Laurence Romani

Adopting a law-in-context approach, this article suggests that merit-based migrant selection in the European Union (EU) is implicitly shaped by racial dynamics. With a focus on EU law and more specifically on cases from the Netherlands and Germany, it argues that the growing emphasis on merit enables a limited number of 'racialised others' to counterbalance the structural disadvantages associated with their citizenships, whilst simultaneously legitimising the exclusion of those considered insufficiently meritorious within the same group. By bridging two distinct strands of scholarship - critical analyses of the racial dimensions of migration policy and studies of merit-based selection mechanisms - this article advances existing debates on EU migration and asylum governance. It posits that the normative appeal of merit acts to justify existing hierarchies and to obscure the underlying racialisation processes that sustain them.

Fifteen years after the publication of the IJCCM Special Issue on paradigms in Cross-Cultural Management (Primecz et al., 2009), the editors of the most recent Special Issue invited us to reflect on its contemporary state. In this reflective piece, we consider our original motivation, which was to ensure the recognition of multiple research paradigms in Cross-Cultural Management (CCM), and question whether this remains relevant today. We also discuss our original aim and conclude by reflecting on whether a multiplicity of paradigms in CCM has been established.

This chapter equips the reader with concepts and theories for the resolution of intercultural situations. It presents three ways culture has been understood and studied in research and demonstrates their usefulness for solving global situations. The first is the positivist approach that compares and measures the impact of cultural dimensions on behaviour. The second is the interpretivist approach that provides explanation of how individuals see their cultural world and consequently act in it. The third is the critical perspective that approaches cultural differences foremost as the expression of power differences. The chapter shows, with the help of a case study that is progressively analyzed, that when used complementarily, these three approaches provide a rich and insightful conceptual framework for the analysis and efficient resolution of culture-related management situations.

How can managers reach a critical position from which to develop more responsible management practices? The literature suggests that the answer lies in critical reflexive learning, explaining how reflexivity can detach individuals from the grip of harmful ideologies. We challenge this premise, according to which critical reflexive learning and ideology are counterposed, arguing instead that they need to be studied as intertwined. We build on the organizational ethnography of a firm promoting inclusive and responsible management, studying a programme for recruitment of highly skilled migrants. Exploring managerial learning achieved through this programme, we show how critique, reflexivity and learning are closely linked to the ideological system of beliefs that naturalizes the organizational order: the organizational doxa 'Diversity is good'. This work makes the following three contributions to literature on critical reflexive learning: it stresses the currently overlooked interconnection between critical reflexivity and ideology, it shows how an ideological expression (doxa) both induces and simultaneously bounds managers' engagement with critique, and it argues for the counterintuitive possibility that critique and change can be achieved through doxa. We answer our opening question - how to reach critique and responsible change - somewhat provocatively; through the adoption of a new ideology.

Why has the gender-based reservation system not succeeded in achieving gender equality in Indian politics? Both token theory and critical mass theory posit that equilibrating number of representatives from both genders will achieve gender equality. In India, this led to the reservation system for women in politics in 1993 and an increase in women representation, in some Indian states up to 50%. Yet, we argue, these women face role encapsulation in their double minority position. Inspired by interpretivist ethnographic methods, this study investigates everyday work of women politicians (village council presidents) in Tamil Nadu. We show that in their work context, women politicians are in token positions and this contributes to understanding the modest results met with the reservation system. Simultaneously, the study points to how women use their role encapsulation within the traditional family structure to serve their political ambitions despite patriarchy. We draw attention to individual resistance, more precisely, insubordination and everyday resistance, to stress how some of these women politician are challenging patriarchy. This contributes to enriching our understanding of the forms of assimilation in token theory: for a token who experiences a double deviance, role entrapment is not as limiting as previous studies have assumed. We also argue that everyday acts of resistance can be carried out precisely through the enactment of role encapsulation and that some women reach change through this subject position, rather than in opposition to it.

