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In this article, we report on a multi-sited ethnographic study that investigates how the discourse of fashion influenced the design and implementation of workplace diversity management programs in six organizations. These organizations, from the Canadian petroleum and insurance industries, were manipulated by an institutional field of consultants and experts into adopting relatively superficial initiatives that lacked local relevance, and produced a high level of organizational cynicism regarding diversity. In our analysis, we particularly explore one adverse effect of this discourse of fashion; that it may trigger a form of meaningless imitation by organizations adopting diversity management initiatives, resulting in superficiality and organizational cynicism. At the same time, the discourse of fashion may also hold the key to enable meaningful change, for it has a powerful influence on organizational practitioners. Our article suggests that organizations need to be aware of the institutional field, and engage with it in a manner that imbues their initiatives with local relevance, for their initiatives to contribute to meaningful organizational change. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Diversity in the workplace has been the trend in postmodern society and this trend is not about to change. In fact, the future of the workplace is diversity. However , the challenge is to reconstruct the workplace to make it demographically, culturally, socially, emotionally, politically, morally, spiritually, and structurally more inclusive and accommodating of difference. The strategies to achieve this equity in the diverse workplace have focused on diversity management, that is, the imposition of legal control and provision of human capital tools for managers to control diversity at the expense of developing diversity leadership with human factor competency (HFC). This paper claims that these managerial strategies may be necessary but insufficient ways to positively transform the workplace for the benefit of all. The reason being that outcome of the application of the managerial model to workplace diversity is similar to workplace diversity that occurs by default--employment of minorities and women mostly at the lower level, putting a few of them in powerful middle management positions and even fewer at the senior management level in response to equity legislation and the profit motive. Data from Canada's 2006 Census of Population focusing on Aboriginal - non-Aboriginal participation in the labor force are used to illustrate this pattern. The failure of equity in the diverse workplace calls for alternative models. This paper proposes the HFC model of workplace diversity because of the model's potential capability to unleash the power of diversity to create and reproduce equitable and sustainable workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Internationally educated nurses (IEN) are a group who reflect Canada's diverse population as a result of rising immigration trends. There is increasing diversity of the general population in Canada and health service disparities exist. Reducing these disparities among the healthcare workforce and the patients they care for is important to meet language and other cultural needs of patients from different ethnic backgrounds. This article describes a study that examined internationally educated nurses' transition experiences in the field of nursing with the objective of describing their unique contributions to the patient care experience. A review of the literature provides background information, followed by the study methods, findings, and discussion. Descriptive phenomenology guided this qualitative study that included 11 participants. Findings from this study illustrate how IENs perceive themselves as an asset to nursing and patient care. Implications for the future of nursing education, practice, research, and administration are offered. Healthcare providers that reflect the diversity of Canada's population and can offer unique cultural perspective have potential to improve the patient experience during a hospital stay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]