding its conceptualization, definition and empirical evidence (Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013).

Although the effects of transformational leadership are often measured by using the results of questionnaires, such as the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire developed by Bass and Avolio (Avolio et al., 1999: 442), TL theory is here used as a lens through which we can

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uncover elements of prototypical TL in our three cases. Although most leaders display both elements of both transactional and transformational leadership, “those whom we call transformational do much more of the transformational than the transactional” (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999: 184). Moreover, it can be argued that “the best of leadership is both transformational and transactional” and that the two types of leadership therefore do not always conflict (ibid.: 191). The next paragraph elucidates the four components associated with prototypical TL.

The four components of transformational leadership

If we want to label a leader’s style as TL, the four components of TL need to be dominant. The four components of TL are 1) idealized influence (also called charisma), 2) inspirational motivation, 3) intellectual stimulation and 4) individualized consideration.

A transformational leader makes use of its charisma or idealized influence. Such a leader is “envisioning, confident, and sets high standards for emulation" (ibid.: 187). In other words, a transformational leader is a role model, sets high standards and walks the walk to inspire followers to do the same.

We speak of inspirational motivation “when a leader acts in a way that causes people around him/her to be motivated to work better, usually caused by the leader instilling a sense of meaning in the work for the follower” (ibid.: 188). Inspirational motivation is the articulation of “an appealing and inspiring vision for the future” (Jacobsen and Andersen, 2015: 831) and thus “provides followers with challenges and meaning for engaging in shared goals and undertakings” (Bass and Steidlmeier, 1999: 188). In effect, inspirational motivation may lead to better cooperation and commitment and therefore bring about harmony within the workplace.

Intellectual stimulation “incorporates an open architecture dynamic into processes of

situation evaluation, vision formulation and patterns of implementation” (ibid.). Transformational leaders stimulate “followers to question assumptions and to generate more creative solutions to problems” (ibid.). Using intellectual stimulation, transformational leaders may change the values of their followers and spark their creativity and innovativeness.

Individualized consideration implies that the “transformational leader treats each

follower as an individual and provides coaching, mentoring and growth opportunities” (ibid.: 189). It is the transformational leader’s endeavor to ultimately make followers transformational leaders themselves, reducing their dependence on the transformational leader.

Summarizing, the essential tenet of TL could be described as follows: TL is “the verbal communication of an image of a future for a collective with the intention to persuade others

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to contribute to the realization of that future” (Van Knippenberg and Sitkin, 2013: 46). In this research, the presence of TL could include a vision on diversity, which in turn could indicate the presence of a corresponding dominant diversity perspective held by the leader.

It is noted that, sometimes, transformational leaders may exhibit directive behavior, even though this is often regarded as non-transformational leadership. A directive leader should, however, not immediately be equated with an authoritarian personality: “when it comes to the common good of an organization, the leader in many ways may be directive as a well-intentioned agent of the principals” (ibid.: 207). Directive leadership is compatible with transformational leadership, as long as reasons are given for orders and decisions (ibid.: 208). In the context of our research, for example, a leader can have a clear vision on diversity or act as a role model, while at the same time exhibiting directive behavior in order to reach goals associated with the leader’s diversity perspective. In these instances, communication with other employees is key in explaining them how directive decisions fit into the bigger picture. Accordingly, how employees perceive their leader is also of importance, as the following paragraph will show.

Intended versus perceived leadership

As Jacobsen and Andersen (2015) explain, there are differences between perceived and intended leadership. Since “employees’ motivation and commitment are only affected by leadership if they notice it”, employee-perceived leadership has stronger implications for work outcomes than leader-intended leadership (ibid.: 829). Moreover, asking leaders and employees about their perceptions of leadership is a typical way of measuring leadership effectiveness, as “leadership action is difficult to observe” (ibid.: 830). Jacobsen and Andersen theorize that the level of what is actually implemented is below the intended leadership, because “the leaders often face implementation challenges in the form of constraints from time, resistance, or scarce resources” (ibid.). The level of perceived leadership is expectedly even lower because “employees only see part of the leadership practice” (ibid.). This could explain why leaders, especially ambitious leaders practicing TL, overestimate their leadership relative to what is perceived by their employees. Another plausible reason for this phenomenon is that employees have high expectations of their leader. It is important to be aware of the difference between intended and perceived leadership, because if leaders are “unaware of how their leadership practices are perceived by their employees, it can be difficult to change employee behavior and, ultimately, organizational performance” (ibid.: 838). Especially in organizations where employees have a considerable amount of discretion, leaders rely on “how their leadership behavior is perceived by employees in order to motivate and direct them toward organizational goals” (ibid.). Employees of university institutes have a

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substantial amount of discretion when lecturing and conducting research, meaning that the notion of intended versus perceived leadership is especially relevant here.

