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undisputed employer of choice.’ The firm
appears to be committed to developing and
maintaining diversity at every level of the
company.
The data in this study was gathered over
a period of three months with the conduct of
six one-half-day focus groups. Each focus
group was composed of a group of approximately
ten members of the banking group
that provides financial services to businesses.
The focus group participants were selected
because they fit into a protected category, i.e.
historically minority status. Consequently this
sample included the minority personnel and
a cross-section of female personnel and represented
approximately 10 per cent of the employees
in this nationwide unit of the bank.
This sample was intended to be inclusive of
diversity personnel in order to focus on airing
all the major issues that concerned these protected
groups. Personnel were brought to the
focus group location from across the United
States. Two focus groups were conducted in
Princeton, New Jersey, and four groups were
conducted in Chicago.
The executive in charge of the financial services
business unit that the focus groups were
drawn from made a point of coming to each
group and expressed his support for the diversity
management project and this fact-finding
research. Participants were impressed with his
support. This was a key element to making the
focus groups successful. It is clear that visible
executive support is an essential element for
success.
The participants in the diversity focus
groups seemed to appreciate the cathartic
experience of talking about a subject that they
had some uncertainty about. Many lacked
even a basic knowledge of the diversity mission
of their corporation. They were both
interested and generally pleased to discuss
this topic. Several said they ‘never expected to
have an opportunity to discuss these sensitive
issues’.
There were no major complaints that could
be labelled as unique to this corporate unit.
Some participants, who had worked in other
units of the firm reported that this unit was
much more diversity friendly than their previous
group. Although this was a long-standing
unit of more than six hundred members, there
have been no catalytic events in recent
memory in the unit that would serve as a flash
point for concern over diversity. The incidents
reported by the participants were generally
not egregious nor widely discussed by coworkers.
The negative incidents seemed to be
considered as isolated incidents and not
representative of the attitudes and behaviour
of the majority of unit personnel.
Most of the persons in the focus groups
were quite ignorant of what their company
had done or not done with diversity initiatives.
They had queries for information and in
a sense the focus groups became a form of
action research because the participants’
questions were answered and they received
new information on what was happening.
Eden and Huxham (1999) point out why
action research has become ‘increasingly
prominent’ in the study of organizations when
they indicate it is: ‘research which broadly,
results from an involvement by the researcher
with members of an organisation over a
matter which is of genuine concern to them
and in which there is an intent by the organisation
members to take action based on the
intervention’ (p. 272).
Developing and conducting the focus
groups was a prelude to further action
research. It should be noted that this focus
group process was a catalyst for an evolving
diversity initiative that included the establishment
of a ‘diversity council’ to suggest
and monitor future actions. In this way the
© 2004 Sandra Oliver for editorial matter and selection;
individual chapters, the contributors