Discourse or Reality? Diversity management in a junior company

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Summary

The teaching case addresses diversity management in the context of a junior enterprise and in the face of the impact of the movement Black Lives Matter . The discussion of this issue enables the debate of diversity in organizational practice, as well as its limitations among organizations in Brazil and in the Junior Enterprise Movement. From the perspective of Lucas and Bruna, Entrepreneurs¹ Sensitive to the topic, the participants of the debate will be encouraged to reflect on positions on the theme of racism, as well as the insertion of the broader issue of diversity in the strategic agenda and in organizational practice. The case can be used in disciplines of People Management, Organizational Studies and Critical Studies in Administration.

Keywords: diversity, racism, junior enterprise, EYM.

Abstract

This teaching case addresses the management of diversity in a junior enterprise facing the impact of the Black Lives Matter movement. The debate of this matter creates the possibility to discuss diversity in organizational practice, as well as its limits among organizations in Brazil and in the Junior Enterprise Movement. From the perspective of Lucas and Bruna, junior entrepreneurs sensitive to the issue, the participants of the debate will be encouraged to reflect about racism, as well as the integration of broader issues of diversity in the strategic agenda and in organizational practice. This case can be used in Human Resources, Organizational and Business Management Critical Studies.

Keywords: diversity, racism, junior enterprise.

Black Lives Matter: The Structural Problem of Racism Has Become Evident

"I can't breathe." These were the last words that George Floyd, a black man, on May 25, 2020 in the city of Minneapolis in the United States, said while a white police officer knelt on his neck for a long eight minutes and forty-six seconds, which choked him to death.

This phrase resonated for many days in the minds of Lucas and Bruna, college classmates and members of Impact Consultoria Júnior. The video that went viral on social media made them, black university students, feel something they had never felt before. Despite knowing racism in its reality, Lucas was surprised to carefully observe the movements that grew in the following days, expressing a level of indignation that was silent.

During this period, the international activist movement Black Lives Matter , in Portuguese: "Black Lives Matter", became stronger and stronger, creating marches and demonstrations around the world, which became news that traveled the globe. Bruna realized that the revolting event brought greater visibility to the anti-racist struggle, bringing through nonconformity the discussion about such prejudices that exist in Brazil.

Given the indignation resulting from this event, the discussion on the topic has also become more present in organizations, impacting the strategies of several brands, which repudiated what happened. Bruna and Lucas felt more motivated to better understand what was going on and realized that the topic of diversity in organizations was urgent, that it was necessary for them to be not only more sensitive to the topic, but to have concrete action plans to deal with a problem of such complexity.

What the friends didn't expect was that, within a few days of the start of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, they would have to put into practice what they learned about diversity management in the company they worked for, in view of a scandal involving an anti-racist discourse and the factual reality of diversity present in their organization.

A Crisis on Diversity at Impact Consultoria Júnior: speech Versus reality

Lucas and Bruna are members of the Junior Enterprise Movement (MEJ) and work at Impact Consultoria Júnior, or just Impact Jr., a recognized EJ in the market with more than 15 years of experience, which, like much of the MEJ, is in a reality of little diversity. However, even though it has been criticized over the years, the company has never formally carried out a plan to implement or think about diversity and inclusion. On many occasions, the exclusionary reality of Impact Jr. was discussed by university students in face-to-face conversations and on social networks, such as Whatsapp, which damaged the image of EJ with the students of the course, its main stakeholders, which worried the two friends.

In 2020, the criticism became even more incisive and frequent, not only externally, but also internally, with the active participation of Lucas and Bruna.

With the death of George Floyd, the whole world found itself in a great movement against racism and the death of black people, the Black Lives Matter gained evidence and mobilized people. Given the indignation resulting from this event, the discussion on the topic has become more present in organizations, impacting the strategies of several brands, which have positioned themselves in the face of the situation repudiating the event. Some did so in a genuine way and were supported, while others were judged by the difference between discourse and practice.

Immersed in this reality, Impact Jr., through its outsourced marketing company, decided to speak out in favor of this movement on its Institutional Instagram, which maintains contact mainly with customers and students. Thus, a post was created, which was exemplified below, without any elaborate caption.

