Cloning cultural homogeneity while talking diversity: Old wine in new bottles in Dutch work organizations?

In this paper I use what I call the 4‐D model to qualify four different approaches to ethnic integration in the Netherlands: (cultural) deficit, (cultural) differentiation, (anti) discrimination, and (managing) diversity. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, public policymakers endorsed positive action, a controversial instrument aimed at countering gender and racial‐ethnic discrimination in hiring procedures. The results have been meager. Unemployment rates among ethnic minorities are still high, while cultural cloning, the privileging of masculine and white profiles, continues to keep higher management and leadership levels culturally homogenous. In response, the concept of managing diversity is gaining popularity. Diversity appeals to the Dutch national selfimage of liberalism and tolerance. But there is little if any understanding of the meaning and implications of managing diversity. Moreover, in practice, managing diversity is about "including difference" without problematizing the underlying processes of cultural cloning. It remains to be seen how useful this concept is after all.