What’s So “Human” About Rights Based on Mere Pragmatism?
September 21, 2006
This week, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation released its 2006 Corporate Equality Index, “a tool to rate American businesses on how they are treating gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employees, consumers and investors.” Corporate America’s increasing sensitivity to GLBT diversity concerns, of course, makes some people happy and others not so happy.
For me the report summons memories of graduate business school, in particular my corporate strategy professor and his approach to diversity issues. As he put it, there is one defensible reason for a corporate executive to foster diversity and discourage discrimination: to maximize profitability, you need to sell your products to an increasingly diverse population; without a diverse workforce, you cannot hope to understand and surmount the cultural barriers to making those sales.
My professor’s message was not unique. It fit neatly within the university’s and the business school’s shared worldview. As compared to his peers, he was just a bit more plain-spoken, less diplomatic in his delivery. In fact, this pragmatic approach to diversity and discrimination has a strong presence in the Human Rights Campaign report. The clearest example can be found in the highlighted quote on page 9 of the report. When asked why Hewlett-Packard Co. supports GLBT inclusiveness at the workplace, John Hassell, director for government affairs, said, “One word: competitiveness. It’s not just a nice-to-do thing. It’s a requirement to be successful in the private sector.”I suspect that this pragmatic approach has been the driving force behind Corporate America’s embrace of diversity. What will happen if – no, not if but when – circumstances change? What will happen when businesses are able to institutionalize the information needed to surpass cultural barriers to sales? Will executives remain sensitive to diversity concerns? Not likely. Not if they remain pragmatic. The GLBT lobby should be careful what they celebrate.