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme Ethics at the centre of global and local challenges. For much of the history of the Journal of Business Ethics, ethics was seen within the academy as a peripheral aspect of business. However, in recent years, the stakes have risen dramatically, with global and local worlds destabilized by financial crisis, climate change, internet technologies and artificial intelligence, and global health crises. The authors of these commentaries address these grand challenges by placing business ethics at their centre. What if all grand challenges were framed as grand ethical challenges? Tanusree Jain, Arno Kourula and Suhaib Riaz posit that an ethical lens allows for a humble response, in which those with greater capacity take greater responsibility but remain inclusive and cognizant of different voices and experiences. Focussing on business ethics in connection to the grand(est) challenge of environmental emergencies, Steffen Böhm introduces the deceptively simple yet radical position that business is nature, and nature is business. His quick but profound side-step from arguments against human–nature dualism to an ontological undoing of the business–nature dichotomy should have all business ethics scholars rethinking their “business and society” assumptions. Also, singularly concerned with the climate emergency, Boudewijn de Bruin posits a scenario where, 40 years from now, our field will be evaluated by its ability to have helped humanity emerge from this emergency. He contends that Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth) v. Royal Dutch Shell illustrates how human rights take centre stage in climate change litigation, and how business ethics enters the courtroom. From a consumer ethics perspective, Deirdre Shaw, Michal Carrington and Louise Hassan argue that ecologically sustainable and socially just marketplace systems demand cultural change, a reconsideration of future interpretations of “consumer society”, a challenge to the dominant “growth logic” and stimulation of alternative ways to address our consumption needs. Still concerned with global issues, but turning attention to social inequalities, Nelarine Cornelius links the capability approach (CA) to global and corporate governance, arguing that CA will continue to lie at the foundation of human development policy, and, increasingly, CSR and corporate governance. Continuing debate on the grand challenges associated with justice and equality, Laurence Romani identifies a significant shift in the centrality of business ethics in debates on managing (cultural) differences, positing that dialogue between diversity management and international management can ground future debate in business ethics. Finally, the essay concludes with a commentary by Charlotte Karam and Michelle Greenwood on the possibilities of feminist-inspired theories, methods, and positionality for many spheres of business ethics, not least stakeholder theory, to broaden and deepen its capacity for nuance, responsiveness, and transformation. In the words of our commentators, grand challenges must be addressed urgently, and the Journal of Business Ethics should be at the forefront of tackling them.

Why do highly skilled migrants encounter difficulties getting a skilled job? In this study, instead of searching for an answer in migrants' characteristics, we turn to organizations and ask: why do organizations underemploy highly skilled migrants? With an in-depth qualitative study of a programme for highly skilled migrants' labour integration in Sweden, we show that highly skilled migrants are perceived as a potential threat to organizational norms and practices. Using the relational theory of risk - approaching risk as socially constructed - the study provides a novel explanation for highly skilled migrants' underemployment. It shows an organization logic protecting corporate practices seen as 'normal' from a perceived disruption that employing highly skilled migrants could possibly cause. Theoretical contributions to the understanding of highly skilled migrants' employability are threefold: (1) the field assumption that organizations are in favour of hiring migrants is challenged; (2) highly skilled migrants' underemployment is explained through a protective organizational logic; and (3) we stress the necessity to problematize an implicit reference to organizational normality when recruiting.

Allt fler företag i Sverige försöker öka mångfalden bland sina anställda utifrån en övertygelse om att grupper bestående av olika personer är mer kreativa och innovativa och utifrån värderingar som är baserade på allas lika värde. Till exempel skriver en detaljhandelskoncern på sin hemsida: "Mångfald är nödvändigt för att vi ska kunna skapa inkluderande och innovativa företag. Mångfald och integration är en av de viktigaste samhälls- och hållbarhetsfrågorna just nu." Detta kapitel handlar om det mångfalsarbete som bedrivs i svenska företag och förändringspotentialen i detta arbete. 

In this editorial, we plea for radicalizing diversity research by re‐engaging with the notion of class. We argue that theories of class, which are today seldom used in critical diversity research, have the potential to conceptualize the relationship between difference and power in ways that go beyond the current focus on equality within capitalist organizations. Theories of class radicalize diversity research by providing a conceptual vocabulary to ground the critique of diversity in the critique of capitalism. To highlight this potential, we first reconstruct the ideological historical context of the 1980s in which diversity research emerged, re‐embedding it in a broader political project to restructure the economy, work and society as a whole. We then present four main uses of the concept of class in management and organization studies and the theoretical traditions that underpin them. We go on to introduce the four contributions to this Special Section, illustrating how class, variously understood, can inform critical understandings of diversity. We conclude by leveraging class within four strategies for more radical diversity scholarship: classing workers, occupations, and workplaces; classing diversity; classing meritocracy; and classing struggles for social justice.

Cross-Cultural Management Revisited offers an interpretive analysis using national sense-making frames. The authors explain at length and very convincingly through the 16 chapters that there are, indeed, sufficient regularities within a national entity and through time, to talk about persistent cultural references (cultural interpretation frames). Faithful to the interpretivist tradition, they do not pre-define these frames, but rather work on identifying them throughout the narratives of the persons they interview. They explicate how such frames of interpretation are a part of the way we approach and perform everyday work, but also, how these interpretive frames support the premises on which many management tools have developed. In a nutshell, the first element that makes this volume outstanding is that it takes a qualitative interpretivist and inductive approach to the study of national cultures.