Author: Toni Salisbury

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Research Plan – Toni

The leading question I have is not necessarily about the diversity and inclusion of the religiously different, it is more the practices and principles that are currently being applied, discussed, researched, experimented with, etc., in how to include different religions into organizations.  This initial question does not necessarily relate to my workplace any more specifically than any other diversity and inclusion research would–they all would; but I find the subtly of religious inclusion and diversity more intriguing.

I feel strongly that any learning which could come from this research would benefit every work environment I could be in, and any diversity and inclusion topic, quite specifically, because of subtlety of it.  I feel this could connect to any work that I’m a part of in the world beyond this course, and in any field of study; thus, why I chose this broad, yet subtle topic of research.

I’ve compiled articles and TED talks, which address religious diversity directly, and some address diversity, implicit biases, unlearning biases, and some more “radical” approaches to diversity some have taken, including the idea of “organizational constellations” and “rent-a minority services”, which I’m very intrigued to learn more about through just some basic information on the creator (Arwa Mahdawi) of the “rent-a-minority” concept.

In looking at sources that are not just about the religiously different and religious discrimination, I feel I will be able to understand what the different degrees of subtly may be, and hopefully understand better if what’s working for other discrimination in organizations would also be able to work with religious discrimination.  How possible is to apply these ideas from other discrimination to all; is it possible?  Is that also just another form of pluralism?

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Prompts, week of 6/22, Toni

What search tools have you tried, and what are you noticing about them?

I was inspired by one of the readings this week as a source/topic, the reading about Four Questions To Protect Your Culture From CoVID-19, and particularly the statement: “every moment is a culture-shaping moment, for good or for bad, and will continue to have an impact long after theCOVID-19 crisis.” This time I went to the SU Libraries first.  It was much more successful than my first round and I do think I have some better scholarly sources to start out with.  I already feel more secure in this endeavor than the last one with the results I saw just by one search topic in the SU Libraries.  I also will continue to use the Notetaking exercise we were given this week, to help focus the selected articles and the information most robust to my topic.  I found this very helpful and similar to what I have been doing, but with more specificity.  I also think it will help narrow down my topic more clearly.

Plot some research goals for yourself.

I plan to expand my search topics, but keeping within the pandemic/capitalism and also diversity and inclusion within that topics, i was not expecting those to be so easily searchable, but it seems there’s a breadth of discussion around all of these topics individually and together.  I feel once i have worked with the following selected sources so far, I will be able to whittle down an even more focused search criteria.

First, I’m wondering if my 1 primary source would be the article we read this week that inspired me to move forward with this topic? https://www.thinkbrighthouse.com/2020/03/4-questions-to-protect-your-culture-from-covid-19/

Other than that I am developing a nice list of scholarly sources from both general searches on the internet as well as the SU libraries.

https://hbr.org/2020/04/preparing-your-business-for-a-post-pandemic-world

https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/sr/article/view/22515

https://journals-sagepub-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/doi/10.1177/1090198120922942

https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2388163353?accountid=14214&pq-origsite=summon

https://search-proquest-com.libezproxy2.syr.edu/docview/2398213685?pq-origsite=summon&accountid=14214

 

 

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Blog Post Week of 6/15 – Toni

In Bogost’s article I do not get a firsthand sense of whether he agrees or disagrees, neither in the beginning nor at the end.  In fact, I don’t see much of a point of view of his at all. He even ends with a question that comes across as an incomplete sentence. I suppose he could be quite a rhetorical genius in this regard, as I did not feel he was arguing, persuading or had any agenda whatsoever, other than displaying information effectively.  And by effective, I mean, easily palatable and interesting for most any reader.  He is telling just what is needed from the personal experiences of Webb and how her questions formed and took her research up stream, to technical jargon that is supported by confident quotations. However, he is neither agreeing nor disagreeing nor agreeing and disagreeing at the same time. Or I cannot find places that allude to this in the piece.  He gives us a lot of good information, and I was given what I needed to follow along and continue to gain curiosity by what Webb and other’s like Bobb were arguing, both of whom were very clear on their points-of-view, in helping us to understand (lack of) diversity in tech; Bogost doesn’t even seem undecided.  It seems he does agree with both, he agrees with the problem and he also agrees with how they both disagree. However, even when he’s speaking of his own association with holding faculty positions at Georgia Tech’s Constellations Center for Equity in Computing, he gives the goals of the center and lists activities.  He states they have merit, but also mentions their impact might be a drop in the bucket.  Again, in this passive way there isn’t directly persuasive or argumentative rhetoric. While we read in TSIS this week, that it helps the reader organize around the reading if they know your argument from the start, I am basing this largely on that.  I will say, I did not need his argument to remain fascinated with the information, the examples he chose, and the quality of the writing is simple to follow, but I don’t see HIS argument in this; I hear him supporting other peoples’ arguments at the same time. I am not discounting this, and it reminds me of in Chapter 4 in TSIS, where they are referencing new students not feeling they can be a part of the conversation because they don’t know enough to argue.  While I don’t think Bogost has much of an “argument” and therefore I am not sure where to go with the question of the rhetoric shifts of his argument, but he is part of the conversation.  He’s broadening the conversation by researching, speaking with and illuminating those whom have very strong arguments for what they know, and passing it on in palatable way to the rest of us.