Such a manifestation generated great repercussion and dissatisfaction among students of the course, who considered the publication as a "post of empty words". Some stated that they saw Impact as an elitist company with no room for diversity.

In view of the situation, discussions about the elitist reality of EJ were raised again, provoking long and impactful debates that considerably worsened the company's image before a group of stakeholders. In this scenario, Impact Jr. concluded that it needed to officially pronounce itself on what happened, this time, in an appropriate way, and Lucas and Bruna decided that they should be active agents of change. So they started studying.

Managing diversity in organizational practice

After a lot of research, Bruna realized that diversity is an umbrella term, with several concepts and meanings for so many researchers. It refers to a "mix of people with different identities interacting in the same social system" (Fleury, 2000). It is their sociodemographic, cognitive, functional background, attitudes, values, beliefs, and origin characteristics that contribute to the formation of individual identity (Oswick & Noon, 2014), and the same person can identify as a member of different social groups at the same time, which is called intersectionality (Rodriguez et al., 2016). The dimensions that make up diversity are also defined, based on other perspectives, such as the variety in terms of education, skills, knowledge or functional position, for example (Mayo et al., 2016), present in a work team. Diversity also refers to the ideals of representativeness, proportionality, and respect for differences, as read in the text by Aline Fraga (2022).

Based on her readings, the student noticed that, in addition to the presence of different groups in the same organizational context, the notion of diversity is also related to the feeling of belonging and the possibility of participation of different groups – especially those people who are socially stigmatized due to their differences. She herself, pulling from her memory, had sometimes wondered if she was part of that group of university students she observed in projects she was part of, and had already experienced this stigmatization as a black woman. However, today, I felt a space to dialogue in favor of the gains that a more diverse environment could bring.

In addition to ethical issues, Bruna's studies pointed out the relationship between diversity and practical results obtained in the organizational context and work teams (cf. Patrício & Franco, 2022), demonstrating that diversity can promote creativity and decision-making from different perspectives, favoring innovation and performance (cf. Phillips et al., 2014).

As she was interested in the universe of consultancies, Bruna found a survey by Accenture (2019), which revealed that people perceive the presence of fewer barriers to innovation and less fear of making mistakes in companies that cultivate a more egalitarian organizational environment. Lucas recommended that she also read the results of the McKinsey consulting firm (2020a; 2020b), which demonstrate the probability of superior performance of companies with greater diversity compared to competitors (and that this probability has been increasing over time).

The friends were restless and understood that working with diversity poses challenges (Oad & Niu, 2017). It is known that not managing it leaves the organization vulnerable to intergroup conflicts and less team cohesion, reducing its effectiveness (Fleury, 2000; Sobral & Peci, 2012). And together they understood how much the field of Diversity Management is configured as a much more holistic approach to deal with these challenges, seeking to provide organizations with a diverse and favorable environment for the development and performance of employees and organizations (Sobral & Peci, 2012).

Diversity: a topic with limited attention in Brazil

Despite the importance of diversity in organizations, the topic has not always received attention in Brazil, despite the diverse cultural, ethnic, and religious reality that characterizes the country – mainly due to the great miscegenation observed in its history. According to data collected for the Kantar Inclusion Index report (2019) – the first global index of inclusion and diversity in the workplace, based exclusively on employee feedback from the world – Brazil is in seventh place among 14 countries analyzed.

Also according to the report Kantar (2 019), people still face great challenges in the Brazilian organizational environment and find it difficult to share their problems in this environment. Among survey participants, 67% reported that they feel comfortable reporting negative behaviors to superiors, while 25% reported having suffered some type of harassment or intimidation in the last 12 months.

The report ( Kantar Inclusion Index , 2019) also raises other data on diversity and inclusion in Brazil and in the world, showing the sad reality of the labor market, which can be observed from data revealed by survey participants:

• 80% already have witnessed or experienced some Type of discrimination . Meanwhile only 1/3 (approximately 34% of this sample) feels encouragement to take the matter to superiors or guardians;
• In 2018, almost 19% said they had suffered intimidation, prejudice or some type of harassment in Workplace . This number now 23% towards people of color and 24% for people who identify as non-binary (who do not identify with the male or female gender );
• 34% They say that face obstacles in their careers related to gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation , among other characteristics of minority populations in Brazil. And 28% feel that their companies need to be more inclusive and diverse ;
• 27% Of Women They said they already they were made to feel that they did not belong in their workplace while 20% Believe Receive less than their peers men in similar positions;
• 11% among those who identify themselves as an ethnic minority believe they receive treatment different and 13% report exclusion in the organizational environment ;
• In 2018, 24% of LGBTQIAP+ people interviewees said they had already Bullied at work and 36% Believe facing obstacles in professional life due to its sexual orientation ;

Unfortunately, when one observes the reality of universities, which are configured as one of the gateways to the job market, data on diversity and inclusion are still precarious.

