The Learning Organization: Implementing Diversity Policies in German Universities

This Research Full Paper deals with the institutionalization of diversity management in German universities, which only started after the Bologna Reform at the end of the 1990s, the Excellence Initiative starting in 2006 and the passing of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG) in 2006. The aim is to explore the motives of universities behind the implementation of diversity management and identify isomorphic mechanisms in the process of the implementation. Further, the paper conducts a first stocktaking of practical anti- discrimination work at German universities carried out through the organizational practice to identify further connecting factors and problematic situations. To answer the research questions, five expert interviews were conducted with diversity officers from two universities and three engineering universities in five different German states. Among other things, it was found that the interviewees rejected the term diversity management due to its underlying economic logic and preferred the more current term diversity policies. Moreover, from a university perspective, a total of eight different motives for implementing diversity policies were identified: Anti-discrimination, external effectiveness, acquisition of external funding, legislation, favorable investment compared to other measures, intrinsic motivation, potential approach, and exemplary function. Thus, universities initially try to appear diverse externally to meet the rationality expectations of their environment and only supplement this external effect with the appropriate measures and structures over time, while the motivation of diversity officers is intrinsic. This is also related to the fact that voting rounds slowed down processes, but universities would have to position themselves on current discourses, such as in the summer of 2020 after the racially motivated murder of George Floyd. Accordingly, it could be highlighted that the motives of diversity officers and their universities are not automatically congruent.