The globalization of organizations and the changing demographics of workforce around the world have driven much interest in the areas of diversity and diversity management (DM) among management scholars and practitioners (Olsen & Martins, 2012). Originally instigated from Anglo-American origins, diversity management (DM) has assumed greater importance in other parts of the world. Specially, big organizations are claiming diversity as a core value, and are continuously initiating policies and programs with respect to diversity management (Jackson, Joshi & Erhardt, 2004). However, various research studies have shown that translation and transmission of DM outside a specific context is quite difficult and challenging (Merilainen, et al. 2009). This can be possibly due to the reason that most of the research on diversity management has been situated in Western countries and it is argued that such an approach may not hold well for diversity management in other national contexts due to differences in socio-economic conditions, national legislation, culture, demography and history (Klarsfeld et al.,2012; Sawyer & Thoroughgood, 2012).
The aim of this research study is to propose a framework which is supported by “contextual” conceptualization of diversity management, that can help in studying the international transfer and translation of diversity management practices. The “contextual” conceptualization explains that instead of unimpeded transference and implementation of diversity management strategies, there is a need to consider the tailormade strategies based on the local context. Considering the fact that relocating people management practices from one context to other has been proved to be challenging, it does not mean that one society cannot not learn from other (Syed, 2009). However, diversity as a concept has different meanings and applications depending on where you are in the world (Issa, 2011). This indicates that the manner through which diversity is comprehended vary from country to country depending on the composition of its people. So, there is a need to understand both local and global form of diversity management.
This research study is going to focus on how diversity management practices are transferred and translated in local context. Research gap is evident from the fact that not any prominent study has been conducted to present the framework of transfer and translation of diversity management practices. This research study is going to fill this gap by presenting a theoretical framework of translation and contextualization of diversity management practices.