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Expanding the Canon, Unit 1, Week of 6/8, Toni Salisbury

Challenging the dialogic promise: how Ben & Jerry’s support for Black Lives Matter fosters dissensus on social media

Erica Ciszek & Nneka Logan

Full article here

In summary:

This article’s purpose is to advance dialogic theory by presenting an agonistic orientation toward dialogue, concluding that public relations research is enriched by a postmodern approach, recognizing dissensus as an important concept and consequence when organizations advocate on behalf of contested political and social issues. Erica Ciszek (PhD Communication & Society, University of Oregon School of Journalism & Communication and Assistant Professor, Stan School of Advertising and Public Relations) & Nneka Logan (PhD Georgia State University and Associate Professor, Department of Communication, Virginia Polytech University) ascertain how Ben & Jerry’s social media support for Black Lives Matter functions as an ideological reservoir for a variety of competing perspectives about race in the United States and the role of a corporation in these conversations. Though they are challenging consensus-driven orientations of dialogue within digital landscapes by analyzing Ben & Jerry’s support of the Black Lives Matter movement and the subsequent public response, the findings of this study elucidate the utility and implications in a public relations context in a company’s communication in corporate political advocacy. Situating value-drive over profit imperative in organizational life. I agree that by maintaining that public relations needs to continue to theorize how dialogue contextualizes these issues, it’s worth considering an instance in which an organization takes relational risks by engaging in corporate political advocacy.

Note: This article was Received 01 Dec 2017, Accepted 18 Jun 2018, Published online: 08 Aug 2018. I include these dates, as it seems important and powerful to note on Ben & Jerry’s behalf, that this was not in response to the protests going on today in 2020, but rather separate, yet all too similar, issues four years ago!

On October 6, 2016 Ben & Jerry’s posted on their website not just that Black Lives Matter, but WHY black lives matter to them.  They spoke out about how “Systemic and institutionalized racism are the defining civil rights and social justice issues of our time.”

They ask their customer base to join them in not being complicit. Illuminating a simple objective “to ensure justice-loving people act toward justice, with all evidence, and that we stand together and act from a place of power and love, rather than out of fear and anger.”

Ben & Jerry’s goes even further, educating their public on how systemic racism is real, within their own company website.

https://www.benjerry.com/whats-new/2016/systemic-racism-is-real

Today, in response to the murder of George Floyd, brands and companies are taking Ben & Jerry’s lead and speaking out against Racism, such as Nike and more effectively Viacom.  However, Ben & Jerry’s seems to always go a step further with their alliship, advocacy and calls to action, with statements on Twitter such as:

Maybe it’s because they sell Ice cream that Ben & Jerry’s can speak out so openly regardless of possible stakeholder and public alienation, and without seemingly risking the life of their organization?  Does what you sell, what business you are in, what kind of company you are, make a difference in the role you can have in corporate political advocacy? And that according to Ciszek & Logan, even while continuing to address that scholars have continually used dialogic principles to examine whether social media is dialogic, and the significance of three of the key areas to public relations theory and practice; how within digital landscapes, can there still be a mode of inquiry in line with critical theory, that is also concerned with the flow and play of power through public discourse?

