A systematic review of job-related diversity and future research directions

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-12-2021-0324
• Published date: 09 May 2022
• Date: 09 May 2022
• Pages: 1181-1208
• Subject Matter: HR & organizational behaviour,Employment law,Diversity,equality,inclusion
• Author: Shatrughan Yadav,Usha Lenka

A systematic review of job-related

diversity and future

research directions

Shatrughan Yadav and Usha Lenka

Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee,

Roorkee, India

Abstract

Purpose –Job-related diversity is significantly different from demographic diversity, referring to diverse

skills, knowledge, and perspectives. Despite the significant relevance of diversity literature, researchers have

paid relatively less attention to job-related diversity dimensions like functional, educational, and tenure

diversity. This study aims to analyze the scattered job-related diversity literature and identify mediating,

moderating, and outcome variables, including dominant theories, methodological practices, and statistical

techniques that affect performance outcomes.

Design/methodology/approach –This paper consolidates the job-related diversity literature and conducts

a systematic review to fill the research gap. This study undertook a systematic review of 101 articles on job-

related diversity published between 1991 and 2020 in academic management journals.

Findings –This study has synthesized several theoretical frameworks and proposed an integrative

framework of job-related diversity for future research and theory development. Conclusively, this study has

highlighted the gaps, advanced the knowledge in job-related diversity, and suggested future research avenues

and implications.

Originality/value –This study is the first systematic review of job-related diversity, which acknowledges the

importance of job-related diversity literature. Job-related diversity has received significant attention in the

crisis-like situation during COVID-19 to develop innovative ideas and decision-making from different

perspectives.

Keywords Educational diversity, Functional diversity, Job-related diversity, Tenure diversity, Systematic

review

Paper type Literature review

1. Introduction

In a globally competitive business environment, organizations confront challenges, which

can be addressed by having a diverse workforce. Diversity is a strategic approach for

continuous creativity and innovation and is recognized as an important factor in fostering

organizational innovation, competitive advantages, and sustainable performance (Schubert

and Tavassoli, 2020). With this attention, diversity has gained interest in understanding

diversity literature with novel perspectives. Diversity refers to any compositional differences

among people within a work unit (Roberson, 2019). Diversity attributes to individual

differences based on physical attributes (i.e. age, gender, race and nationality) and

psychological attributes (i.e. personality, attitudes, and values) (Harrison et al., 1998;Van Dijk

et al., 2012). Several diversity dimensions and types of diversity have been theoretically and

empirically examined, and the literature differentiated into demographic or visible (i.e. age,

Analyzing

job-related

diversity

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The authors gratefully acknowledge the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and

constructive comments to improve this paper. Furthermore, the authors would like to thankthe Editorial

Board of the Equality Diversity and Inclusion journal.

Funding: This study was supported by University Grants Commission, New Delhi, India under the

scheme Junior Research Fellowship in Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences s [3548/(NET-

JULY2016)].

Received 23 December 2021

Revised 17 April 2022

Accepted 21 April 2022

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 41 No. 8, 2022

pp. 1181-1208

© Emerald Publishing Limited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-12-2021-0324

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/2040-7149.htm

gender and race) (Milliken and Martins, 1996), job-related diversity (like education, function

and tenure) (Pelled, 1996;Webber and Donahue, 2001), and psychological attributes such as

personalities, values, and attitudes (Harrison et al., 1998). Thus, different researchers have

proposed different classifications.

For instance, Milliken and Martins (1996) have differentiated diversity into observable

(age, gender, race) and underlying or non-observable attributes (personality, values,

functional, education, and tenure). Pelled (1996) has categorized diversity into less job-related

(age, gender and race) and high job-related (functional background, education and tenure)

based on job-relatedness nature. Harrison et al. (1998) have further classified diversity into

surface-level and deep-level diversity. Surface-level diversity refers to differences among

people, easily recognized and reflected in their physical attributes such as age, gender, and

race. Deep-level diversity refers to differences in people’s psychological attributes, such as

attitudes, personality, and values, which cannot be easily identified and measured (Harrison

et al., 1998;Yadav and Lenka, 2020). Besides these diversity classifications, diversity

researchers have conducted a series of qualitative reviews (Milliken and Martins, 1996;

Jackson et al., 2003;van Knippenberg and Schippers, 2007;Williams and O’Reilly, 1998;

Roberson, 2019), systematic reviews (Roberson et al., 2017;Yadav and Lenka, 2020),

conceptual studies (Pelled, 1996;Harrison and Klein, 2007;Van Knippenberg et al., 2004),

meta-analyses (Bell et al., 2011;Horwitz and Horwitz, 2007;Joshi and Roh, 2009;Van Dijk et al.,

2012;Webber and Donahue, 2001), bibliometric review (Yadav and Lenka, 2022) and many

more empirical studies. Despite using a different methodological approach, these studies

have reviewed the same set of dimensions like age, gender, race, and ethnicity, focusing on

demographic, team diversity, and workgroup diversity. Thou gh these studies have

highlighted diversity literature, their focus was only on surface-level diversity, and less

attention has paid to understand the job-related diversity.

Further, in a comparative study between demographic and job-related diversity

dimensions, Jackson et al. (2003) found that demographic diversity has attracted about

89% of the research attention compared to job-related diversity. Also, in a recent

systematic review, Yadav and Lenka (2020) showed that 71% of studies focused on

demographic or relations-oriented diversity, while only 29% included job-related

diversity. Hence, despite the increasing academic interest in diversity research, there is

a minimal understanding of job-related literature. Given this limited attention, job-related

diversity literature needs to be highlighted so future researchers can understand its

importance. Thus, it is vital to study job-related diversity, which is highly unexplored and

a gray area that needs to be explored. Therefore, this study’sprimaryobjectiveistoreview

job-related diversity literature. To do this study, systematically review job-related

diversity (JRD) literature focused on functional, education, and tenure diversity and offer

meaningful insights into the state of the field. Indeed, the existing framework of JRD is

focused on either a single dimension (functional, education, or tenure) or combined with

surface-level diversity dimensions, and there is no exclusive framework of JRD. In

addition, many empirical studies, including meta-analytic studies (Horwitz and Horwitz,

2007;Joshi and Roh, 2009), are cross-sectional, and some are intervention studies (Sung

and Choi, 2019). Intervention studies are necessary to highlight significant contextual and

process factors influencing performance. However, the existing literature has limited

understanding of the combined effect of JRD attributes and how intervening mechanisms

affect individual, group, and organizational performance. Thus, this study has integrated

scattered JRD literature and conducted a systematic review to develop an integrative

framework of job-related diversity. Based on the above logic, this study has identified

mediators, moderators, and outcome variables to propose an integrative framework for

JRD. This objective is carried forward by conducting a systematic review by addressing

the following research question.

EDI

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