2.6 Work outcomes

Performance in the public sector is difficult to measure and measurement can even “lead to several unintended consequences”, due to the special nature of the public sector (Van Thiel and Leeuw, 2002: 267). Even in the private sector, assessing the impact of diversity is problematic, “since it is difficult to isolate the specific causes of outcomes like profitability, and cultural diversity is likely to be a relatively distal factor” (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 235). Work outcomes, however, can help signify effective or ineffective management of diversity by leaders within the public sector.

Work outcomes include “commitment, absenteeism, turnover intentions [...], innovation and performance [...] [and] relationships within workgroups” (Chattopadhyay et al., 2004). Creative solutions to problems may also be a positive result of well-functioning diversity in the workplace (Van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007). The logic behind this is simple: individuals who feel good will perform better and will also benefit the collective, thus leading to good work outcomes. Especially in our cases (three institutes at a university) work outcomes are useful as an indicator of performance, as educational organizations rely more on the work of humans than on technology. We choose to follow Ely and Thomas’ (2001) method of measuring the effectiveness of work groups by looking at three work outcomes, which they named “intermediate group outcomes”, as they used work outcomes as a way to ultimately measure performance. In this study we consider only work outcomes themselves, because they are an indicator of how well diversity works within the workplace. The three work outcomes are: 1) the quality of intergroup relations, 2) feeling valued and respected, and 3) the significance of cultural identity (Ely and Thomas, 2001). These three outcomes “ought to be more proximally related to the cultural composition of the work group” and are thought to improve the organization’s performance indirectly, while being easier to relate to diversity and leadership than overall performance (ibid.: 235).

First, the quality of intergroup relations is dependent on the tensions that exist within a work group (Ely and Thomas, 2001: 247). If the group is able to resolve such tensions, for example by discussion and learning from each other, it can be argued that this is a positive work outcome. If tensions within the group are not resolved and have negative consequences, such as wariness in the behavior of employees, this is a negative work outcome.

The second work outcome is the degree of feeling valued and respected. This is the “extent to which participants [feel] valued and respected by coworkers and supervisors” (ibid.). If employees perceive their contribution to a group as a welcome addition to the rest’s

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work, this is a positive work outcome that can enhance the group’s performance. On the contrary, if employees feel that they are being looked down on, this is a negative work outcome.

The third work outcome is meaning and significance of cultural identity at work. If employees perceive their cultural identity as a “potential source of insight and skill”, they are most likely to contribute to the group’s work outcomes (ibid.: 241). If employees attach no significance to their identity at work and do not value and express “themselves as members of their [...] identity group”, this may indicate poorer performance (ibid.: 235).

Next to these work outcomes, it is also possible to ask employees directly about their perception of the group's functioning and its efficacy. The work outcomes are not “hard” indicators: they are about what employees perceive and how they feel in the workplace when carrying out their jobs and in ways they may overlap.

2.7 Conceptual framework

The concepts that have been discussed in this chapter can be summarized in a conceptual framework, that clarifies the relationship between workplace diversity, leadership style, diversity perspective and work outcomes. In the framework, it is shown that the explanatory factors leadership style and diversity perspective are expected to affect work outcomes. Work outcomes, in turn, indicate whether diversity within the institute leads to improved or impaired work outcomes. It is assumed that workplace diversity does not impact work outcomes directly, but that the explanatory factors help explain why workplace diversity leads to certain work outcomes. This research is aimed at gaining knowledge of the role these factors play.

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18 3. Methods

This chapter presents the methods that have been employed. First, the research design will be presented. Second, data collection will be described. Third, measurement and analysis methods will be discussed. Lastly, attention will be given to the reliability and validity of this research.