Junior Enterprise Movement in Brazil and the lack of Diversity

A Junior Enterprise (EJ) such as Impact is a non-profit civil association formed only by students of Higher or Technical Education, which aims to provide the practical application of the knowledge acquired at the university or college through business experience. The association of several EJ's constitutes the Junior Enterprise Movement (MEJ), the largest youth entrepreneurship organization in the world, with about 1700 Junior Enterprises and more than 65 thousand young people involved in this reality, 1593 of which are Junior Enterprises and more than 27 thousand junior entrepreneurs in Brazil alone.

Given the relevance of diversity for Junior Enterprises and, therefore, the Junior Enterprise Movement. It is observed that the EYM has shown itself to be extremely elitist over the years, especially in Brazil, considering both the representativeness of socially marginalized groups in the movement, and the lack of information and discussions about such agendas.

In the country, Brasil Júnior (BJ) is the institution responsible for governing the EYM, seeking to outline directions and objectives for the EJs throughout the country. However, the debate on diversity within the movement is also recent for the Confederation, and can be proven by the absence of data and the fact that the first survey on the subject was only released in 2021. But Brasil Júnior itself has treated the topic with greater importance in 2022, considering the greater presence of agendas in the movement's day-to-day life and the implementation of mandatory diversity indicators for all MEJ Brasil companies from 2023, bringing awareness to the more than 1500 EJs present in the Brazil movement.

In view of this, below are some graphs made available by BJ on diversity in MEJ Brazil, which make more visible the marginalization and difficulty of including minorities in the young and entrepreneurial environment that is the movement.

In summary, Brasil Júnior's data on diversity in the MEJ show that 66.55% of people in the movement are white; 56.54% identify themselves as Cisgender Women; 77.48% identify themselves as heterosexual; 61.08% have a family income above 5 minimum wages and only 1.64% are People with Disabilities (PwDs).

The data alone already show how the movement can be seen as quite elitist and exclusionary, especially by minority groups such as Lucas and Bruna, but they become more evident when compared to data on diversity in Brazil, contrasting with the reality of society in terms of representation. Thus, some interesting comparisons can be made.

• People of color : according to an IBGE survey in 2019, 56,87% of the population declares itself black or brown , a group that makes up only 35.21% of the junior enterprise staff . Even lower number for yellow people, who represent 2.77% , and indigenous people, who represent only 0.12% ;
  
• PCD's : According to IBGE data in 2019, almost 25% of the Brazilian population has some type of disability , but they only represent 1.74% of the EYM Brazil ;
  
• Women: According to data from the 2019 Continuous National Household Sample Survey, 51.8% of the Brazilian population is a woman , which demonstrates quantitative suitability for the movement, since 56.73% declare themselves to be women .
  

Unfortunately, there is not enough information on other groups characterized in terms of different dimensions of diversity, such as LGBTQIA+ people. However, the data presented are sufficient to demonstrate how the environment in the EYM can still be elitist, white and heteronormative, systematically excluding social groups. It is noted, however, that some junior companies end up integrating, even if spontaneously, diverse people, which proves some of the data presented above.

Considering Brasil Júnior's vision and the new Strategic Planning for the 2022-2024 triennium, a document that guides the movement's strategy over three years, Lucas even noticed a much greater vision in diversity, with the addition of the "Authenticity" pillar, which defends diversity within the movement and also the Mission of "To form Plural Leaderships , committed and capable of making the country an entrepreneurial Brazil." and in the new diversity indicators, still poorly structured by BJ, as Bruna can see.

