Review of Workforce Diversity Content in Organizational Behavior Texts

In the past decade, the topic of workforce diversity (WD) gained prominence in organizational behavior (OB) texts as authors acknowledged the changing demographics of the US and its impact on employment trends and business and public organizations. For this article, the authors examined ten of the most widely used OB texts as defined by major academic publishers. They based their assessment on five criteria: 1. focus of WD in the text and its definition, 2. extent of WD integration in the OB material, 3. authors' approach to the treatment of WD including underlying assumptions, 4. readability and sense-making of WD material, and 5. strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement. Some progress has been made toward including WD in OB texts over the last 10 years; however, texts that the authors reviewed, for the most part, lag behind what they find in business and management practice.