Why this? While I couldn’t find information on how any minority employees at Ben & Jerry’s might feel going to work each day (as originally intended), and as a white person I can not even begin to assume anything about this; what I can say is that, Ben & Jerry’s has proven that it is possible for organizations to take relational risks by engaging in corporate political advocacy, regardless of dialogical theory, and I appreciate that they don’t let anything like that deter them.

 

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DRAFT – Expanding the Canon, Unit 1, Toni

To begin my research on the how the social mission of Ben & Jerry’s has survived and lives in their workforce, I have had trouble finding scholarly articles that delineate this aspect of the business.  There are a lot of scholarly articles that speak about some of the challenges Ben & Jerry’s have had, but no conclusive scholarly articles, currently, about their successes, despite their earlier difficulties.

For the sake of finally getting something posted I went with this article, which  has good introductory information but I am aware the source is not strong enough. Alas…

Matthew Lam, a writer and intern at Cornell SC Johnson College of business, who writes for the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise News, presents Ben & Jerry’s as a company that is committed to it’s cause: valuing social justice and remaining unabashedly progressive in their politics. Ben & Jerry’s has a three-part mission, which aims to create linked prosperity for everyone that’s connected to their business and as Lam discovers, their three prongs of their  mission are lined up next to one another in the company graphic; with the belief that displaying them in another way would lead employees to subconsciously rank them in importance. Through speaking with Rob Michalak, Global Director of Social Mission @benandjerrys, Lam learns that Ben & Jerry’s makes deliberate and tangible choices, incentivizing suppliers to make more environmentally sustainable and animal-friendly choices, and was one of the first companies to pay a living wage, now boasting one of the lowest wage compression ratios its workforce in the country. Even though Ben & Jerry’s was acquired by a multinational consumer goods giant in 2000, this atypical acquisition provided for an independent board of directors composed of Ben & Jerry’s original leadership, and experts in the fields of environmental sustainability, human rights, and other social issues. Ben & Jerry’s employees remain just as enthusiastic about their ice cream as they are about progressive political and social causes, and as a so-called “activist company,” Ben & Jerry’s leadership and culture, the holistic choices it has made, and the socially responsible reputation it has built, is not just PR it’s Philanthropy.

Ben & Jerry’s: Committed to the cause

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Expanding the Canon, Week of 6/1 [Toni]

In this article, Janice Gassam reports in Forbes magazine on Ben & Jerry’s and how they created a new flavor last September to highlight racism and criminal justice reform called Justice ReMix’d. Gassam efficiently displays action Ben & Jerry’s takes to demonstrate commitment to diversity and inclusion and provides examples your company can learn from. A quick peruse of Ben & Jerry’s website will reveal several different social issues they’ve been vocal about over the years, and a large part of their three-part mission is aiming to create linked prosperity for everyone that’s connected to their business: suppliers, employees, farmers, franchisees, customers, and neighbors alike. For Justice ReMix’d they partnered with Advancement Project National Office, which uses innovative tools and strategies to strengthen social movements and achieve high impact policy change. Gassam illuminates how Ben & Jerry’s encourages companies to consider being outspoken about their corporate stances on social justice issues; to be mindful of alliances and partnerships, acknowledging relationships based on profitability alone may not be the wisest, and looks into Ben & Jerry’s proven and long history of partnerships with social advocacy groups, all while making ice cream just for the sake of ice cream!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2019/09/04/ben-jerrys-creates-new-flavor-to-highlight-racism-and-criminal-justice-reform/#798be21e44b4

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Prompt questions, week of 6/1 [Toni]

  1. I’m looking for companies that are able to show more than just figures of diversity, companies transparent about how marginalized and minority peoples feel comfortable in going to work every day. Not only producing diverse organizational percentages, but a step further in researching ways minority groups feel supported walking through the door every day; producing better because of outwardly supportive allies as leaders; perhaps feeling less like a statistic only helping a company appear diverse. I came upon Ben & Jerry’s excellent explanation of systemic racism and was off and running with what this ICE CREAM company is doing.  It’s simple, it’s fairly grassroots, but it’s effective and I would love to delve more into their actual offices, if possible, to see how it operates and to see how they came upon this simple, effective, poignant, activism that’s as palatable as their ice cream flavors. I have these two inspiring sources do far:

https://www.benjerry.com/home/whats-new/2016/systemic-racism-is-real

https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegassam/2019/09/04/ben-jerrys-creates-new-flavor-to-highlight-racism-and-criminal-justice-reform/#653e2f244b47

