@article{GenkovaSchreiber2022,
  author    = {Petia Genkova and Henrik Schreiber},
  title     = {Diversity Attitudes and Sensitivity of Employees and Leaders in the German STEM-Sector},
  series   = {Frontiers in Psychology},
  doi       = {10.3389/fpsyg.2022.960163},
  url       = {https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:959-opus-36093},
  year      = {2022},
  abstract  = {The increasing diversity of cultural backgrounds offers potential for a more elaborated information processing, yet has been shown to be challenging for individuals, due to intergroup hostility, prejudices, and difficulties of intercultural communication. Current research thus focusses on the interaction of employees with different cultural heritages, as well as on their intergroup attitudes and competences. Thereby, leaders have been shown to shape the way diversity is considered in their teams in a top-down process. However, their perception of diversity as well as related challenges and chances are poorly investigated. The current paper thus aims to contribute to the understanding of leader’s perspective on and role in diversity-management by building on a comparative qualitative study with sixteen employees and twenty-two leaders. Research questions are how employees and leaders perceive cultural diversity from their specific point of view, which experiences are likely to contribute to their opinion on and perception of diversity and in how far do employees and leaders differ in these aspects. The results show that employees are aware of the topic of diversity in general but have poor competences in dealing with diversity in their daily working life. This seems to be associated with lack of experience with intercultural interaction and a lack of support from the respective organizations/leaders. Leaders are rarely aware of this lack of support. The results indicate that leaders’ experiences with cultural and age diversity, their identification with the company and previous diversity measures in the context of the companies’ policy towards diversity seem to be relevant for the formation of leaders’ attitudes. As a consequence, most participants focus on the question whether they do or do not want diversity within their teams and companies, while they actually fail to perceive the diversity that is already there.},
  language  = {en}
}