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Toward a Taxonomy of Diversity at Work: Developing and Validating the Workplace Diversity Inventory

The purpose of this research was to develop a taxonomy of workplace diversity and examine its implications for understanding and predicting diversity at work. A 7-dimension taxonomy was originally developed by reviewing contemporary literature on diversity in the workplace. The taxonomy is grounded in Social Identity Theory. Preliminary research found that each of the seven dimensions of the taxonomy were present in 78 critical incidents describing work-relevant diversity dynamics. The current study reports the development and administration of an instrument, the Workplace Diversity Inventory (WDI), which was used to empirically examine the 7-factor model of the taxonomy in over 20 different industries. Exploratory factor analysis using data from 209 respondents supported a six-dimension taxonomy, with one factor from the proposed taxonomy (Leadership) collapsed into two of the included WDI dimensions (Diversity Climate and Organizational Justice). Subsequent confirmatory factor analysis indicated an adequate to good fit for the six-factor model, with the WDI reduced from 47 to 24 items. Results and implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-1157
Date01 January 2011
CreatorsTaylor, Aisha Smith
PublisherPDXScholar
Source SetsPortland State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceDissertations and Theses

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