Globalization

The demand for developing strategies and approaches for working with diversity in international settings is becoming more urgent and widespread as many organizations in corporate, not-for-profit, governmental, and civil society spheres are working increasingly in a global context. Most of the research and practice literature on gender and diversity is derived from and shaped by the context in the United States and cannot be applied directly to other cultural and national contexts. Similarly, the organizational literature for working cross-culturally is largely European-based and is notably lacking in its treatment of power differences, the impact of Colonial legacies, and ethnic differences within national cultures as well as across cultures and national boundaries. Given these gaps, CGO is developing both conceptual and applied work in the area of global diversity. We also conduct focused research on the impact of globalization on the dynamics of gender, race, class, and ethnicity within domestic work organizations.

PROJECTS:

Event: “From Talk to Walk: Gender Equity & Gender Mainstreaming”

Struggling with how to move gender equity from idea to reality? On February 10, 2004, CGO held the event “From Talk to Walk: Gender Equity & Gender Mainstreaming,” the third in our 2003-2004 events series Gender at Work: A BOLD New Perspective. Presenters discussed gender equity in organizations by exploring efforts to effectively incorporate women into defense policy making, and the United Nations institutional commitment to “mainstream gender” into peace and security policy.

Presenters:

  • Dr. Carol Cohn, 2003-2004 Senior Fellow, CGO and Wellesley College
  • Dr. Laura Roskos, Visiting Scholar, Center for Women’s Health and Human Rights, Suffolk University and former CGO Postdoctoral Fellow (2002-2003)
  • Dr. Carola Weil, Research Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School of Government

Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights

The Center for Gender in Organizations is a member of the Boston Consortium on Gender, Security and Human Rights, a group of five leading academic centers and programs in Boston dedicated to research on issues of gender and security, human rights, conflict resolution and prevention. The Boston Consortium was created to change the political and academic understanding of the security field so that the dynamics of gender become salient at all points in the conflict process, from prevention through post-conflict reconstruction. CGO’s focus is on creating work environments in leading peace and security organizations that foster greater inclusion of the knowledge and perspectives of women of diverse backgrounds as well as enhanced attention to gender and diversity in research and policy analysis.

CGO was pleased to have Dr. Carol Cohn as its Fellow for the 2003-2004 academic year. Dr. Cohn’s current research examines gender mainstreaming in international peace and security institutions, focusing on the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace, and security, and the ongoing efforts by NGOs and UN entities to ensure its implementation. Her research and writing has focused on gender and international security, including examinations of the discourse of civilian defense intellectuals, and of gender integration issues in the U.S. military. Her extensive work on weapons of mass destruction includes, most recently, “A Feminist Ethical Perspective on Weapons of Mass Destruction,” co-authored with Sara Ruddick (in Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Eds. Sohail Hashmi and Phillip Valera, 2002).

On January 20, 2004, Dr. Cohn presented some of the results of her work at the event “325 Three Years On: Gender, Security, and Organizational Change,” hosted by CGO. Additional panelists at this event were Felicity Hill, Peace and Security Adviser to the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), and Cynthia Enloe, Research Professor of Government and International Relations at Clark University.

Dr. Cohn also presented at the event "From Talk to Walk: Gender Equity & Gender Mainstreaming” on February 10, 2004, part of CGO’s Gender at Work: A BOLD New Perspective 2003-2004 event series. Dr. Laura Roskos, CGO’s 2002-2003 Boston Consortium Fellow, joined Dr. Cohn for this event.

CGIAR Gender and Diversity Program Diversity Framework Paper

The Center for Gender in Organizations developed a framework paper for working with staff diversity as a means to enhance organizational effectiveness within the research centers supported by the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). The CGIAR is a consortium of over 50 donor agencies and private foundations that support a network of 16 international agricultural research organizations located in developing and developed countries around the world.

The framework paper is an analytic review of the literature on diversity, tailored to the needs and issues confronting the CGIAR-supported international agricultural research centers. The paper includes:

  • a review of key concepts and principal approaches for diagnosing and addressing staff diversity issues;
  • a review of the rationale for addressing staff diversity and a summary of results of research examining the link between diversity and organizational effectiveness;
  • an analysis of issues organizations confront in addressing diversity; a review of key methods and tools for working with staff diversity;
  • and a review of the gaps in knowledge and methods for working with diversity in organizations.

The paper was used to guide the CGIAR in developing an effective approach for addressing diversity that builds on the achievements attained through the earlier Gender Staffing Program. The framework paper is available through the CGO working paper series as

CGO Working Paper, No. 11: Working with Diversity: A Focus on Global Organizations

. Deborah Merrill-Sands and Evangelina Holvino with James Cumming, November 2000.

CGIAR group photo

Consultation with the Gender and Diversity Program of the Consultative Group for International Agricultural Research



In September 2000, CGO Senior Research Faculty Dr. Evangelina Holvino served as an expert advisor to the first strategy and technical workshop of the Gender and Diversity Program, entitled “CGIAR Centers Working with Diversity for Excellence and Impact.” The goal of the Gender and Diversity Program, under the leadership of Vicki Wilde, is to institutionalize the leadership, skills, policies, and norms that will ensure the CGIAR Centers’ capacity to work with and capture the full benefits of staff diversity. This workshop was the first face-to-face meeting between Gender and Diversity Program staff and representatives of the 16 Centers, and marked the beginning of a discussion and transfer of models and methods for working with diversity to the individual Centers. Workshop participants constituted a very diverse group: 10 nationalities were represented among a total of 29 participants. Six international diversity experts, including Evangelina, were responsible for delivering the content of the workshop. Evangelina presented the framework paper CGO had been commissioned to develop, which is entitled Working with Diversity: Framework and Approaches to Organization Change, as well as an interactive module on the Multicultural Organization Development Model. The workshop provided an opportunity to test the usefulness of the framework for internal change agents and resulted in the development of rich educational materials to make the framework understood at the level of “head, heart, and hand.”