Marjolein Dennissen

128 The Herculean task of diversity networks Rethinking diversity management through a practice-based approach My third contribution concerns the use of a practice-based approach as a novel perspective to study diversity management. Central to a practice-based approach is the orientation toward practices, that is, what people actually say and do in action and in interaction (Nicolini, 2009; Yanow, 2006). By engaging in practices, people can either reproduce or challenge organizational matters (Nicolini, 2009, 2012). The idea that a diversity management practice consists of a set of real-time sayings and doings provides a processual understanding of diversity management. Instead of focusing on “the substance of a [diversity management] practice”, attention shifts to how these practices are accomplished, analyzing it as a way of networking, a way of training, a way of mentoring ( Janssens & Steyaert, 2019, p. 530). Moreover, studying practices helps to uncover the unre exive and taken-for-granted patterns of activities that reproduce, shape, or change organizational matters (Nicolini, 2012; Schatzki, Knorr-Cetina &Von Savigny, 2001), such as equality and inequality. As such, a practice perspective offers a novel approach to diversity management research (cf. Janssens & Steyaert, 2019). With my dissertation, I contributed to the diversity management literature by taking practices as the unit of analysis and showed what diversity networks actually do to make a contribution to organizational equality. My exploration of diversity networking practices sheds light on the sociopolitical processes that diversity networks, as networks, collectively engage in when they (net)work for equality. As a collective network, network members can negotiate, contest, and shape organizational policies and processes. By engaging in practices such as appealing to organizational responsibility and shaping organizational policies, diversity networks are able to challenge the organization on inequality-related issues. Diversity networks are able to fulfill the role of a sparring partner for management and offer advice on diversity- and equality- related issues, such as work-life arrangements or partner benefits (Githens, 2009; Gremmen & Benschop, 2013). As such, diversity networks have the potential to put diversity and equality issues on the agendas of both HR and the organizational management. In this dissertation, I showed how the task of working for equality under the umbrella of management is complicated and prone to tensions. Embedded in organizations, diversity networks must maneuver between their own objectives in striving for organizational equality and the goals of the organizations’ management (Briscoe & Safford, 2011; Foldy, 2002; Scully & Segal, 2002). Working, and, moreover, networking for equality in organizations is complex due to the closeness of the power that is contested (Scully & Segal, 2002), and equality goals may be harnessed to the goals of the organization (Foldy, 2002). This makes networking for equality with the organizational management more difficult than networking within the confined space of the network, such as undoing otherness. In a power-laden organizational context, this involves a meticulous balancing act (Colgan & McKearney, 2012, p. 362) wherein diversity networks must keep an attuned relationship to management to lever financial resources and support (Scully & Segal, 2002) but without losing the possibility to contribute to organizational equality. Adopting a practice lens allowed me to reveal exactly how diversity networks perform