Managing diversity in the workplace: Organizational Diversity & Inclusion Scales (ODIS)

Purpose. Although the diversity and inclusion topics are attracting growing interest in recent years, the existing scales mainly measure the perception of discrimination or specific attitudes towards individual diversity categories (such as gender or age or race etc..). This study presents a new instrument, Organizational Diversity & Inclusion Scales (ODIS, Menatta, Caligiuri, Bianchi, Borgogni, 2018), that measures concurrently the perceived discrimination, the attitudes towards main types of diversities (gender, disabilities, aging, ethnicity, LGBT) and the perceptions of inclusive organizational policies. Methodology. The analyses were carried out on a sample (n=1784) from both public and private Italian organizations. Face and content validity were examined through a jury of experts who evaluated clarity and appropriateness of each item. In order to verify the internal validity, EFA and CFA were carried out by randomly split-half the collected sample. The validity of construct and criterion were examined through correlation analyses with other scales already validated in the Italian context. Results. The results show good psychometric properties of the instrument confirming factorial structure. Limitations. A cross-sectional study design was used. Research/Practical Implications. The present study proposes a new instrument to measure the degree of inclusion and diversity within the organizational context and also the perception of organizational policies allowing to plan targeted actions. Originality/Value. ODIS represents the first instrument that measures organizational diversity and inclusion on three levels simultaneously: self-reported individual level (perceived discrimination), hetero-referenced individual level (attitudes towards specific diversities) and organizational level (perceptions of diversity management).