3.1 Research design

We compare three institutes at different faculties since we expect that there are fundamental differences between them that help to determine the influence of the explanatory factors (leadership style and diversity perspectives) on our dependent variable (work outcomes). Naturally, diversity itself within the institutes, which is the independent variable, will also cause differences. This will be discussed more thoroughly later.

By researching three institutes, we conduct a small-N research. Small-N comparisons require complementation with “in-depth study of the cases” (Toshkov, 2016: 321). Within-case analysis is needed to track the effects of leadership style and diversity perspective on work outcomes in diverse workplaces.

Since these are intricate matters – for example, distinguishing the diversity perspectives that leaders voice on the work floor is complex – we chose to execute a qualitative research consisting of semi-structured, in-depth topic interviews complemented with an analysis of Leiden University’s central DIWP (the Diversity and Inclusion Working Plan 2014-2016), the faculties’ DIWPs and the central midterm evaluation.

The scope of this research is set to the management of diversity at Leiden University. The phenomenon on which we focus is diversity at Leiden University. This means that the context of this specific research does not go beyond Leiden University’s organizational boundaries. Three institutes at three different faculties have been selected as cases, based on the criterion that an institute needs to be part of a faculty with an active diversity policy (i.e., the faculty has a DIWP and puts it to action). This last point is important, because without multiple sources it would not be possible to conduct triangulated research (i.e. collect data using a variety of methods) and compare perceived perspectives on diversity (i.e. what is articulated by the respondents) to intended perspectives on diversity (i.e. policy documents). The three institutes (the cases) are the higher level units of analysis. The selected institutes are part of the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, and the Faculty of Science. These faculties differ in terms of focus of their diversity policy, rapidity of implementation and composition of staff and student population. This leads to variation within the institutes as well, meaning that we can distinguish between different effects on and of the explanatory factors in these different settings. The individual leaders and employees of

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these three institutes (the respondents) constitute our lower level unit of analysis. Most theory of organizational diversity used in this study focuses on the work group level, since “diversity is a group characteristic” (Van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007: 516). For practical reasons, these theories have been transposed to the level of the institutes we examine.

The variation between the three cases is thought to help us better understand the relationship between leadership style, the dominant diversity perspective and work outcomes. The independent variables should differ in order to investigate their causal relationship with work outcomes (the dependent variable). This is a tenet of co-variational analysis (COV). It also aims to keep other factors that may have an effect on Y (the dependent variable) constant, so that we can measure the effect of variation of X (the independent variable) on Y (Blatter and Haverland, 2014: 40). However, this is hard to achieve, since the three institutes (the settings) differ. By conducting semi-structured, in-depth interviews we seek to complement the causal relationships with a comprehensive storyline, which is an element of causal-process tracing (CPT) (ibid.: 213). CPT is a “within-case technique of causal inference”, in our research meaning that we use this technique to understand the three institutes themselves more deeply (ibid.: 82). This helps to make our argument more plausible: had we only linked X to Y through COV, the causal link between the two would remain obscure, as the argumentation of what exactly constitutes this link would still be missing. The analysis chapter summarizes the storylines for each institute.

Scientific Directors are important cultural influencers at institutes and were therefore interviewed to gain knowledge about the institute (the case), the two explanatory factors and work outcomes. They were asked questions about the workplace, their diversity perspective and leadership role, and their view of work outcomes at their institute. Additionally, two staff members at each institute have been interviewed to gain knowledge about the workplace, the dominant diversity perspective, their view on their leader, and work outcomes. The topic list with the guiding questions can be found in the appendix. More details on the interviews follow in the next subchapter.

3.2 Data collection

The first type of data that has been collected consists of semi-structured, in-depth topic interviews with leaders (the Scientific Directors of the institutes) and their employees. The three faculties, where our cases (the institutes) are located, were selected because of their different characteristics, as was discussed in the subchapter on research design. The leaders of several institutes within these three faculties were contacted and asked if they would be willing to be interviewed about their institute, diversity and leadership. The Scientific Directors that replied first have been interviewed. Two employees at each institute were interviewed as well,

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after the Scientific Director of each institute recommended contacting them. The respondents were therefore partially self-selected: leaders referred to several of their colleagues when asked who would be willing to talk about diversity, inclusion and the functioning of the institute. Subsequently, the leaders’ colleagues were emailed one by one with an invitation to take part in this research, until an affirmative reply was received by the researcher. This could mean that only staff members in favor of diversity have been interviewed, thereby causing a positive bias towards diversity in the results. For example, staff members with a more critical stance on diversity and its effects on work outcomes might be underrepresented in this study. Due to the limited scale of this study, it is not possible to account for this risk by, for example, sending out a survey to all staff members.

