The managing diversity mindset in public versus private organizations in India

Abstract

This paper explores the managing diversity mindset in the Indian public and private sector organizations. In-depth interviews were conducted on site with senior managers in a variety of private and public sector Indian organizations in December 2009. We compare the managing diversity attitudes, policies and practices in multinational corporations (MNCs) operating in India with those of the public sector organizations regulated by the Indian affirmative action policy of ‘reservation’ for the scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes and the other backward classes. Our findings indicate that, although attempts are being made by the government to extend reservation into the private sector, the current focus of voluntary managing diversity efforts in MNCs is exclusively on women while the reservation regulating public sector is primarily in compliance mode.

Keywords:

• affirmative action
• human resource management (HRM)
• India
• managing diversity
• multinational corporations (MNCs)
• other backward classes (OBCs)
• private sector
• public sector
• reservation
• scheduled castes (SCs)
• scheduled tribes (STs)
• women

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (SICI), New Delhi, India, for partial funding for this study. The author is also grateful to all the participants for sharing their valuable time and insights which made this research study possible.