If business is investigating so heavily in the subject, business schools must begin shifting their priorities to reflect similar values. This, in turn, is allowing professors who have in the past been marginalized within the business school community for pursuing such work, to gain new credibility and turn the subject into a significant academic discipline. Managing Employee Diversity as a Vital Resource , which has been adopted by approximately 45 business schools as part of the reading lists in their diversity and organizations behavior courses. She said that for some time corporations have been evaluating their policies, procedures and cultures to identify the impediments to making diversity a strength in the workplace - knowing it is essential to their survival in the global economy. The reasons business schools are behind in addressing this issue are tied to their organizational cultures, she said.
Organizations reflect the values of their founders, key managers and workers.
Business schools, unlike American corporations, still remain homogeneous, dominated by white males with little first-hand experience with diversity. This in turn, has resulted in little appreciation for the subject, she said. At Dow, Shellenberger said, every new employee goes through an orientation in which diversity is discussed in great detail during a week-long orientation process. Increasingly, Shellenberger said, Dow will make the ability of employees to manage and operate in diverse work teams a criteria for employment. Taylor Cox, associate professor of organizational behavior and human resource management in the University of Michigan's School of Business, said the commitment on the part of industry is what is needed to change business school attitudes on diversity.