Open questions, relating to the three central concepts, were organized in topic lists prior to the nine interviews to guide the conversation (see appendix A). At the start of the interviews, respondents were assured of the study’s confidentiality and anonymity. First, questions regarding diversity perspectives were asked. Second, the respondents were inquired about leadership at the institute. Third, respondents were asked about work outcomes. The questions asked to Scientific Directors were not identical with the questions asked to staff members, as Scientific Directors had to reflect on their own leadership style. The topics of the topic list were based on the indicators of the concepts (see appendix B for an overview of the indicators). As the interviews were semi-structured, it was possible to expand on certain topics or discuss new topics when an interview departed from the prepared path. The interviews have been recorded with the respondents’ permission and have later been transcribed. After each round of interviews, the list of guiding questions and the introduction to the interviews have been reviewed.

The other type of data used for this study are policy documents. Three types of policy documents have been analyzed using document analysis: 1) the official central diversity policy document of Leiden University, published by its Diversity Office (central DIWP), 2) the diversity plans of the three faculties where the institutes we study are located (the faculties’ DIWPs), 3) the midterm evaluation of the central DIWP’s first two years, which has a strong focus on the faculties’ diversity policies as well. From the first and second faculty, only the concept versions of its DIWPs were available. The third faculty’s official DIWP for the period 2015-2016 was downloaded from the faculty’s website.

Policy documents are the intended policies of organizations and, in our cases, make clear the intended diversity perspectives of the university’s boards, both central and decentralized (faculties). Wright and Nishii (2006) present a heuristic distinction between intended policy, actual policy and perceived policy, originally meant for studying HRM. Following this distinction here, we argue that the central DIWP and the three faculties’

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diversity plans are documents that display the uniform policy that is intended by the organization. However, the way people in leadership positions, such as the Scientific Directors, implement the intended policy may differ from the initial intention, meaning that the actual policy deviates from the intended policy. Moreover, some policies may even not be implemented at all (Wright and Nishii, 2006: 10). Eventually, the way individual employees experience and perceive the policy may be different as well, leading to different employee reactions (attitudinal, cognitive, and/or behavioral), which possibly affect work outcomes (ibid.: 11).

An advantage of document analysis is that “documents contain text (words) and images that have been recorded without a researcher’s intervention” (Bowen, 2009: 27). The method is applicable to this qualitative case study, as it can produce “rich descriptions” of the organization and help discover the intentions and meaning behind several diversity management measures (ibid.: 29). By coding the different documents and analyzing them, we use more sources of evidence than just the coded interviews. By using this method of triangulation, the research’s credibility increases. The DIWP is the central document on which the Scientific Directors of the institutes can rely when they seek inspiration on how to manage diversity. This document is relevant for our research, as it covers the period 2014-2016. Scientific Directors have been interviewed in the period from December 2016 to April 2017, before a new working plan substituted the original DIWP. Each of the faculties where the institutes are located has its own DIWP, in which faculty-specific needs are attended to as well. These DIWPs have also been coded, using open coding, and are discussed in the analysis chapter. Lastly, the midterm evaluation of the DIWP has been coded, for this document also gives insight in the characteristics of the three institutes regarding diversity and inclusion.

Most of the interviews were held in Dutch. The policy documents are written in Dutch as well. The citations from the Dutch interviews and documents in the analysis chapter are the researcher’s own translations. Table 1 shows the numbers that have been used as abbreviations of the respondents.

