UNDERSTANDING AND ADDRESSING DIVERSITY IS AT THE HEART OF EVERY MARKETING ACTIVITY – WHETHER THAT'S ON A LOCAL, INTERNATIONAL, OR GLOBAL LEVEL. AS MORE MARKETERS RECEIVE FORMAL TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS, HOW SUCCESSFUL ARE THESE PROVIDERS AT PROVIDING A PLATFORM FOR NURTURING DIVERSE PROFESSIONALS WHO ARE COMPETENT IN THE ART OF IMPLEMENTING DIVERSITY CONCEPTS? IN THIS ARTICLE, THE FOCUS IS ON NATIONAL, ETHNIC, AND CULTURAL DIVERSITY.

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Dealing with
Diversity in
Business
Education Jonathan (Bilal) A.J. Wilson
084 // APR 2014 // the-marketeers.com
Senior Lecturer & Course Leader,
University of Greenwich, London UK
Editor: Journal of Islamic Marketing,
Emerald Group Publishing.
Understanding And Addressing Diversity Is At The Heart Of Every Marketing
Activity – Whether That’s On A Local, International, Or Global Level. As More
Marketers Receive Formal Training And Qualifications, How Successful Are These
Providers At Providing A Platform For Nuruturing Diverse Professionals Who Are
Competent In The Art Of Implementing Diversity Concepts? In This Article, I Will
Be Focussing On National, Ethnic, And Cultural Diversity.

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The presence and successful
management of diversity should be
appraised collaboratively as a wider social
obligation, evident within the values of
the organisation, subject material and
stakeholders. The strategic aim is one of
both wealth creation and risk reduction; by
generating reciprocal financial and social
capital amongst those involved.
For most universities and training
providers, diversity according to ethnicity,
race, and nationalism are of more
importance than just achieving legal
compliance and best practice. They are
critical success factors, increasingly used
proactively as resources, engineered to
present a competitive international market
position.
Notwithstanding such wide acceptance
and positive endeavours within this
field, a lack of sufficient diversity and
nuanced understanding still remains. If not
addressed and managed, then diversity or a
lack of diversity may act as an inhibitor or
barrier that undermines wider educational
and business objectives. Furthermore,
beyond ethnicity, race, and nationalism:
factors associated with religion, gender
issues, linguistics, high and low context
cultures, uncertainty avoidance, society,
and community also play a significant part.
So much so that these supporting factors
may become inseparable or synonymous
with main biographical variables of race,
ethnicity, and nationalism.
For example in the State of Israel,
approximately one fifth of the population
are defined as Arab Israeli, and three
quarters as Ethnic Jews. In general, Arabs
and Jews are held to be a race, or an ethnic
group. Historically, they have also been
attributed to those who have undergone a
process of cultural or linguistic conversion.
Similarly, in the Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, concepts of a Saudi Nationality
and Nationalism are often terms used
interchangeably with Arab, and Muslim.
Furthermore terms such as ‘black’, used
to denote ethnicity or an ethnic affiliation,
depending on its usage and context, may
be of value and relevance; but equally could
be viewed as paradoxical, pejorative and
counter-productive.
Collectively, these examples highlight the
nuanced contextualisation and influence of
race, ethnicity, transnationalism, skin colour,
language, and religion when constructing a
distinguishable identity – especially outside
of the Western world [the term ‘West’
in this context is interpreted and applied
from a socio-cultural standpoint].
Diversity functions and factors
Diversity in universities and training
providers are best understood within
a cultural paradigm. This consists of the
formal and psychological contracts, which
are concerned with the individual and
collective traits, customs, norms, and values
that constitute stakeholders’ decisions and
judgements.
This subject area encompasses the
management, practices, rights, legislation
and policies that govern stakeholder
interactions and activities. These can be
grouped into seven main functions:
• Socio-cultural and societal factors
• Government and Industry demands
• Organisational and strategic objectives
• Academic/trainers and non-academic/
training staff - Human Resource
Management (HRM)
• Student/delegate recruitment and
welfare
• Course structure, content, assessments
and delivery
• Marketing communications and branding
of the business school, training provider,
programmes and courses.
For business schools and training
providers, the presence and successful
management of diversity should be evident
within subject material and stakeholders;
and appraised especially amongst faculty
members and students alike. Attaining
meaningful diversity is achieved through
the collaborative reciprocal transmission
of identified implicit, tacit, and explicit
factors. In turn each of these factors should
originate from and accommodate diverse
perspectives.
The following are a suggested list of key
factors that should be evaluated and cross-referenced
using quantitative and qualitative
measures - according to population data
and wider corporate practices within the
region; and benchmarked across competing
business schools internationally:
Hard Values: Geo-biographical factors
• Locations of course instruction