In search of a concrete position

Thinking about the best way to deal with the situation after the scandal, in the same week Impact's executive board created a group with black people from the company, to discuss what happened and find the best way for the company to position itself, (considering that the board was composed only of white people) in addition to holding two meetings with the rest of the consultancy, so that other groups could talk about their diverse experiences in the environment.

After the first week of active listening, the actions began. The group formed by black people created a positioning message that was forwarded to all the groups in which the discussions took place. However, this attitude was only the beginning of the change, since the company had now understood the problem.

In the group created by Impact to position itself before the students of the course, there were Lucas, a black, gay man, who came from a public school and worked as a Sales Agent, and Bruna, a black woman who worked as Internal Relations Coordinator. Both did not want the company's actions to be summarized in the discourse in the face of crises, but that concrete actions to promote diversity in the organization were implemented.

Therefore, Lucas and Bruna, who had studied a lot about diversity, sought alternatives not only to expand it in their organizational context, but also to create an inclusive environment in which the minorities present could speak and be heard. In addition, these actions aimed to contribute to the entry of these people into the labor market, in view of the relevance of junior companies in the training of young professionals and future leaders.

They still didn't know exactly what to do, but considering the whole reality of Impact Consultoria Júnior, and also their personal experiences, they were aware of the main points that the actions needed to cover. Some of them were:

• Create an environment conducive to discussions on diversity, to make Impact more open and inclusive;
• Make diversity an important and strategic theme for the people of the Junior Enterprise, especially in the view of the board;
• Make the actions lasting, considering the reality of high turnover in Junior Enterprises, in which the average length of stay is between 14 and 22 months;
• Know the diversity present in the university and in the course, to support assertive actions by Impact Consultoria Júnior.
  

Thus, the group of members led by Bruna and Lucas need to take their first steps towards a more diverse and inclusive junior company, through a series of strategic decisions that will allow the union between discourse and reality in diversity management at Impact Consultoria Júnior.

Discussion questions

1. Analyze the post (Figure 2) used by the junior enterprise in support of the Black Lives Matter and indicate possible reasons for the dissatisfaction generated by him with the students.
2. What actions could be taken by Lucas and Bruna to sensitize the board of directors about the importance of the topic, in order to include it in the company's strategic agenda?
3. How to promote and facilitate the participation of minority groups in the company, considering the reality of a Junior Enterprise and the entire context of diversity of Brazilian Universities?
4. Considering the reality of the Junior Enterprise Movement and Impact Junior Consulting, what actions could be taken for minority groups to reach leadership positions in the company? What would be the role of leadership in this process?
5. What actions can be taken by non-leadership members to promote diversity and inclusion?
6. What can be suggested to make diversity management actions lasting, considering the reality of high turnover in Junior Enterprises? To answer, propose a synthetic action plan for diversity management in the organization.
   

Authors' notes

¹Although the masculine gender in the plural designates neutrality, according to the cultured norm of the Portuguese language, we seek to use language as a tool to give visibility to the demand for inclusion of socially marginalized groups. When it was not possible to adopt inclusive language (without changing the current grammatical norms), we chose to inflect the masculine endings of nouns using neutral endings, changing the spelling of words (in line with the international movement to promote inclusion through change in the way we communicate).

Gallery

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About The Authors

Guilherme Marques da Silva is a graduate student in Business Administration at the University of Brasília and a member of the Casoteca ADM Team. Email: guimsilv@gmail.com .

Carla Peixoto Borges she holds a PhD in Behavioral Sciences (PPG-CdC - Behavior Analysis /IP/UnB, 2017), a Master's degree in Psychology (PST/UnB, 2005), a specialist in marketing (ESPM, 2000) and a degree in Administration (UnB, 1997) and Psychology (UniCEUB, 2010). She is an adjunct professor in the Department of Administration at the University of Brasilia. He has market experience in the areas of administration and psychology, involving the interfaces between marketing and people management. He conducts research in the area of behavior analysis applied to administration (consumer, organizations and public policies). Email: carlaborges@unb.br .

This is a work of fiction, any resemblance to names, people, facts or real-life situations will have been purely coincidental. This text is intended exclusively for academic study and discussion, and its use or reproduction in any other form is prohibited. Copyright infringement will subject the offender to the penalties of Law No. 9,610/1998.