Respondent Abbreviation

Institute 1, Scientific Director 1 (SD)

Institute 1, employee 1 (PhD candidate) 2 (staff)

Institute 1, employee 2 (professor) 3 (staff)

Institute 2, Scientific Director 4 (SD)

Institute 2, employee 1 (professor) 5 (staff)

Institute 2, employee 2 (associate professor) 6 (staff)

Institute 3, Scientific Director 7 (SD)

Institute 3, employee 1 (professor) 8 (staff)

Institute 3, employee 2 (PhD candidate) 9 (staff) Table 1: Abbreviations of the respondents

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22 3.3 Measurements and analysis

The aim of coding the transcripts of the interviews was to be able to categorize the different units of analysis in terms of their leadership role, diversity perspective and views on work outcomes. It can be hard to distinguish the access-and-legitimacy perspective from the discrimination-and-fairness perspective, as a diversity perspective is not a fully discrete variable. Also, most leaders show aspects of both transactional and transformational leadership, which makes it complicated to decide which style is dominant. Therefore, each choice for a certain categorization needs its own reasoning. In order to do so, each time a certain diversity perspective or leadership style is identified in the analysis chapter, arguments for this choice will be presented.

By using the method of axial coding, the data produced in the interviews has ultimately been categorized in clusters that relate to the central concepts of this research. Some general codes have been selected beforehand because they are generally associated with the central concepts of the conceptual framework used for this research, others have been added during the process of analyzing the transcripts because they turned out to be relevant. This way we could reach a point of saturation, which means there is no information left to be marked with new codes (Boeije, 2014: 124). Three rounds of coding, from general descriptions towards the central concepts, have been conducted in total. The proceedings of each round will now be explained.

The first round of coding consisted of open coding: identifying those fragments of the transcripts that indicate a certain view on diversity within the institute, one of the diversity perspectives, a type of leadership style and views on work outcomes, and ultimately appointing a summarizing code to the marked fragment. The codes used in the first round therefore are brief summaries of the fragments. Other striking fragments, not necessarily directly associated with the variables we aim to study, were also marked during this round, in order to find out if there are recurring themes that were not included in the theoretical framework. As the interviews were semi-structured, respondents and the researcher had the possibility to examine some topics more deeply than required by the topic list.

The second round of coding consisted of again marking the brief summaries of salient fragments in the interviews, now with codes that are more directly related to the central concepts. In this round, all nine interviews were still coded separately. In the third round, the codes were bundled together per institute and per cluster. The clusters relate directly to the central concepts: diversity perspectives, the institute’s nature, leadership style and work outcomes. This way, a story about each of the four general topics started to emerge for each institute.

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23 3.4 Reliability and validity

As Meier and Morton (2015: 106) have shown, “the salient identity could well vary from country to country and even within a country across time”, which means that the demographic characteristics that are selected as being salient could be different in each country and organization. Moreover, the number of institutes and respondents is small. Validity and reliability are therefore relatively limited: the scope of this research is limited to one organization, that at most represents educational organizations in the Dutch public sector.

The quality of this research is dependent on its reliability and validity, which both are, as stated above, relatively limited. By conducting extensive semi-structured, in-depth interviews and the frequent revision of the guiding interview questions thanks to advancing insights, outcomes are sufficiently reliable for the selected institutes. By narrowing down the amount of codes to relate to the central concepts accurately, other researchers would find similar patterns within the interviews, which increases reliability. An X-centered combination of COV and CPT increases the validity of this research. However, generalization is typically limited, as it can only be expanded to most-similar cases. By demarcating the concepts in accordance with the existing literature we decreased the risk of invalid theorizing. By using triangulation, namely analyzing both policy documents and interviews, the credibility of this research increases as well.

4. Analysis

The nine semi-structured, in-depth interviews within Leiden University’s organization, the central DIWP and the faculties’ DIWP’s, and the midterm evaluation produced data that need to be organized in a way that enables us to answer the research question, What is the role that

diversity perspectives and leadership style play in determining work outcomes at Leiden University? In this chapter, the central DIWP will be analyzed first, since this policy is the

context for all three institutes. Next, the three institutes are analyzed separately. Each institute’s nature, leadership, diversity perspectives, and work outcomes are discussed in detail, ultimately leading to a summary that connects the dots for each institute. In the last subchapter, the three institutes will be compared with each other in order to shed a light on our central concepts.

4.1 Central Diversity and Inclusion Work Plan

Before we move on to the findings produced by the interviews at the institutes, the data gathered from the central policy documents will be analyzed first, as the identified diversity

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perspectives in these documents also shape the perspectives of the institutes’ leaders: the Scientific Directors (SDs).

