Marjolein Dennissen

40 The Herculean task of diversity networks example, research refutes that ethnic minority networks would provide members with much opportunities to diminish inequalities (Friedman, 1996). Also, women’s networks are often object of ridicule (Gremmen & Benschop, 2011; Vinnicombe, Singh & Kumra, 2004), affecting their legitimacy and resulting in women’s reluctance to actively participate (Bierema, 2005). In order to elaborate on these contrasting findings, I briefly turn to theories on organizational equality from the field of gender studies. Paradigms of diversity and equality in organizations As for most diversity management practices, inequality theories lie at the root of the implementation of diversity networks (Kalev et al., 2006). Theoretical insights and conceptualizations fromgender equality research have largely influenced and shaped the theory and practice of in/equality at work and in organizations (Benschop, 2006). Organizational equality is a difficult and challenging concept; it is not formulaic, there is no identifiable endpoint and every organization is unique (Ely & Meyerson, 2000b; Meyerson & Fletcher, 2000). Kolb et al. (1998) introduced a framework to summarize how organizations possibly approach organizational (gender) equality. In this framework, they distinguish between traditional approaches geared towards minority employees to get them on a par with majority employees, and non-traditional approaches that focus on changing organizational processes, work practices, and everyday interactions that contribute to the (re)production of inequalities in organizations (Acker, 2006; Ely & Meyerson, 2000a; Zanoni et al., 2010). Diversity networks are predominantly seen as an instrument to increase the number of historically marginalized employees, focusing on their numerical representation in management ranks. Diversity networks meet scholarly critique for their emphasis on fixing organizational minorities. Although this may help individual minority employees in their career advancement, organizational processes (re)producing inequalities go unchallenged (Benschop et al., 2015; Meyerson & Kolb, 2000; Zanoni et al., 2010). Some authors argue that diversity networks should focus exclusively on supporting and connecting their members, and not on broader organizational changes (Friedman, 1996). However, other authors argue that diversity networks can play a role in increasing equality (Briscoe & Safford, 2008, 2010; Githens & Aragon, 2009; McFadden & Crowley-Henry, 2017). For example, Colgan and McKearney (2012) show that an LGBT network can become an agency for change by shaping and driving the organizational sexual orientation equality agenda. Bell et al. (2011) propose that LGBT networks create opportunities to challenge the organization by providing LGBT employees with voice and visibility. Similarly, Meyerson and Fletcher (2000) propose that groups of employees can meet and discuss common problems and underlying factors which “opens up the possibility of change” (p. 135), not only for individual employees, but also for the overall organization. To understand the value of diversity networks for organizational equality, I develop a theoretical framework that can take into account the contribution of diversity networks to organizational equality on multiple levels. In the following section, I present such a framework.