2.While Austin and Pisano are positively exposing and representing neurodiverse peoples, emphasizing overall the advantages of having them on a team, they also look at the impact of including differently abled people and the overall challenges, mostly discussing how management and leadership is being affected and molded through this process, unfolding how important adapting leadership to the inclusion and diversity process is.  Likewise, in Kaplan and Donovan’s topic of understanding Key Diversity & Inclusion Concepts they look at how conversations about unconscious bias and insider–outsider dynamics can easily be lost in the noise of the daily office grind, taking us through the day and life of “Kim”, whom represents a composite of managers they’ve interacted with over the past twenty years, and how intent frequently does not equal impact and when brought into the public light, the special facilities have an impact vastly different from the intention.

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Summary: Austin & Pisano, week of 6/1 [Toni]

Austin & Pisano’s Harvard Business Review looks at neurodiversity as a competitive advantage through the problem of a population with neurological conditions having extraordinary skills, but remaining largely untapped.  Several companies have reformed HR practices to capitalize on the talents of neurodiverse people, and in this process became better able to leverage skills of all workers. Because neurodiverse people frequently need workplace accommodations, managers have begun thinking about leveraging talents of all employees through greater sensitivity to individual needs, realizing everyone is to some extent differently abled as a result of our inherent “machinery”.  Still, neurodiverse unemployment rates run high and even when they are working, they are often settling for jobs many leave behind in high school. It comes down to finding and recruiting, and common notions of what makes a good employee, which has “redlined” neurodiverse talent with needed skills. The behaviors of many neurodiverse people counter common notions of what makes a good employee; common criteria which screens out neurodiversity and is not the only way to add value. In recent decades competitive edge from innovation has become crucial, which calls on those who see things differently, offsetting tendencies for companies to look in only one direction.

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Prompt Discussion/Responses

Prompt 1) The standard way of thinking about diversity policies has it that they are instrumental in stimulating minority leadership and impacting leadership self-perceptions of minority categories in organizations. However, by manipulating the environment to the degree in which they did in Gundemir et al’s argument, I was left wondering what would happen if they spent time in actual environments, those known to have undergone diversion policy integration, to see how it’s operating without any manipulations.  This was such a scientific experiment, it seemed to lack an experiential human component of observation and witness.  In tern eliminating a sense of the call and response of human interaction that takes place on a daily basis in the workplace.

Prompt 2) While many might automatically assume that any efforts to expand on and progress any type of diversity in the workplace, whether we are looking at how diversity is framed, or the opportunities and challenges diversity brings to a workplace; they are efforts generally determined as good works automatically.  Gundemir et al make very thorough attempts to show factual data of the findings of their research, and Austin and Pisano speak very freely about the current low standard deviation of neurodiversity in our society.  They both implicate clearly why and what the challenges are in changing certain low standard deviations when it comes to diversity in the workplace.  I wonder though, by just bringing these things to attention, is there actual impact from this that is scalable?  Not in the diversity itself, but the research being done about diversity.

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Discussion Post, Week of 5/25 [Toni]

Formal organizational diversity policies and how they affect minorities’ self-perceptions and goals in leadership, seem to be based on statistics of findings through the lens of subcategories of multiculturalism, valuing interindividual differences and valuing homogeneity.  These three subcategories seem to increase perceptions of an open diversity climate, which in turn enhances leadership self-efficacy. I feel ill-equipped to analyze or even summarize these findings I attempted to follow throughout this article. It’s incredibly well researched and documented.  It’s made clear that many sources are out there to say that, “minority leadership is crucial to optimally utilize the talent of all employees for competitive advantage,” but it’s also stated that such initiatives, such as affirmative action, are often accompanied by unintended negative consequences.  Further attempting to study if cultural intervention in the form of diversity policies can be instrumental in stimulating minority leadership and impacting leadership self-perceptions, they manipulate the environment to see the extent that such policies succeed in creating a climate for diversity, and if they will positively influence minority employees.  However, without the manipulations in place, one might wonder what the real life impacts these cultural interventions actually have? And is the real goal diversity? Or apparent diversity so long as it benefits the company at large?