Managing the Organizational Melting Pot

Some of the more troublesome and disturbing aspects of workplace diversity are illuminated in this volume – individual and institutional resistance, the effectiveness of diversity change efforts and the less visible ways in which exclusion and discrimination continue to be practised in the workplace.

To help the reader understand some of these dilemmas, the contributors adopt a number of theoretical frameworks which are striking departures from traditional perspectives on diversity. These include: intergroup relations theory; critical theory; Jungian psychology; feminism; post- colonial theory; cultural history; postmodernism; realism; institutional theory; and class analysis. In addition, they examine different organizational situations in which complex predicaments of diversity surface – many of which cross race, gender, ethnic and other socially constructed boundaries.

Author Biography

Dr. Anshuman Prasad is Professor of Management and University Research Scholar at the University of New Haven. Prior to coming to New Haven, he has taught in the Faculty of Management of the University of Calgary (Canada), and at the International MBA Program of the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration (Finland), one of Europe’s leading MBA Programs. At the UNH College of Business he teaches courses in Strategic Management/Business Policy and Management Process. Professor Prasad has produced over 100 scholarly works, including books, research articles, book chapters, conference papers and presentations, and other intellectual contributions. His research has been published in some of the leading academic journals of the field, including Academy of Management Review; Organization Science; Organizational Research Methods; Human Relations; Research in the Sociology of Organizations; Studies in Cultures, Organizations and Societies; Journal of Applied Behavioral Science; Journal of Business Communication; Journal of Management Education; and Journal of Management Inquiry. He is the editor of Postcolonial Theory and Organizational Analysis: A Critical Engagement(Palgrave Macmillan/St. Martin’s Press, 2003), a pioneering scholarly book that has received strong endorsements from some of the leading researchers of the discipline, and a co-editor of Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity (Sage Publications, 1997), an acclaimed book on workplace diversity and multiculturalism. His books have been positively reviewed by top-tier journals like the Academy of Management Review; Administrative Science Quarterly; and Organization Studies. He brings an interdisciplinary orientation in his research, which deals with such themes as globalization and its implications for business and management, strategic action and corporate legitimacy in the global petroleum industry, workplace diversity and multiculturalism, organizational culture and ideology, resistance and empowerment in organizations, and epistemological and pedagogical issues. Dr. Prasad lends his expertise to a number of academic journals as editorial board member, special issue editor, and ad-hoc reviewer, and has acted as Program Committee Member/Track Chair at several important scholarly conferences in the United States and abroad. He served as Executive Committee Member (2002-2004) and Program Chair (2003-2004) for the Research Methods Division of the Academy of Management, the world’s largest scholarly association in the field of management. He has also served as Track Chair at conferences organized by the International Critical Management Studies (CMS) Group, EGOS (the European Group for Organizational Studies), and the Eastern Academy of Management. Professor Prasad has been invited to present his research at several major universities, including the University of Cambridge (U.K.), Rutgers University, and Lund University (Sweden). Before joining academe, he earned an MBA degree with concentration in finance, and worked as an executive in the commercial banking sector for nine years.