Policy documents are the intended policies of organizations and make their leaders’ visions explicit. In our context, they give us insight in the intended diversity policy of Leiden University. “Diversity policy” is the name for “related concepts such as affirmative action (AA), equal opportunity policies (EO), and managing diversity” and we can therefore identify several of these concepts in Leiden University's diversity policy documents (Groeneveld and Verbeek, 2012: 354). This subchapter presents the analysis of Leiden University’s central DIWP and the central midterm evaluation. The faculties’ DIWPs are discussed for each institute separately.

The rationale of the central DIWP resembles elements of the access-and-legitimacy perspective, combined with elements from the integration-and-learning perspective: “D&I is seen as a quality that promotes the university’s mission and the ambition to achieve excellence in research and teaching” (central DIWP: 4). In the vision of the central DIWP, the importance of “promoting excellence, scientific progress and innovation and a feeling of being connected with the organization” are emphasized, and in order to achieve these aims, “the D&I policy seeks to facilitate an inclusive learning and research environment [...] in which everyone feels stimulated to develop themselves” (ibid.). There is also attention for the societal role of the university and its responsibilities. Two of four objectives relate to gender-balance: gender-balance in staff appointments and gender-balance in research and grant requests (central DIWP: 8). A third objective pertains to increasing the study success of students and a fourth objective relates to increasing expertise on diversity. Other additional practices are proposed on the following pages of the document, such as training, support and education. These mixed instruments are all aimed at changing the inner workings of the organization and fit the modern context of diversity, referred to as “diversity management” (Groeneveld and Van de Walle, 2010). The extensive array of evidence-based policy instruments presented in the central DIWP supports the claim that this organization values diversity in itself, even though the form resembles the business case for diversity. These selected strategies exceed strategies associated with the Equal Opportunities approach or the Affirmative Action approach. Concluding, we can state that the central DIWP includes both the integration-and-learning and the access-and-legitimacy perspective, with the rationale focusing on positive outcomes for the organization (business case) and the policy instruments deriving from the diversity management strand of literature.

The central midterm evaluation of the first couple of years of D&I policy at Leiden University, written by its Diversity Officer, considers both bottlenecks and achievements. In the evaluation of the first faculty, it is pointed out that assistant professors face barriers

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regarding their career opportunities and often feel they are being ignored (central midterm evaluation: 7). Support for students with a disability and international students does not suffice. However, diversity is a prominent theme in the faculty’s research areas. The continuation of the policy is therefore deemed promising at this faculty. According to the central evaluation, the first faculty’s focus lies on diversity and inclusivity as part of the organizational culture and on raising awareness. The top management’s engagement in diversity and inclusion is uncertain, since the faculty’s board has recently changed (ibid.: 10).

At the second faculty, there was no problem with the percentage of female professors, but the staff does not yet represent the student body (ibid.: 7). However, the measures need time to come into effect: the faculty’s focus lies on improving appointment procedures and supporting ethnic minority students. This policy is therefore also deemed promising.

The third faculty faces a vast gender imbalance at the higher ranks of the organization (ibid.: 6). At some institutes there is a lack of female students, at others there are more female students, but they do not always feel at home (this is especially the case for girls with a non-Western migrant background). The measures implemented at this faculty are mainly aimed at improving the gender balance, mostly of the higher positions. The faculty’s policy is evaluated as good.

In the central evaluation, one can also read that Leiden University’s Diversity Office values active leadership and top management’s engagement in diversity and inclusion. It also demands faculties to develop their policies based on evidence-based models. The midterm evaluation lists the integration-and-learning model as a criterion for good D&I policy (ibid.: 8).

In the following three subchapters, the results of the interviews at the three institutes are presented. The subchapters are split into paragraphs 1) description of the institute’s nature, 2) leadership style, 3) diversity perspectives, 4) work outcomes, and 5) a summary that connects the dots. In the paragraphs about diversity perspectives, the DIWP of the relevant faculty is analyzed before moving to the interviews, as the faculty’s DIWP usually signifies an explicit and dominant diversity perspective.

4.2 Institute 1

Description of the institute’s nature

At the first institute around 150 people are employed. According to the respondents, this institute is not a very diverse institute as far as ethnicity is concerned. However, gender-diversity is in balance. Respondent 1 (SD) is even slightly concerned about the number of men: “We more than meet the standards for the number of women, also in higher positions. That goes so well, that I actually worry about the [number of] men.” At this institute, there is

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