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• Stakeholders’ countries of origin,
nationality, and residency; languages
spoken; race; ethnicity; religion
• Compliance with legislation – locally, and
level of comparability with other regions
• Evidence of formal diversity training
programmes, monitoring and policies in
place
• Recruitment and selection success rates,
for students and employees, amongst
national, racial, and ethnic groups
• Student pass rates and grades amongst
national, racial, and ethnic groups
• Roles, responsibilities and promotion
success rates amongst national, racial,
and ethnic groups
• Stakeholders’ exposure to these geo-biographical
factors through work, study,
recreation, and course material
Soft Values: Associated preferential
cultural factors:
• Communication – Language and mode of
transmission; dialects and slang; rhetoric;
pitch, pace, and prose; haptics (touch);
eye contact; and body language gestures
• Interaction – Social transactions; high
and low context governed cultures;
uncertainty avoidance; social space; and
group size preference
• Network - diversity of cultural factors
held within groups.
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Many of these values are being collected
by both public and private providers; as
part of best practice, and increasingly as a
source of data to present an international
market position proactively. Providers
are faced with a global and local market
demand imperative, which exacts that
they demonstrate diversity in their faculty,
student population, course material,
research activities, and industry networks.
This is being driven especially by national
and global University league tables, which
incorporate this rationale and data in their
research methodology and analysis. In
addition, consumer initiated social media
discussions, and news articles continue to
signal the importance of diversity, and by
extension equality.
Diversity challenges
However, notwithstanding all of these
activities, disparities still remain especially
within business schools, relative to the
ethnic, racial and national groups within the
same business school.
Diversity is often restricted in its
definition to being a management
component - which both assumes and
encourages participants to create a
universally tenable working environment.
This being the case, diversity only seems to
become of significance if either problems
arise, or they present a commercial gain.
From this paradigm it can be argued that
any explicitly derived knowledge and
understanding may tend towards being
superficial, sporadic, or at the very worst
exploitative. As a result this polarizes
individuals into those who champion
diversity and those who do not. In
accepting this, it also appears to present
uncoordinated or short-term benefits,
to only select parties. These occurrences
therefore bring attention back to the
starting point of this discussion. Namely,
diversity is of increasing significance and
what can be done to address this issue?
When it comes to evaluating the student
experience, in connection with the cultural
factors stated, there appear to be added
challenges. There is not always a clear
and formal method by which the role
and impact of diversity can be picked up,
positioned or assessed. This could be due
to the following factors:
• Human Resources, Marketing, and
governance functions are structured
primarily to cater for employees and the
interests of the business school. Students
have little involvement and influence; and,
as such, often are rendered secondary
passive consumers. This is especially
in cases where students feel that
expressions of concern may alienate
them, negatively affect grades, or reduce
the likelihood of receiving additional

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support in areas such as seeking a future
reference.
• Within this framework, student
interactions and the duty of care
towards them are mainly transferred
to academic staff, who have limited
influence on policy. Furthermore,
academic staff are rarely asked to collect
or comment on crucial relevant data.
• The championing of cultural diversity
and its successes are perhaps seen
as being self-evident, when viewing
recruitment figures that largely reflect
diverse backgrounds of stakeholders
in comparison to other industries; and
especially when focussing on student
cohorts.
With the UK as a case in practice,
whilst it has some of the most extensive
employment legislation in the world and
high levels of demonstrable equality, there
still remain concerns. Issues highlighted
within a 54 page report compiled by the
Equality Challenge Unit (2009); comprising
of a literature review and empirical data,
paint a less than favourable position. Views
held by Black and Minority Ethnic (BME)
professionals in higher education indicate
that a significant proportion of them state
that they have experienced racism and/or
racial discrimination. This is supported by a
paucity of ethnic professorial appointments
and senior managers. Mirroring this, the
experiences of students seem to suggest
that there is a “growing gap in attainment
between white, black and Asian students”
(Shepherd, 2009).
Sulkowski and Deakin (2009) assert
that ‘historically, education has taken
the premise that all students are equally
capable of learning regardless of ethnic
background, social class or cultural origin.’
However their findings suggest that ‘the
question of why non-native students in
the UK still seem to be underperforming
becomes somewhat inconvenient’. They
conclude that a solution to this problem is
dependent on lecturers making students
aware of their intellectual abilities, and then
developing them. Asmar (2005) supports
this view by claiming that a greater cultural
understanding and sensitivity to differences
are necessary pursuits for UK lecturers.
However, Asmar goes onto state that this
is hampered by some, due to a perception
that these students are actually a problem.
Furthermore there also appears to be a
“disturbing racial divide among universities”
(Curtis, 2006; MacLeod, 2009).
Classroom solutions
Some of these issues can be addressed
by breaking down potential barriers
and opposition - through selling and
demonstrating the benefits of diversity.
Within the classroom, great efforts should
be made to pronounce peoples names as
they wish them to be pronounced (albeit
causing some amusement at times, which
eventually turns into appreciation); sharing
anecdotes of encounters with different
cultures and even attempts to learn the
odd phrase in different languages.
This creates an environment of
cultural curiosity, which is then used to
highlight and transmit the essentials and
peculiarities of international academic and
organizational cultures. The aim is to fill
gaps and impart the softer, yet significant
elements that will assist students in their
studies. Furthermore, this drives a student-centred
approach to course delivery,
where students feel empowered to correct
and coach the lecturer in a field which
they have superior knowledge – namely
their culture. The end result is a laddering
process, which coaxes students towards
venturing into preserving these dynamics,
when discussing core course material.
Following on from this, with more
international students within the
classroom, increased challenges are faced
when lecturing and providing business
case examples, which all parties are able
to understand and interpret to the same
degree and in a comparable fashion. This is
especially problematic when setting more
practical marketing assessments, which
rely upon accessing current market data.

