How Diverse is Corporate America?

PITTSBURGH-Local educators, community leaders, policy makers, and social workers will convene at Pitt's Center on Race and Social Problems (CRSP) from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. August 5 for an institute titled "Racial Diversity Management in Corporate America."

The meeting will be held in the School of Social Work Conference Center, 20th floor, Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland. Participants will be briefed on issues in the morning and will gather in small groups to develop action plans beginning at 2 p.m.

The featured speakers and titles of their presentations follow.

9:10 a.m.

"Effectiveness of Corporate Diversity Programs"

Frank Dobbin, professor of sociology at Harvard University, has studied corporate equal opportunity and diversity programs for more than two decades. In his most recent collaboration, he is using a large sample of firms and 30 years of data to analyze the effects of popular diversity programs on workforce integration. His book, "Inventing Equal Opportunity" (Princeton University Press, 2009) traces the history of corporate response to civil rights laws.

10:15 a.m.

"Responses to Diversity Performance Evaluations and Diversity Policies"

Emilio Castilla is an assistant professor of management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management. His recent work is on inequality in organizations and investigates the central role of merit based reward systems in shaping gender and racial disparities in wages and promotions. He investigates how policies that are often adopted in the hope of motivating employees and ensuring meritocracy can actually increase ascriptive bias and result in women and minorities receiving less compensation than white men with equal scores on performance evaluations.

11:20 a.m.

"Unfinished Business: Impact of Race on Mentoring Relationships in Corporate America"

Audrey Murrell, associate professor of business administration, psychology, and public and international affairs at the Katz Graduate School of Business at Pitt, also is director of the Katz-based David Berg Center for Ethics and Leadership. She coauthored Mentoring Dilemmas: Developmental Relationships Within Multicultural Organizations (Lawrence Erlbaum, 1999) and Intelligent Mentoring: How IBM Creates Value Through People, Knowledge, and Relationships (IBM Press, 2008). Murrell researches workplace issues that include mentoring, breaking the "glass ceiling," diversity, and discrimination.

1 p.m.

Panel Discussion: What should major employers in the Pittsburgh region do to increase diversity?

Panelists include:

Candi Castleberry-Singleton, chief inclusion and diversity officer, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center;

Dina Clark, executive director, Western Pennsylvania Diversity Initiative;

Ed Gainey, human development specialist, City of Pittsburgh; and

Reed Kimbrough, manager, corporate diversity programs and training, U. S. Steel Corporation.

2 p.m.

Small group sessions: Action Plans for Pittsburgh.

3:15 p.m.

Small group reports on results of their discussions.

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7/29/09/tmw