Valuing different shades of blue: From diversity to inclusion and the challenge of harnessing difference

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine Australian efforts to promote gender equality in policing, suggesting that future police leaders will be confronted with the challenge of ensuring that their organisations are not only demographically diverse, but more importantly, that they are inclusive.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper utilises current Australian efforts to promote gender equality (case study), as a means of examining the way in which the conceptual distinction between diversity and inclusion plays out in practice.

Findings

The paper finds that current efforts to promote gender equality are being used as a proxy for diversity more broadly and are overly focussed upon demographic diversity. Less attention is being paid to the development of inclusive work environments, which will present a challenge to future leaders who are required to manage more heterogenous workforces.

Research limitations/implications

Research into the efficacy of existing strategies, which will further theoretical debate, is proposed, with a call for research by those from a wider range of disciplines, in addition to psychology and management studies, being made.

Practical implications

It is recommended that policing organisations utilise language focussed upon inclusion rather than diversity and foster cultures of learning, beginning at the academy.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the global debate on workforce diversity by drawing on a Southern Hemisphere perspective on contemporary efforts in policing. This complements extant studies on diversity which emanate primarily from the UK and USA, and provides an important reflection for police organisations across the world as they proceed with good intentions around creating much needed cultures of difference in thinking and operating.

Citation

McLeod, A. and Herrington, V. (2017), "Valuing different shades of blue: From diversity to inclusion and the challenge of harnessing difference", International Journal of Emergency Services, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 177-187. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJES-04-2017-0021