5. Personality &
Cultural
normalisation
aaeessttrroo
References
• Asmar, C. (2005), Culture and Pedagogy
– International Comparisons in Primary
Education, Blackwell, Oxford.
• Carvel, J. (2004). “Tebbit’s cricket loyalty
test hit for six”, The Guardian online
UK News section, Thursday 8th January,
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/
jan/08/britishidentity.race , [last viewed:
10th January 2014].
• Curtis, P. (2006), “Segregation, 2006
style”, Guardian.co.uk, Race in education
section, Tuesday 3rd January, http://www.
guardian.co.uk/education/2006/jan/03/
raceineducation.highereducation , [last
viewed: 10th January 2014].
• Equality Challenge Unit (2009), “The
experience of black and minority ethnic
staff working in higher education”, http://
www.ecu.ac.uk/publications/experience-of-
bme-staff-in-he , [Downloaded: 10th
January 2014]
Explicit
Implicit
Implicit/Explicit
• Gilroy, P. (2004), After Empire, London:
Routledge.
• Liu, J. and Wilson, J.A.J. (2011), “The
impact of Culture and Religion on
Leadership and Management Training: A
Comparison of Three Continents”, Jurnal
Pengurusan, 33, pp.29-36.
• MacLeod, D. (2009), “Oxbridge
universities fail to enrol ethnic minority
students”, Guardian.co.uk, Oxbridge
and elitism section, Thursday 12th
March, http://www.guardian.co.uk/
education/2009/mar/12/oxford-ethnic-minority,
[last viewed: 10th January 2014].
• Manzoor, S. (2005). “We pass the Tebbit
test. Britain is my home and so I have
responsibilities. But I don’t have to sign
up to a particular ‘way of life’ ”, The
Observer online Comment section,
Sunday 21st August 2005, http://www.
guardian.co.uk/world/2005/aug/21/race.
politics , [last viewed: 10th January 2014].
• McCracken, G. (2009), Chief Cultural
Officer, New York: Basic Books.
• Shepherd, J. (2009), “White students
do better that their Asian and black
peers, study finds”, Guardian.co.uk,
Higher education section, Tuesday 27th
October, http://www.guardian.co.uk/
education/2009/oct/27/white-students-black-
asian-gap, last viewed: [10th January
2014].
• Sulkowski, N. B., Deakin, M. K. (2009),
“Does understanding culture help
enhance students’ learning experience?”,
International Journal of Contemporary
Hospitality Management, Vol. 21 No. 2,
pp.154-166.
• Wilson, J.A.J. (2010), “When in Britain, do
as the British do – if anyone knows that
that means. Multiculturalism in a ‘British’
university business school”, Multicultural
Education and Technology Journal, Vol.4
Issue 4, pp.220-233.
For example, the nuances associated with
broadsheet versus tabloid newspapers and
their reliability; or the difference between
commercial and public broadcasters, in
terms of carrying paid for advertising and
product placement.
Because of this, additional time has to
be spent inducting students and at times
this involves almost giving them a crash
course on popular culture. Within this
crash course for example, explanations
surrounding slang have been provided and
the fact that words like ‘wicked’ and ‘sick’
may in fact have very different meanings,
depending on the context. However, it
has to be made clear also that within
formal academic writing, there remains
one acceptable interpretation. These facts
are crucial - as in advertising, language is
often reflective of its usage by the target
audience; but this is not always apparent
to some students. Furthermore, this does
not render such syntax and definitions
acceptable for general academic usage.
The secondary effect derived from all
of these collaborative activities, is that
through students’ contributions, it is felt
that their own cultural norms should
permeate processes [Figure]. The idea being
that collaborative acculturation should
set the agenda in harnessing diversity and
preserving knowledge transfer. Without
such appreciation and proactivity, it is
possible that the effects of culture, from so
many different cultures, stagnates learning
- plunging it into being passive shallow
recall-based understanding. The long-term
implications of not addressing this are that
all parties involved, from the lecturer to the
student, experience a hampered knowledge
transfer and unfortunately leave with less
intellectual capital than could have been
attained.
With such scrutiny and media attention
surrounding these issues, this subject is likely
to generate added suspicion and perhaps a
debilitating vote of no-confidence amongst
some BME students and professionals
- which can only be overcome through
persistent efforts and increased resources
over a longer timeframe.
University
Culture
Personality of
Lecturer
Personality of
Students
Collective
Evolutionary
Culture
Explicit
Explicit
Drivers
Lecturer initiated
Collaboration
Culture creation
Figure. Collaborative acculturation - leading the agenda in harnessing diversity and
preserving knowledge transfer (Wilson, 2010)
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