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Professional Services Firms and Gender Diversity

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Lessons on Profiting from Diversity

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Abstract

Research into diversity in organisations has focused on exploring how workforce diversity influences organisational life (Jehn et al., 1999) and the barriers diverse individuals can face within organisations (Kanter, 1977; O’Neill et al., 1999; Thomas and Gabarro, 1999; Moss, 2007, 2009). This emphasis has left a gap in organisational scholarship, with little information available about the processes and practices that foster greater diversity (Akinola and Thomas, 2008), and a gap too in terms of the hoped-for benefits. This is true of the legal, IT, accountancy, management consultancy, and design and marketing areas, and this chapter makes a start in filling these gaps by reporting on indicative interviews with a sample of senior managers in the legal, IT, design, accountancy and professional recruitment. These views can be balanced against the academic and practitioner literatures on the general benefits of and obstacles to diversity in this sector.

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Authors
  1. Gloria Moss
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Buckinghamshire New University, UK

    Gloria Moss FCIPD, PhD (Reader in Human Resources, Visiting Professor) (Reader in Human Resources, Visiting Professor)

  2. Ecole Superieure de Gestion, Paris, France

    Gloria Moss FCIPD, PhD (Reader in Human Resources, Visiting Professor) (Reader in Human Resources, Visiting Professor)

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© 2012 Gloria Moss

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Moss, G. (2012). Professional Services Firms and Gender Diversity. In: Moss, G. (eds) Lessons on Profiting from Diversity. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230355057_8

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