Gender Diversity in the Workplace, Organizational Virtuousness and Well-Being

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Background

The focus on gender diversity, equality, equity and inclusion on the global stage can be traced to the fundamental principles of the 1945 United Nations Charter which called for the "equal rights of men and women", and for the need to protect and promote women's human rights as the responsibility of all participating States. Moreover, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights led to international deliberations on equal gender rights and these discussions were furthered during the UN “decade for women from 1975-1985”. Since this decade, several initiatives have been taken towards gender equality across the globe. For example, the fifth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 5) in the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals focuses on Gender Equality with nine specific targets to achieve. However, several gender gaps still exist in gender equality, such as equality in work, management positions, education, health, economic empowerment, and political participation. Gender gaps at the management and leadership levels endure in the workplace as well, particularly in terms of women’s recruitment, advancement, retention, and compensation.

Furthermore, while gender and gender diversity related issues in the workplace have been studied using multiple lenses, including sexism, stereotypes, structural and institutional bias, and glass ceilings, escalators, slippers and cliffs, there is a dearth of studies investigating how gender diversity in different cultural contexts impacts workplace characteristics such as organizational virtuousness, culture, policies and practices. In some studies, women report lower levels of mental well-being across nations, hence well-being also needs to be considered in the context of increasing gender diversity at the workplace. Well-being is a construct being studied from multiple perspectives such as psychological well-being, a generalized feeling of happiness, self-acceptance, subjective wellness, multi-dimensional adjustment (comprising of emotional, occupational, social, family, and health adjustment) and optimism and satisfaction with life and work, usually at the individual level of analysis. In this call, we encourage a broader understanding of well-being including at the organizational (and even societal/national levels), and seek studies that link the two previously unconnected research areas—gender diversity and organizational well-being and virtuousness.

For this Research Topic we welcome articles that utilize various methodologies and theoretical frameworks. Conceptual discussions exploring new theoretical approaches are encouraged. With this range of contributions, this Research Topic aims to be a milestone in the enrichment of theoretical, empirical, and applied knowledge about gender diversity, equality, equity and inclusion in the workplace across disciplines and geographies.

We need deeper theoretical clarity about the connections and differences among the areas of gender diversity, equality, equity and inclusion on the one hand and organizational virtuousness, wellness, and well-being on the other. Sub themes and research questions may include:

- Impact of gender diversity on organizational wellness/ organizational virtuousness. How does gender diversity influence organizational culture and/or organizational wellness outcomes? How can strategies to promote gender diversity or equality promote organizational well-being? Are more gender diverse organizations likely to be more virtuous?

- Proving the business case for gender diversity on organizational wellness. How and when does gender diversity improve organizational virtuousness and well-being?

- Barriers that inhibit gender diversity in corporations. What are the effective drivers of gender diversity, equality, equity and inclusion? Why are there companies where gender diversity is not achieved regardless of the efforts expended? How could these barriers be removed, and what benefits/outcomes could be achieved?

- Gender diversity and trickle-down effect. What is the impact of gender diversity at the board and TMT level? How does gender diversity (or lack thereof) at the top of organizations affect gender diversity at other levels of the company? Does gender diversity at the top increase organizational well-being at lower levels?

Keywords: Organizational Wellness, Diversity in the Workplace, Positive Organizational Scholarship., Gender Diversity, Organizational Virtuousness and Well-being

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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